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A case of Chinese whispers: Some researcher-supervisor practice when working between Chinese and English. Xiaowei Zhou and Richard Fay. Introduction. Our presentation: a) critical moments b) researcher-supervisor dialogues c) decisions Xiaowei’s doctoral study :
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A case of Chinese whispers: Some researcher-supervisor practice when working between Chinese and English Xiaowei Zhou and Richard Fay
Introduction Our presentation: a) critical moments b) researcher-supervisor dialogues c) decisions Xiaowei’s doctoral study: • researched the academic acculturation of students from mainland China on an Economics-related Masters programme in Manchester • explored this focus via a mixture of weekly ‘mood data’ and their Chinese-medium narratives of ‘initial academic experiences’ as told at four points throughout their year-long MA programme
Contextualising the study … The phenomenon: Chinese students’ flow to the UK since the late 1990s • Chinese students’ responses to their Masters education in the UK (e.g. “short and valuable”, “I cannot learn much from the short course” ) • Social responses in the UK (e.g. “a source of revenue”, “a threat to the UK HE” ) • Social responses in China ? (e.g. “留学垃圾” - “Study-abroad trash” ?!)
Exploring the literature … • Started with the English-medium literature on culture, intercultural communication, acculturation, and Chinese students’ academic experiences abroad • Looked for Chinese-medium literature on 文 化,跨文化交际,文化涵化,中国大学生的学习经历
Generating data … • My instinctive preference: Chinese • Heightened awareness through supervision experience … • negotiated with the participants … • Outcome: mood data mostly in Chinese but occasionally in English; narratives generally in Chinese but with a bilingual element
Processing the data … • Xiaowei translated a section of the transcript into English for the supervision process to illustrate her transcription practice. • Richard’s response …
[self teaching] [from the data] [the value of Masters courses in the UK] [from my Chinese-medium understanding of the broader social context] [N/A] [from the literature on Chinese students’ learning practice] [cognitive learning about the second academic culture] [from the literature on acculturation] Analysing the data … • Richard told a story about a student’s bilingual data analysis… • Xiaowei’s decision: used both languages 自学 英国硕士的价值 rotelearning CogLearn about ACC2
Writing up the research report … • Presentational issues: e.g. How shall I deal with original text in Chinese, such as concepts, phrases, book/article titles and data extracts? • Question: What are the purposes of presenting such text? • Xiaowei’s decision … e.g. “无助/wu zhu [helpless]” "后生可畏,焉知来者之不如今也 [pay respect to young people; how do you know that the performance of the current generation will not surpass the previous one] 刘良华 (Liu, L.) (2002). “论教育‘叙事研究’” (Lun jiao yu “xu shi yan jiu “– On “narrative research” in education).《教育情报参考》(Jiao Yu Qing Bao Can Kao – Educational Consulting), 11, 17-18.
Study being examined … • Examiner expected to see the complete sets of data rather than data extracts … • Xiaowei’s decision: • presented two cases completely in their original forms, one case representative of most cases and the other differing from most cases in certain ways … • translated into English the first story in the “representative” case as well as my analysis of it • translated into English the whole “non-representative” case as well as my analysis of it
richer resources: e.g. richer literature, more linguistic options for generating and analysing data Research process • more challenges and responsibilities: e.g. make each step transparent for those who follow the research process Some conclusions (1) The implications of doing research multilingually for the researcher: • Research (in social sciences) is about: • drawing relevant and interesting insights from • rich literature and rich data so as to better understand a phenomenon/issue • disseminate the findings to readers meaningfully, effectively and reliably
Some conclusions (2) For the researcher-supervisor dynamic … • foregrounding critical points for developing researcher competence • mutual enrichment • … Thank you! Xiaowei Zhou: leazxw113@hotmail.com Richard Fay: FRJFAY@aol.com