This paper draws on original research to explore students’ learning through critical analysis of their sense of identities as they engage in the social and cultural contexts in which they used Mandarin. Through interviews with university students of Mandarin Chinese in Britain, the paper reports on their understandings of interculturality, particularly in relation to their study-abroad experience. The paper discusses how they negotiated their linguistic, ethnic and cultural identities when they studied and spoke Mandarin in China in situations in which local people perceived them as ‘English speakers’. The paper aims to discuss how students’ direct experience of speaking Chinese and the responses they received as Chinese speakers have shaped their sense of identity; and to provide in-depth analysis of factors impacting on this process of students’ learning and their understandings of identities in their study abroad period.Factors identified as having an impact on this process include the linguistic and cultural hegemony of English and hospitality. The analysis draws on Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and field and adopts a critical intercultural approach following the work of Dervin (2015), Holliday (2011)and Risager (2007).

Semi-structured interviewed were conducted with 26 students of Chinese across seven universities in Britain. Some follow-up interview questions were asked through email correspondence to prompt reflections on their earlier interview. Data was collected through the process of narrative inquiry, and was coded and analysed with regard to what they said (thematic analysis) and who said and how they said in relation to their ‘real-world’ experience (discourse analysis). This paper provides extracts from 12 interviewees and focuses on their experiences in China. Typically, a BA Chinese language degree course in British universities usually takes four years including a year studying abroad. When and where student placements are arranged in China varies according to different universities, although the majority of universities place students’ abroad period in their second year. This paper includes some of these undergraduates who talked about their study aboard experiences as well as their own personal experience in China. Some of the interview participants are postgraduates who have either had the study abroad experience through their undergraduate courses or they simply went to China by themselves.

The findings show that students struggled to preserve their distinctive sense of identity. Many of the students interviewed experienced the cultural assumptions of the Chinese people with whom they lived and met. Students were sometimes perceived as ‘Anglo-American’ English speakers. Their Chinese language identities were negotiated through the way in which the English language is perceived by Chinese people. However, their identities became more challenging as they brought their own complex identities to their learning experiences. The passé ideology of ‘Orient’ versus ‘Occident’ continues to emerge in these students’ experiences and responses, which, to some extent, reflects the contradictions and challenges within the identities of learners of Chinese. Indeed, the Chinese language is no longer perceived as being distant, especially for those interculturally aware students. If these intercultural students ‘possess interculturality arising from their biographical pathways’ (Jin, 2016: 11), representing the majority of students registering for Chinese language courses, their desire to extend their intercultural engagement could be challenged when faced with Chinese hosts who continue to perceive them as ‘western’ or essentially English or Anglo-American. This challenge is reinforced when their Chinese hosts appear to expect them to speak English, even when they come from other European countries such as Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Germany or Holland, as evidenced by the student interviews. A key question raised is whether current Chinese language courses in British universities should be aware of these issues sufficiently to incorporate aspects of identity relating to contemporary Chinese cultural and language landscapes, in order to help students prepare for their study-abroad period. Learning Chinese within an interculturally aware setting is as much about developing an identity as it is about acquiring knowledge of a language.

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