Hanson, Aubrey JeanChen, Danni2019-01-232019-01-232019-01-22Chen, D. (2019). How do international students reconstruct their identity as readers when they transition into Canadian post-secondary education? (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.http://hdl.handle.net/1880/109499With increased numbers of Chinese international students in the Canadian higher education system and their growing needs to transition into a new cultural reading environment, this study endeavours to explore the difficulties that four Chinese students encountered, and figure out how they experienced, responded to, and transformed to a new cultural reading environment. With data from semi-structured interviews and journal entries, this study brings each individual participant’s experiences, perceptions, and feelings of reading in English to the fore. I analyzed participants’ unique experiences in order to understand their reading difficulties and readers’ identities. Through these examinations, this study shows that participants’ identities as readers are reconstructed in a new cultural reading environment, based upon their Chinese culture, academic fields, a new English cultural background, and their personalities. Moreover, data analysis reveals that, while reading in English, participants constructed the meaning of different language reading materials through the different lens of their identities as readers. Based on my findings, second language reading is discussed regarding the second language reader’s cultures and identities. The present study highlights the importance of social dimensions in second language reading. It concludes that readers’ identities reflect readers’ different cultural memberships. As Chinese international student cross cultural boundaries, their identities as readers shape how they interpret and understand the meaning of reading materials. When readers apply different reader’s identities while reading, they have the potential to interpret reading materials differently.enUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.reader’s identity reconstructionsecond language readingsociocultural readingChinese international studentspostsecondary educationEducation--ReadingAnthropology--Culturalmaster thesis10.11575/PRISM/35758