1. Introduction
Over the past 15 years, rising interest in research exploring the practice and effects of multilingualism in applied linguistics (Lei & Liu, Reference Lei and Liu2019) has triggered the development of research on multilingualism in the Chinese context. In China's foreign language education landscape, English remains dominant (Gao & Zheng, Reference Gao and Zheng2019) and English-related language teaching research is in the majority (Fang & Widodo, Reference Fang and Widodo2019). Despite this, a group of researchers in Shanghai, China have been committed to promoting research on multilingualism situated in the Chinese cultural, linguistic, and policy contexts. The core members of the research group are from four top universities in China, namely Fudan University, Tongji University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Shanghai International Studies University. As the four universities are close to each other geographically, all located in Northeast Shanghai, we call ourselves the ‘Shanghai alliance of multilingual researchers’.
The research group echoes Chinese scholars’ enthusiasm for conducting research on multilingualism, as well as their dedication to graduate training in the field. The group consists of around ten core members, and during the last five years of its development the group has trained or is training approximately 30 postgraduate research students (including ten doctoral students and two postdoctoral researchers). This article aims to highlight some recent projects carried out by group members and students, divided into three focal areas: (1) multilingualism in language education, (2) multilingualism in Chinese society, and (3) research methods. The following sections will first delineate the published research in these areas, followed by brief introductions to ongoing research projects that the research group is engaged in.
2. Multilingualism in language education
Within the realm of multilingualism in language education, the alliance has focused on language-in-education planning at the macro and meso levels, as well as multilingual teachers’ and learners’ lived experiences at the micro level. Taking the approach of language-in-education planning, Yongyan Zheng (Fudan University) collaborated with Xuesong Gao (University of New South Wales) and guest-edited a special issue entitled ‘Multilingualism and higher education in Greater China’ in the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Gao & Zheng, Reference Gao and Zheng2019). They pointed out three tensions – between Global English and languages other than English (LOTEs), between individual identity and contextual variation, and between instrumentalist and transcultural values of language learning – that need to be addressed in multilingual language planning in Greater China. Currently Zheng is working on a chapter for the Springer international handbook of education surveying multilingual education in the Asia Pacific region.
Focusing on meso-level multilingual language planning, Xiuwen Chen, Ke Zhao, and Jian Tao at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics have conducted several studies against the backdrop of China's national initiative to diversify foreign language education (Gao & Zheng, Reference Gao and Zheng2019; Han et al., Reference Han, Gao and Xia2019). The findings have revealed that the ideological construction of multilingualism in higher education at the macro level is inconsistent with the meso level (Chen et al., Reference Chen, Dervin, Tao and Zhao2019) and that a range of contextual constraints and personal features mediate the agency of individual stakeholders at the meso-institutional level in implementing top-down language policies (Chen et al., Reference Chen, Tao and Zhao2021). The studies demonstrate complexities in the early stages of promoting multilingual foreign language education in the Chinese context. In the future, the alliance is continuing to study meso-level language-in-education planning by carrying out several projects to investigate the challenges and opportunities of establishing LOTE language programs at different levels of schooling, such as the development of LOTE elective courses in Chinese universities and the design and implementation of LOTE programs in secondary schools.
Language teacher development is an integral part of multilingual education planning. The alliance has initiated several projects to contextualize multilingual teachers’ development against the backdrop of the immense pressure caused by university research excellence assessments. Zheng and Gao's (Reference Zheng and Gao2016) survey study showed that Chinese scholars generally lack the multilingual abilities required for scholarly publication. A follow-up study revealed that the university assessment mechanism rewards research publications in English-medium journals and encourages research on topics related to English language teaching and learning. This implicit language policy creates challenges for LOTE teachers’ professional development and may even be acting to thwart the government's efforts to expand LOTE education (Zheng & Guo, Reference Zheng and Guo2019). The dilemmas and frustrations faced by LOTE teachers/researchers were further examined by Jian Tao and her colleagues, who investigated the difficulties experienced by a group of university-level LOTE teachers in realizing their professional self-images (Tao et al., Reference Tao, Zhao and Chen2019), and how they exercised collective agency to tackle these challenges under the pressure of university research excellence assessments (Tao et al., Reference Tao, Zhao and Chen2020). Tao and her colleagues are now looking at how overseas returnee LOTE teachers reconstruct their professional identities and readapt to the Chinese academic context under increasing research assessment pressure.
Language learners’ motivation in choosing to learn a LOTE is a central topic in multilingual education, as learners’ self-management is considered a key component in conceptualizing language policy (Spolsky, Reference Spolsky2019). Zheng and her colleagues have conducted a series of studies on Chinese university learners’ motivation to learn Spanish in addition to English. Adopting the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, Reference Dörnyei, Dörnyei and Ushioda2009) as the primary theoretical framework, they innovatively used the Q method (Watts & Stenner, Reference Watts and Stenner2012) to compare and contrast the motivational profiles of English and Spanish learners in a Chinese university (Lu et al., Reference Lu, Zheng and Ren2019a, Reference Lu, Zheng and Ren2019b; Zheng et al., Reference Zheng, Lu and Ren2019). The findings showed that a vague multilingual posture propelled self-motivated learners to invest in Spanish learning, but the learners’ English proficiency still restrained their willingness to invest in LOTE learning. In a more recent study, Zheng et al. (Reference Zheng, Lu and Ren2020) adopted a longitudinal Q method to track multilingual motivation development, and found that different aspects of multilingual learning motivation may be operating in parallel through correlative associations in a holistic, dynamic, and relational system of multilingual self.
As the next step, the research group aims to advance the understanding of the effects of learning environments on multilingual education. Zhao and her colleagues plan to investigate foreign language teachers and students’ digital literacy, beliefs, strategies and emotions when they are engaged in remote learning or the blended learning environments that have become common in post-COVID times. Translanguaging is also an emerging research focus of the alliance; Zheng and her students are investigating how Chinese students utilize their holistic linguistic repertoire when they learn Arabic, while Qi Shen and his students from Tongji University are designing a study to examine if international students learn Chinese differently in translanguaging and monolingual learning environments respectively.
3. Multilingualism in Chinese society
The second main research area is multilingualism in society, which is investigated on three fronts. The first revolves around language policy and planning in China. Qi Shen and his colleagues from Tongji University have been working mainly in this direction over the past five years. Shen and Gao (Reference Shen and Gao2019) guest-edited a special issue entitled ‘Multilingualism and policy making in Greater China: Ideological and implementational spaces’ in Language Policy. They argue that Ruiz's notion of resource orientation (Reference Ruiz1984) may allow different stakeholders to negotiate the development of language policies and might help to preserve linguistic diversity within a tradition of seeing linguistic unity as foundational to national unity, such as in the Chinese context. Two case studies (Shen, Reference Shen2016; Xia & Shen, Reference Xia and Shen2019) illustrated how different levels of stakeholders exercised their agency to co-shape the top-down and bottom-up dialect planning in the ‘Saving Shanghai Dialect’ campaign.
Shen (Reference Shen2020) further emphasizes the importance of maintaining linguistic diversity as a resource in multilingual global cities, so that multilingual speakers are provided with equal access to relevant information especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In future research, Shen and his colleagues aim to expand the idea of multilingual capacity in global cities; they are currently working on a framework to assess the foreign language capacity of multilingual cities and enhance urban language management, and plan to conduct sociolinguistic surveys, ethnographic field trips, and linguistic landscaping to validate the framework.
The alliance is also interested in the micro-level family language planning in Chinese society. A series of studies has explored ethnic Miao families in the ethnic minority region in Southwest China (Shen et al., Reference Shen, Wang and Gao2020), ethnic Korean migrant families in Shanghai (Cui & Zheng, Reference Cui and Zheng2021), and urban families with different socioeconomic statuses in Shanghai (Zheng & Mei, Reference Zheng and Mei2020). The findings have collectively revealed the complex interactions of family types, socioeconomic status, language practices, and identity construction against the backdrop of China's rapid urbanization and globalization. Future research aims to expand family language planning in various contexts; Zheng and her colleagues are currently conducting projects looking into Chinese transnational families in the US and Latin America, as well as transnational families from Arabic countries who do business in China, to explore the issues of heritage language maintenance, parental agency, and language ideologies in the family domain.
The research line of multilingualism in the workplace seeks to better understand the language policies and practices of multinational corporations (MNCs) in Shanghai. Ke Zhao and her team from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics have closely examined the language management of a Spanish bank subsidiary in Shanghai, demonstrating the complexity of language management in foreign banks in China vis-à-vis the changing scenario of foreign direct investment (Cheng & Zhao, Reference Cheng and Zhao2019). They expanded on the notion of corporate language capacity and investigated how it is developed at a German information-technology MNC in Shanghai (Zhao et al., Reference Zhao, Ye, Zhang and Wienold2021). By incorporating the perspectives of vice presidents and senior managers in the company, they highlighted middle-level management's important role in designing and implementing language-related activities to support the goal of developing corporate language competence. Currently, Zhao and her team plan to further their study of workplace communication in linguistically diverse business settings, placing specific focus on the role of information technology in mediating sociolinguistic interactions.
4. Research methods
The research group places heavy emphasis on innovative qualitative research methods. Zheng and her colleagues are the first Chinese researchers to explore the potential of the Q method in applied linguistics research (e.g., Zheng et al., Reference Zheng, Lu and Ren2019). The Q method has proved to be a useful tool to offer a systematic and holistic exploration of subjectivity, and they have been active in promoting this method in applied linguistics research in China. Zheng is currently working on a systematic review of Q method research in applied linguistics, intending to publish the research outcome in Chinese-language journals so that more Chinese researchers can be informed about the research method. Her team is also exploring other innovative research methods including qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and retrodictive qualitative modeling (RQM) in an attempt to discover patterns of language-in-education planning and language management decisions among educational institutions and transnational families.
Another innovative research method being explored is social network analysis. Citing Li from Shanghai International Studies University mainly works in intercultural pragmatics, and most recently she strategically combined social network analysis with ethnographic approaches to investigate international students’ pragmatic choices while they are studying abroad in China (Li et al., Reference Li, Li and Ren2020). Currently Li and her colleagues are using different kinds of social network analysis procedures in two research projects. One explores how multilingual science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) doctoral students from African and South American countries actively construct their personal network and seek support from the network to assist with their academic learning during study abroad in China. The findings are expected to challenge the prevailing discourse that is mostly focusing on the difficulties and obstacles during international students’ study abroad and to showcase how they exercise agency to facilitate their own language learning. Another project aims to show how different types of support/affordance interact with personal network development in advancing Chinese language teachers’ capacity to purposefully interact with others, make choices and take actions to achieve professional goals. The alliance is seeking to promote social networks as both a theoretical lens and an analytical tool for investigating the many faces of multilingualism.
The alliance is dedicated to promoting research methods and disseminating multilingual research among Chinese researchers through various channels. It has held five Language Studies Forums for Emerging Scholars, the first of which was in 2015. Last year the fifth forum, with the theme of ‘English Medium Instruction in Emerging Contexts: Problems and Prospects’, was held online and attracted around 1,600 audience members to attend. The alliance has invited world-renowned scholars such as Professor Li Wei (University College London, UK) and Professor Zhu Hua (Birmingham University, UK) to deliver six research workshops on theoretical and methodological perspectives on multilingualism and research paper writing. These academic events are mostly offered pro bono to Chinese researchers. The alliance has set up three Chinese social media accounts to regularly share cutting-edge multilingual research paper digests, book reviews, scholars’ lecture videos, as well as conference information. These social media accounts have attracted a total of 17,000 subscribers.
5. Conclusion
China is at a crossroads, with increasing linguistic diversity and massive domestic or cross-border migration (Shen & Gao, Reference Shen and Gao2019). Despite the traditionally held and perhaps somewhat stereotypical impression that China is a largely monolingual country, issues concerning multilingualism and linguistic diversity are becoming increasingly visible in the context of the deepening process of globalization and urbanization. However, due to the long-term and enduring influence of English on applied linguistics research in China, research on multilingualism is still quite unfamiliar to the majority of Chinese researchers. The alliance shares a common interest in multilingualism, and facilitates close collaboration between faculty members and students and between different universities. The members’ active research profiles point to the future development of research on multilingualism in the Chinese context.
