‘It’s difficult but important’: toward a model of African students’ Chinese language identity development in higher education

This longitudinal inductive research unpacks the process of African post-secondary students’ Chinese language identity (CLI) with the purpose of exploring a model of CLI development. We traced how 12 multilingual African students developed their CLI during the first year in a Chinese university. Data coded from three rounds of interviews conducted at different times reveal that over time, there are fewer distractors and more contributors to the development of CLI. We also found three bidirectional factors that both facilitate and impede CLI construction. In terms of dimensions of language identity, Chinese language expertise and positive affiliation with the new language increased over time without change in students’ original language inheritance. Results inform both African students’ adaptation in China and the instruction and administration of African students in Chinese universities. This study helps to discover patterns of change in language identity from a micro perspective and informs models of language identity development among multilingual adult learners.