Summary of findings

Based on the data I have collected, from the beginning all of the participants established specific and individualized relationships with English learning in relation to their perceived current and future access to cultural, economic as well as social capital. For instance, Lily identified strongly with the ‘imaginary’ target group; she

172

was a dedicated learner who soon became the class leader. Serena also envisioned English as a means to future jobs (vague), accepting the ‘commodification’ of the language as potential capital. Cherry and Ding’s intersubjective positionings towards English as potential capital were somewhat more complex, especially in Ding’s case.

In the beginning, the systemic patterns of control played a key role for Cherry; her parents and grandparents felt that English was a key aspect for her future, going so far as to transfer her to a different province so that Cherry’s identity was more that of

‘obedient learner’ than the self-initiated enthusiasm of Lily or Serena. And Ding’s intersubjective positioning at first was quite negative –Ding had little interest or investment for English; he was far more invested in mathematics and hard sciences as these subjects, different from English, were perceived as more beneficial for his professional interests when he was in secondary school.

Additionally the participants’ intersubjective positionings in regards to English changed across time and space to differing degrees. Lily still believes that investing in English has potential benefits; in particular it could be an affordance in preparing for the state exam to become a public school teacher as she currently feels overworked in her job as a teacher in a private institution. Serena’s intersubjective positioning towards the language in question peaked at the time she was employed in a hospital in a large urban area in which she was a reference for the hospital administration, serving as ‘language broker’ for foreign patients. Her positioning shifts once Serena moves to a rural area and begins to work in a hospital where there is no need for English with the patients. She no longer feels the need for investment in the language, at least not to the extent that she initially demonstrated. Cherry’s intersubjective positioning has shifted from ‘being an obedient daughter and grand-daughter’ to a more self-initiated investment in the language as she sees potential benefits shaped through studying abroad at US university (influenced by her uncle who lives in this country). Of all the participants, it is perhaps Ding who has the most dramatic shift in positioning towards the English language, mediated through a realization that his lack

173

of previous investment may have cost him his dream job (airline pilot). He is now working as an airplane mechanic with apparently little possibilities for career promotion. His intersubjective positioning holds the most tension – he does not particularly like the language (he saw no cause for investment in it in secondary school) and at most it served him as a ‘protection’ against other classmates’ taunts of his lower economic status (he was at school with financial aide), as was demonstrated earlier in the data analysis (the extract below was also reproduced in Ding’s original analysis).

Extract 20 (LOC_D _20130816 )

霆：从我很小的时候，我就发誓要好好学习，上一个好的大学，这样的话，我毕 业之后就能找到一个工作来赚钱养活我的家人。对我来说，既没有有权势的亲朋 好友，也没有钱。所以，这是我唯一的出路了。总有一天，我要让那些看不起我 的人羡慕我并且为曾经嘲笑我而后悔。我一定会的！相信我！

01. D- When I was very young, I swore to study hard and go to a good university.

02. When I graduate, I could find a good job to earn money to take care of my family.

03. For me, I don’t have powerful relatives or friends to help us and we lack money. 04. This is the only way and I have no choice.

05. One day I will make the people who always laughed at me envy me 06. and regret looking down upon me!

07. I will!

08. Believe me!

(Ding, interview)

He also shifts from being a motivated individual who can use learning for upward mobility and to being a frustrated individual with an uncertain future and yet he is still

174

willing to invest in English learning if he finds the time and resources to do so.

So it can be seen that the participants from the college group do not have the same investment and intersubjective positioning towards English, as regards whether it serves as cultural capital in their life after they graduated from college.

With reference to EFL theory –which often only considers learners’ motivation for learning within the classroom setting and as a static, constant factor- it is clear from these data that this phenomenon cannot be understood apart from the participants’

social relations in the real world. Indeed, if we consider what O’Regan argues concerning the use of English(es), we can conclude that the ‘lifeworlds’ of the speakers are directly related to their dynamic, constantly changing identities related to the language and the uses they may have of it.

That these are lingua franca Englishes is key, because speakers of different L1s from different parts of the world carry their lexico-grammars and their lifeworlds with them when they are speaking other languages. That is, if they wish to speak at all, they intend to mean something and to receive meaning in return, and are willing to commit to the struggle to make meaning, regardless of how messy this process may be. These speakers speak and will often write in a form of English which is marked to a greater or lesser extent by their local L1 knowledge and experience (…). (O’Regan, 2016, p. 211)

At the same time, the participants are aware that their ‘form of English’ will be compared and valued according to social and administrative norms; standards often set to meet assumed native speaker comparisons.

A central theme of this research is that in a job market which values English as a key skill and communicative resource, individuals must have what is considered a

175

“good” command of English in order to be considered worthy of employment and, indeed, legitimised as successful citizens. From an LPP [Language Policy and Planning] perspective, this is an example of language ideologies around ideal (neoliberal) citizenship, along with management actions taken in the educational sector and in private corporations (where hiring practices are embedded in and shaped by dominant ideologies), that intersect with language practices in a range of contexts. (Block, tbp 2017, n/p))

For the participants in the study, the changes in attitude concerning the possibilities of converting English to cultural capital must be understood within the scope of their social capital, along with the shift of their identities across time and space (e.g.

Cherry’s move from one city to another, Selena and Ding’s job changes) as well as within the systemic patterns of control (e.g. ‘Chinese capitalism’). These changes must also be seen next to the affordances using the target language provides them within the context of their own lives (e.g. Selena could be a language broker in the hospital in an urban location but not in the rural hospital).

Learning English as a Foreign Language is often understood as a means of upward mobility for the middle class, however, as this study shows, the actual users of English(es) are often “the poor, the disenfranchized, the ethnically marginalized, and the exploited – the ‘McWorkers’ of neoliberal economies” (O’Regan, 2016, pp.

211-212). Ding’s assertion that gaining a good command of English could be a means of protection from the shame he felt coming from a lower, working class family exemplifies this to a degree (the classmates who made him feel ashamed will no longer look down on him). Moreover, for Ding, English is positioned as an elusive pass or ticket into a different socioeconomic and social class which at first means investing in the language learning process to become a pilot and when that is unattainable, his current investment is to become the chief mechanic. “It is a long and tough path. But once I am successful, all my problems, for instant, my parents, my

176

brother and everything related to money, will be solved.” (至少得十年多吧，好难的。

但是，一旦成功了，我所有的问题，比如说我父母啊，我弟啊，还有所有与钱有 关的事情就都可以解决了。). (Extract 23; discussed previously in Ding’s story).

Thus, this study shows how the investment in the English language learning process of the participants is linked to presumed or tangible possible returns on the investment (capital). This is in turn related to their learner subjectivity/identity and how he or she sees him/herself in relation to this investment in the community of English speakers.

However, it must be noted that the community of English speakers also varies for each participant: for Lily it is largely an academic English speaking community associated with the use of English in public schools. For Serena, the English-spoken community was first linked to the medical community (exchanges between her as a nurse and foreign patients in the urban hospital) and later Serena invested (apparently to a lower degree of interest) in a different community – a local business community where she served as a voluntary translator for friends of her parents. Ding’s investment involved at least two ‘imaginary communities’: the imagined international community of English speakers in the world of an airline pilot, replaced by the imagined community of English speaking (and more importantly reading) chief mechanic capable of understanding the specifications on imported pieces for airplanes.

This notion of “imagined community”, first coined by Anderson (1991) and then further theorized by Wenger (1998) has been applied by Norton (2001) in relation to language learners’ English learning experience. She stated that when learners “entered their language classrooms, they not only saw a classroom with four walls, but envisioned a community that transcended time and space. Thus although these learners were engaged in classroom practices, the realm of their community extended to the imagined world outside the classroom –their imagined community” (p.164).

177

Similar to Lily, Cherry’s investment is towards an academic community of English speakers: at first the rather ‘vague’ (and fictional) community of course book English created by language teaching materials (cf. Gray, 2010; Block, Gray & Holborow, 2012; Block & Gray, 2015). This community then evolves into a more specific imagined community of university student abroad, influenced by her uncle who lives in the USA.

In the next section, I will look at the external and internal factors that have had an impact on the subjects’ positioning in relation to the language learning process.