Striving for the third space: A U.S. professional's experiences in Chinese workplaces

Abstract

This single‐case study explored the experiences of a U.S. professional working in China by focusing on his discursive performance in negotiating a third space at work with people from the target culture. The results revealed that the foreign professional demonstrated a strong desire to creatively appropriate the target language as his own use, which went hand‐in‐hand with his advanced language skills and cultural knowledge, allowing him to assume full responsibility for his own linguistic choice. In addition, the inclusion of evaluations of this U.S. professional's performances by his target‐culture domain counterparts imparted a two‐fold set of high expectations for a global professional. On the basis of these findings, this study proposed that instructors of advanced level should focus on developing learners’ multilingual capacities to operate successfully between languages and to negotiate domain expertise with members of the target community. It is important to help students recognize the boundaries of transgression and the target‐society expectations so as to co‐construct a desirable third space for both parties.

Preparing students for the global workforce: Chinese and non-Chinese working professionals on key employability skills

“…Such challenges may be intensified with Westerners, in particular, as they strongly value leadership, initiative, and candor. In his case study of a U.S. student working in China after his graduation, Zeng (2018) observed that although the student demonstrated advanced proficiency in Chinese, his attempt to change conventional Chinese expressions creatively and playfully yet understandably by his Chinese counterparts was often nicely praised as "foreign flavor" (p.671) and received with an expectation of him to conform to communicative conventions that reflected Chinese counterparts' "deep adherence to Chinese cultural values" (p. 671).…”

Language learning at the dinner table: Two case studies of French homestays

“…247–248, italics added). Emotional engagement and intensive relationships emerged in a broad array of settings, including homestays, but also shared lodging, workplaces, recreational affinity spaces (see also, e.g., Fukada, ; Gaugler and Matheus, ; Kinginger & Wu, ; Zeng, ).…”

Creating Motivational Language Learning Experiences during the “Critical Period”

“…These students are advanced-level Chinese language learners who expect to bring their Chinese proficiency to an even higher level and gain the ability to demonstrate expertise in their chosen domains. Although the definition and description of advanced-level language proficiency has been well discussed, relatively little has been explored about advanced-level Chinese learners' nonlinguistic variables including their overall domain expertise (McAloon, 2015;Zeng, 2018). Zeng in her recent work states the importance of helping advanced-level language learners to develop their domain specific knowledge and language use in multicultural contexts (Zeng, 2018, p. 675).…”