Supervisors:
Dr Dimitris Kitis Efstratios (Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University)
Dr Songqing Li (Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University)
Dr Lyndon Way (Department of Communication and Media, University of Liverpool)
Email Address:
Research Topic
The proposed PhD research is an ethnographic study of a group of Chinese returnees from the UK and their cultural identity reconstruction against the backdrop of the intercultural workplace in China. Specifically, the study aims to investigate returnees’ understandings of their identities and how their cultural identities are reconstructed, challenged, negotiated and expanded in response to ‘cultural differences’ in the intercultural working environment during their re-entry. Analysing linguistic practices in a multicultural context allows the study to identify how returnees position themselves in a social context and how the relational work contributed by the interlocutors influences the returnees’ responses (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005). Explicitly drawing on China and the UK and adopting Bucholtz and Hall’s five principles of identity, the study will be conducted in English and Chinese, with the Chinese data carefully translated into English.
This study will ideally improve current understandings of returnees’ behaviours in the workplace. At the same time, it will benefit UK higher education as the research aims to reveal the long-term positive impacts of UK higher education on Chinese returnees.
Research Areas:
Intercultural communication; transcultural studies; critical discourse analysis; returnee studies; identity analysis; sociolinguistics
Teaching experience
MA TESOL Linguistics for Language Teachers (09/2023-present)