Reflexivity and transnational habitus: The case of a ‘poor’ affluent Chinese international student

Peter I. De Costa, Magda Tigchelaar & Yaqiong Cui
Michigan State University

Following Sayer’s (2010) examination of reflexivity and habitus, we focus on the transnational habitus (Darvin & Norton 2015) of Aaron, a Chinese international student at a U.S. university. Specifically, we examine how he wrestled with being identified as an ESL learner despite having attended a U.S. high school. Also exploring the relationship between reflexivity and emotions (Flam 2010), we draw on his written work, interviews, and his WeChat conversations. Our findings revealed that as a result of positioning himself as being better than the other Chinese students on campus (because of his English proficiency) and distancing himself from domestic U.S. students, Aaron did not capitalize on his Chinese-English bilingualism to extend his local social networks, which exacerbated his growing isolation at his home university. In tracing his emotional trajectory and strategies to cope with his predicament, we problematize the grand narrative of the global elite (Vandrick 2011) that overlooks the challenges encountered by affluent international students.

Quick links
A browser-friendly version of this article is not yet available. View PDF
Adams, M.
2006 Hybridizing habitus and reflexivity. Sociology 40 (3): 511–528. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Agha, A.
2007 Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anderson, B.
1983 Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Appiah, K. A.
2006 Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York NY: Norton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Archer, M. S.
2007 Making our Way through the World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Archer, M.
2012 The Reflexive Imperative in Late Modernity. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Block, D.
2015 Social class in applied linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35: 1–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, J.
2005 Discourse. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2015 Meaning as a nonlinear effect: The birth of cool. AILA Review 28: 7–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P.
1984 Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1991 Language and Symbolic Power, G. Raymond & M. Adamson (trans.). Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Campano, G. & Ghiso, M. P.
2011 Immigrant students as cosmopolitan intellectuals. In Handbook of Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature, S. A. Wolf, K. Coats, P. Enciso & C. A. Jenkins (eds), 164–176. New York NY: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Canagarajah, S.
2013 Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. New York NY: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, J. B. & Dervin, F.
2014 Reflexivity in Language and Intercultural Education: Rethinking Multilingualism and Interculturality. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Darvin, R. & Norton, B.
2015 Identity and a model of investment in applied linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35: 36–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Costa, P. I.
2010 From refugee to transformer: A Bourdieusian take on a Hmong learner’s trajectory. TESOL Quarterly 44: 517–541. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2014 Cosmopolitanism and English as a lingua franca: Learning English in a Singapore school. Research in the Teaching of English 49: 9–30.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2015 Re-envisioning language anxiety in the globalized classroom through a social imaginary lens. Language Learning 65 (3): 504–532. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016 Scaling emotions and identification: Insights from a scholarship student. Linguistics and Education 34: 22–32. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duff, P.
2015 Transnationalism, multilingualism, and identity. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35: 57–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flam, H.
2010 Emotion, and the silenced and short-circuited self. In Conversations about Reflexivity, M. S. Archer (ed.), 187–205. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcia, O. & Li, W.
2014 Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geertz, C.
1973 The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hanks, W.
1987 Discourse genres in a theory of practice. American Ethnologist 14 (4): 668–692. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jaffe, A.
2009 Introduction: The sociolinguistics of stance. In Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives, A. Jaffe (ed.), 3–28. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kelly, P. & Lusis, T.
2006 Migration and the transnational habitus: Evidence from Canada and the Philippines. Environment and Planning 38 (5): 831–847. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kramsch, C.
2014 Language and culture. AILA Review 27: 30–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2015 Applied linguistics: A theory of the practice. Applied Linguistics 36 (4): 454–465. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kress, G.
2015 Semiotic work: Applied linguistics and a social semiotic account of multimodality. AILA Review 28: 49–71. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, R. H. & Hafner, C. A.
2012 Understanding Digital Literacies: A Practical Introduction. New York NY: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, W. & Zhu, H.
2013 Translanguaging identities and ideologies: Creating transnational space through flexible multilingual practices amongst Chinese university students in the UK. Applied Linguistics 34 (5): 516–535. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McElhinny, B. S.
2010 The audacity of affect: Gender, race and history in linguistic accounts of legitimacy and belonging. Annual Review of Anthropology 39: 309–328. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McNamara, T.
2015 Applied linguistics: The challenge of theory. Applied Linguistics 36 (4): 466–477. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Myles, J. & Cheng, L.
2003 The social and cultural life of non-native English speaking international graduate students at a Canadian university. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 2 (3): 247–263. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nedelcu, M.
2012 Migrants’ new transnational habitus: Rethinking migration through a cosmopolitan lens in the digital age. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 38 (9): 1339–1356 Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norton, B.
2013 Identity and Language Learning: Extending the Conversation. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ortner, H.
2015 Mediated emotions: Emotivity in the age of information and communication technologies. In Emotion in Language: Theory, Research, Application [Consciousness & Emotion Book Series 10], U. M. Lüdtke (ed.), 305–324. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pérez-Milans M.
2016 Reflexivity and social change in applied linguistics. In Reflexivity in Late Modernity: Accounts from Linguistic Ethnographies of Youth. AILA Review 29 (1). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ranta, L. & Meckelborg, A.
2013 How much exposure to English do international graduate students really get? Measuring language use in a naturalistic setting. Canadian Modern Language Review 69: 1–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sarangi, S. & Candlin, C.
2003 Trading between reflexivity and relevance: New challenges for applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics 24 (3): 271–285. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sayer, A.
2010 Reflexivity and the habitus. In Conversations about Reflexivity, M. S. Archer (ed.), 108–122. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Talmy, S.
2010 Qualitative interviews in applied linguistics: From research instrument to social practice. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 30: 128–148. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vandrick, S.
2011 Students of the new global elite. TESOL Quarterly 45 (1): 160–169. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walther, J. B.
2011 Theories of computer-mediated communication and interpersonal relations. In The Sage Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (eds), 443–479. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
 
Authentication
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-dark jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-light jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold prag Twitter_Logo_Blue