International students’ linguistic entrepreneurship: motivation, ‘Chinese fever’ and the neoliberal burden

Abstract

ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the number of educational migrants from the member states, particularly African international students, has dramatically increased over the past decade in China. Much of previous research on international student mobility (ISM) and its ensuing language learning has exclusively focused on the East-West flow of students and their investment in English, while ignoring the emerging atypical ‘South-South’ migration pattern and rise of Chinese as a global language. Engaging with interviews with 59 African international students, I trace their ways of thinking and approaches to Chinese language learning which strongly resonate with practices of ‘linguistic entrepreneurship’, as each of them demonstrate self-responsibilisation and constant self-development, while suffering a growing sense of linguistic insecurity. This article debunks the myth of English as the sole language for socioeconomic success, while making a unique contribution to theorising the previously under-recognised value of the Chinese language with the changing global matrices of power.