Hua Zhu

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Director of International Centre for Intercultural Studies at University College London

In this study, we examine how mobility and on-going changes in sociocultural contexts impact family language policy (FLP) in the UK. Using a questionnaire and involving 470 transnational families across the UK, our study provides a descriptive analysis of different family language practices in England and establishes how attitudes influence the dif...

Translanguaging refers to the dynamic meaning-making process whereby multilingual language users make full use of their communicative repertoires by crossing the boundaries between named languages and other semiotic and modal resources ( García and Li 2014 ). Director Bong Joon-ho is well-known for utilising such border-crossing practices in his fi...

This article approaches translanguaging from the perspective of performance as theorised in anthropological and sociological studies. Drawing on the key argument that every facet of social reality is a performance, and social interaction is based on tacit agreement among all the participants, the article aims to make sense of a key participant’s ma...

This article aims to investigate Confucius Institute teachers’ lived intercultural experiences during the triple crises, i.e., the pandemic, hostility towards Confucius Institutes (CIs) and rampant racism. Through the analytical lens of teacher resilience, the article looks beyond what has gone wrong and foregrounds resourcefulness, strength, and a...

In this article, we reflect on the epistemological frameworks and priorities of intercultural communication research regarding ‘cultural differences’. With the current challenge posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the growing political and social polarisation in recent years, we argue for a need to (re)focus attention to the ways acts of dis...

This paper discusses how the concept of co-learning and the pedagogy of vulnerability (Brantmeier, 2013) can explain shifts in participation in a language classroom. Its empirical evidence is from our investigation of interactions in an eikaiwa (English conversation) classroom in Japan where small groups of Japanese learners of English are encourag...

en This critical essay aims to assess the linguistic ideologies regarding the Chinese writing system by locating them in historical and diasporic contexts and the new digital communication space. Drawing data from a long-term and ongoing digital ethnography of online communication and creative Sinographs in the global Chinese diaspora, it analyses...

In this editorial introduction, we outline the key conceptualisations and overarching questions of this collection of studies on the changing faces of the transnational communities in Britain. Using the nexus of migration and language as our critical lens, we examine the internal diversities within the transnational communities in Britain, evident...

In this editorial introduction we present what motivated us to organise this collection of studies on international students in the Chinese context. As a follow-up to the 2006 special issue entitled ‘The Chinese Learner in Higher Education’ in this journal, this collection of studies problematise the domination of studies on international students...

We start this coda with a discussion of the impact of the pandemic on higher education in our contexts. We then highlight the focus of this special issue, namely international students’ language learning and intercultural encounters in Chinese universities. Reflecting on the relevant findings reported in this collection of studies, we relate indivi...

This article aims to examine how sociopolitical changes impact language ideology and linguistic practices within transnational multilingual families with a particular focus on families with ties to Poland in post-EU-referendum Britain. Drawing on the survey and ethnographic interview data collected as part of the ESRC-funded Family Language Policy...

This article is an ethnography of an investigation of an under-explored sociolinguistic phenomenon, namely handwritten signs in public spaces, against a context of urban regeneration and socio-cultural transformation. These signs are a subset of urban communicates that involve handwriting, lettering or the painting of letters and text using differe...

This special issue is a spin-off from the colloquium of the same title at AILA World Congress in Rio 2017 and took inspiration from the Translating Cultures programme by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the UK. The papers all grapple with issues of diversity and the translation of experience across social and cultural domains, whether as...

This article explores language learning as a process of translanguaging and of cultural translation. We draw examples from a sociolinguistic ethnography of translanguaging practices in a karate club in east London, UK. Formulaic Japanese is taught as part of karate techniques, practised as the language of performance and rituals and valued as the k...

As a way of concluding this thematic issue, we have created a space for our contributors to read each other’s articles and to reflect on the main theme, i.e. translating culture in global times. We invited their response to four questions that we believe are not only central to the aims of the special issue, but also encourage further dialogues on...

The purpose of this article is to explore the role of embodied repertories in teaching and learning in a multi-ethnic karate club in East London and its implications for language teaching and learning. We do so through the lens of translanguaging and apply the concept of translanguaging space where diverse semiotic systems are integrated and orches...

This article discusses a relatively under-explored phenomenon that we call Tranßcripting – writing, designing and digitally generating new scripts with elements from different scriptal and semiotic systems. The data are drawn from examples of such scripts created by multilingual Chinese users in everyday online social interaction. We analyse the dy...

This article discusses a relatively under-explored phenomenon that we call Tranßcripting - writing, designing and digitally generating new scripts with elements from different scriptal and semiotic systems. The data are drawn from examples of such scripts created by multilingual Chinese users in everyday online social interaction. We analyse the dy...

This article argues that imagination plays a key role in whether and how members of transnational families individually and collectively maintain or relinquish their heritage languages and adopt other languages as part of their multilingual repertoires. Imagination is defined here as the vision of where and what one might be or become at some futur...

The primary aim of this article is to put forward an argument that imagination plays a key role in whether and how members of transnational families individually and collectively maintain or relinquish their heritage languages and adopt other languages as part of their multilingual repertoires. Imagination is defined here as the vision of where and...

Book synopsis: The word ‘diaspora’ has leapt from its previously confined use – mainly concerned with the dispersion of Jews, Greeks, Armenians and Africans away from their natal homelands – to cover the cases of many other ethnic groups, nationalities and religions. But this ‘horizontal’ scattering of the word to cover the mobility of many groups...

Book synopsis: Sociocultural linguistics has long conceived of languages as well-bounded, separate codes. But the increasing diversity of languages encountered by most people in their daily lives challenges this conception. Because globalization has accelerated population flows, cities are now sites of encounter for groups that are highly diverse i...

Book synopsis: The Routledge Handbook of Migration and Language is the first comprehensive survey of this area, exploring language and human mobility in today’s globalised world. This key reference brings together a range of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives, drawing on subjects such as migration studies, geography, philosophy, s...

Aims and objectives This paper investigates how children in multilingual and transnational families mobilise their multiple and developing linguistic repertoires creatively to assert their agency in language use and socialisation, and why these acts of agency are conducive to successful maintenance of the so-called “home”, “community” or “minority”...

Aims and objectives: This paper investigates how children in multilingual and transnational families mobilise their multiple and developing linguistic repertoires creatively to assert their agency in language use and socialisation, and why these acts of agency are conducive to successful maintenance of the so-called “home”, “community” or “minority...

The article examines the significance of questions such as “where are you really from?” in everyday conversational interactions. Defining this kind of talk as nationality and ethnicity talk (NET), i. e. discourse that either explicitly or inexplicitly evokes one’s nationality or ethnicity in everyday conversation, the paper discusses what constitut...

Abstract The article examines the significance of questions such as “where are you really from?” in everyday conversational interactions. Defining this kind of talk as nationality and ethnicity talk (NET), i.e. discourse that either explicitly or inexplicitly evokes one’s nationality or ethnicity in everyday conversation, the paper discusses what c...

This paper examines how intercultural communication (ICC) and the notion of culture are framed in on-line promotional discourse of higher education (HE) ICC courses. It analyses a specialised corpus comprised of 14,842 words from 43 course websites of master's programmes in ICC in the UK and the US – internationally, the two largest providers of su...

Transnational and multilingual families have become commonplace in the twenty-first century. Yet relatively few attempts have been made from applied and socio-linguistic perspectives to understand what is going on within such families; how their transnational and multilingual experiences impact on the family dynamics and their everyday life; how th...

Book synopsis: This book generates a fresh, complex view of the process of globalization by examining how work, scholarship, and life inform each other among intercultural scholars as they navigate their interpersonal relationships and cross boundaries physically and metaphorically. Divided into three parts, the book examines: (1) the socio-psychol...

This chapter presents an overview of the multidisciplinary nature of intercultural communication as a field of enquiry. Intercultural communication is concerned with how people from different cultural backgrounds interact and negotiate cultural or linguistic differences. A paradigm is the overarching constructive framework and meta-thinking behind...

This chapter takes a practical and case-based approach to discuss the key issues, strategies and practices in identifying research questions. The discussion is meant to reflect what one considers as examples of good practice and to demonstrate that identifying a research question is a process and requires a series of actions and steps. The chapter...

This chapter explores the data collection method known as a discourse completion task (DCT), a production questionnaire in which the participant responds to a given prompt. DCTs elicit response from some kind of situational prompt, but there are variations in the way the prompt is framed, the detail of the situation or context provided, and the res...

Book synopsis: This book generates a fresh, complex view of the process of globalization by examining how work, scholarship, and life inform each other among intercultural scholars as they navigate their interpersonal relationships and cross boundaries physically and metaphorically. Divided into three parts, the book examines: (1) the socio-psychol...

Book synopsis: The Routledge Handbook of English Language Teaching is the definitive reference volume for postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students of Applied Linguistics, ELT/TESOL, and Language Teacher Education, and for ELT professionals engaged in in-service teacher development and/or undertaking academic study.

Word count: 12,011 Throughout this volume, our authors in Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania have consistently portrayed higher education and the academic market as increasingly global-leading to universities to hire foreign faculty members with greater frequency than ever before. Once these faculty members are "imported," they face a broader...

The paper argues that Negotiation (capitalised to differentiate from negotiation as an activity type such as business negotiation) is the most important means of engagement in intercultural and lingua franca communication. In intercultural and lingua franca communication, thus also in English as a lingua franca (ELF), variability, heterogeneity, an...

Many approaches in intercultural communication are predominantly concerned with providing a cultural account for mis- or non-understanding in interactions. These approaches take cultural memberships, for example, Chinese vs. American, as something given and static and attribute mis- or non-understanding in intercultural communication to differences...

This book brings together new theoretical perspectives and bilingual education models from different sociopolitical and cultural contexts across the globe in order to address the importance of sociocultural, educational and linguistic environments that create, enhance or limit the ways in which diasporic children and young people acquire the ‘Chine...

The nature of diaspora is changing in the 21st century. Yet many of the communication issues remain the same. At the heart of it is multilingual and intercultural communication across time and space. There is much that applied linguists can contribute to the understanding of diaspora in the era of globalization. This article discusses some of the c...

There are thousands of ethnic Chinese students from different backgrounds in British universities today, a fact that has not been fully appreciated or studied from an applied linguistics perspective. For example, there are third- or fourth-generation British-born Chinese; there are students from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore who have recei...

Book synopsis: In this complete survey of the theories, methods, and key findings within applied linguistics, students are introduced to core research questions and the various approaches to tackling these. • Provides a comprehensive introduction to this interdisciplinary field of research and practice, dealing with practical issues of language a...

Book synopsis: In this complete survey of the theories, methods, and key findings within applied linguistics, students are introduced to core research questions and the various approaches to tackling these. • Provides a comprehensive introduction to this interdisciplinary field of research and practice, dealing with practical issues of language a...

Book synopsis: Routledge Introductions to Applied Linguistics is a series of introductory level textbooks covering the core topics in Applied Linguistics, primarily designed for those beginning postgraduate studies, or taking an introductory MA course as well as advanced undergraduates. Titles in the series are also ideal for language professionals...

Book synopsis: Paediatric speech and language therapists are challenged by diminished resources and increasingly complex caseloads. The new edition addresses their concerns. Norms for speech development are given, differentiating between the emergence of the ability to produce speech sounds (articulation) and typical developmental error patterns (p...

Book synopsis: Traditionally, children have been considered from a primarily developmental perspective, in need of education in order to achieve autonomy, growth, and eventually adulthood. Childhood studies have recently underlined an alternate way to look at children, starting from the consideration that children are competent social actors and ca...

The aim of this paper is to investigate how children negotiate their participation and social roles using English as a lingua franca in an international summer camp. Through detailed analysis of interactions in a group activity, it is found that the children employ a range of linguistic and interactional resources, in particular, language alternati...

Publisher's text about this journal: A peer-reviewed journal which seeks to publish original work on Chinese and related languages, with a focus on current topics in Chinese discourse studies. The notion of discourse is a broad one, emphasizing an empirical orientation and encompassing such linguistic fields as language and society, language and cu...

This paper examines the self-perceptions of sixteen 11-year-old UK children who took part in intercultural ‘Villages’ organised by an international children's charity. The analysis of the data shows that only a short-term increase in Intercultural Communicative Competence was reported by the children immediately after the Village. The increase was...

Book synopsis: Although there is an extensive literature on the teaching of English as a Second or Other Language, there is very little published research on the teaching or learning of Chinese in similar contexts. This book is the first to bring together research into the teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign language to non-native speaker...

The study seeks to add to the current debate on English as a lingua franca by analyzing the role of the native speakers of English in intercultural business negotiations and to what extent they effectively accommodate lingua franca speakers. The data, gathered from a sample of 14 native English speakers and 13 nonnative English speakers, consist of...

The so-called Chinese diasporas, i.e. Chinese communities outside Greater China (China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan), have traditionally been dialect dominant; that is, the vast majority of Chinese immigrants are speakers of (especially Southern) dialects. Cantonese and Hokkien are two of the most prominent dialects. With globalization and the ris...

This paper aims to contribute to the current debate on ‘interculturality’ (IC) by investigating the process of language socialization whereby different generations of diasporic families negotiate, construct, and renew their sociocultural values and identities through interaction. Focusing on the use of address terms and ‘talk about social, cultural...

Culturally-based differences in conversational style often result in miscommunication in intercultural transactions. Such miscommunication becomes more acute in professional contexts (e.g. business negotiations) when the interacting parties are using the same linguistic code but not the same cultural style. Using the analytic framework provided by...

This article investigates the early phonological development of a trilingual child who is acquiring Spanish, Mandarin and Taiwanese simultaneously. By examining the natural speech data recorded between the age of 1;3 and 2;0, the article reports the age of emergence and stabilization of the vowels and consonants, speech accuracy and phonological er...

Book synopsis: Even after 20 years of children's rights and new thinking about childhood, children are still frequently seen as apolitical. All over the world there has been a growing emphasis on 'participation', but much of this is adult-led, and spaces for children's individual and collective autonomy are limited. "Children, politics and communic...

Introduction Sociolinguists have long argued that language plays a crucial role in revealing and constructing a speaker's identity (for example, Edwards, 1985; Le Page and Tabouret-Keller, 1985). Recent public debate in the UK over what constitutes Britishness provides new impetus to the line of research where linguistic practices are seen as both...

IntroductionOverviewCross-Sectional DesignLongitudinal DesignA Comparison of Cross-sectional and Longitudinal Study DesignsCase StudiesGroup StudiesCombination of DesignsConclusion Further readingAppendix: An overview of cross-sectional, longitudinal, case, and group studies

This paper aims to investigate the complex relationship between social interaction and socio-cultural values. Samples of conflict talk between parents and children in the Chinese diasporic families in the UK are examined. Through a detailed analysis of the sequential organization of codeswitching as well as what is termed as “talk about social and...

This chapter contains section titled: *The “standard” language and language standard *Language standard in bilingual and multilingual populations *Cultural norms and standard *Implications for language pathology

This chapter contains section titled: *Routes to bilingualism *Input and context in bilingual acquisition *Interaction between languages I: the one-system-or-two debate *Interaction between languages II: the same-or-different debate *Multilingual acquisition

Extending the argument proposed earlier in Part 2 of this volume that language learning is a social action, this chapter looks at the socialcultural construction of the concept of self in application letters by L2 users. I will argue that while there are specific conventions for genres, writing in all genres is in essence a process of self-presenta...

Book synopsis: The International Guide to Speech Acquisition is a comprehensive guide that is ideal for speech-language pathologists working with children from a wide variety of language backgrounds. Offering coverage on 12 English-speaking dialects and 24 languages other than English, you will find the information you need to identify children who...

Ideas of social interaction are increasingly having an impact upon research into the learning and teaching of second languages. The aims of this book are to: demonstrate the importance of investigating second language learning and teaching from a social-interactional and sociocultural perspective; describe the implications of the social-interaction...

Book synopsis: The International Guide to Speech Acquisition is a comprehensive guide that is ideal for speech-language pathologists working with children from a wide variety of language backgrounds. Offering coverage on 12 English-speaking dialects and 24 languages other than English, you will find the information you need to identify children who...

This volume brings together contributions by leading researchers of the social interactional and socio-cultural approaches to language learning and teaching. It provides both an introduction to this important growth point and also an overview of cutting edge research, covering a wide range of language learning and teaching contexts.

Book synopsis: This book critically examines the effects of language specificity on phonological acquisition and disorder through a collection of empirical studies of children learning typologically very different languages. The studies address many theoretical, clinical and methodological issues, such as: What role do developmental universals and...

Book synopsis: This book critically examines the effects of language specificity on phonological acquisition and disorder through a collection of empirical studies of children learning typologically very different languages. The studies address many theoretical, clinical and methodological issues, such as: What role do developmental universals and...

Book synopsis: This book critically examines the effects of language specificity on phonological acquisition and disorder through a collection of empirical studies of children learning typologically very different languages. The studies address many theoretical, clinical and methodological issues, such as: What role do developmental universals and...

Book synopsis: This book critically examines the effects of language specificity on phonological acquisition and disorder through a collection of empirical studies of children learning typologically very different languages. The studies address many theoretical, clinical and methodological issues, such as: What role do developmental universals and...

Book synopsis: This book critically examines the effects of language specificity on phonological acquisition and disorder through a collection of empirical studies of children learning typologically very different languages. The studies address many theoretical, clinical and methodological issues, such as: What role do developmental universals and...

The Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology, (DEAP) is a comprehensive, individually administered, norm-referenced battery designed to provide differential diagnoses of speech disorders in children ages 3.0-8.11 years. Five tests (two screens and three assessments) comprise the DEAP assessment process. Although you are not required to a...

Book synopsis: Utilizing a historical and international approach, this valuable two-volume resource makes even the more complex linguistic issues understandable for the non-specialized reader. Containing over 500 alphabetically arranged entries and an expansive glossary by a team of international scholars, the Encyclopedia of Linguistics explores t...

This paper reports a normative study on the phonological development of British English-speaking children. Speech samples of 684 children, aged between 3;0 and 6;11 years, randomly selected from nurseries and schools in eight different areas throughout the UK, were collected and analysed to obtain normative data. This paper reports on two aspects o...

This book examines the phonological development and impairment of Chinese-speaking children. It contains a series of studies of phonological acquisition and development of children in specific contexts (Putonghua or Modern Standard Chinese, the language variety promoted by the Chinese government, and normally developing children, children with spee...

Book synopsis: Investigations in Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics is a sequel to the eighth meeting of the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association, attended by delegates from 26 different countries. This book reflects the scope of the subject area of clinical phonetics and linguistics, the balance of input into it with respec...

This paper focuses on the key Chinese cultural concept of ‘harmony’ and investigates how Chinese speakers endeavor to achieve interpersonal harmony in face-to-face interaction. The data on which this study is based comes from a business meeting amongst four native speakers of Mandarin Chinese in Beijing. Through a detailed Conversation Analysis of...

The phonological ability and development of a Putonghua-speaking child with severe prelingual hearing impairment between the age of 3;5 and 4;5 was described using the measures of MLU, MLVV, MaxLU, TTR, PCE, inconsistency rating, phonological processes, and phonetic and phonemic inventory. Comparison of the developmental patterns identified in the...

Impaired phonology is reported to be the most salient characteristic of the communication profiles of twin children. However, little is known about the phonological development of twins speaking languages other than English. This case study described the phonological systems of a set of Putonghua-speaking twins, using quantitative and qualitative m...

The speech error patterns of seven Putonghua-speaking children with speech difficulties, who received no clinical intervention, were assessed twice over an interval of about 11 months. Qualitative measures (phonetic inventory, phonemic inventory, and phonological process use) and quantitative measures (severity score and inconsistency rating) were...