Striving for the third space: A U.S. professional's experiences in Chinese workplaces

Abstract

This single‐case study explored the experiences of a U.S. professional working in China by focusing on his discursive performance in negotiating a third space at work with people from the target culture. The results revealed that the foreign professional demonstrated a strong desire to creatively appropriate the target language as his own use, which went hand‐in‐hand with his advanced language skills and cultural knowledge, allowing him to assume full responsibility for his own linguistic choice. In addition, the inclusion of evaluations of this U.S. professional's performances by his target‐culture domain counterparts imparted a two‐fold set of high expectations for a global professional. On the basis of these findings, this study proposed that instructors of advanced level should focus on developing learners’ multilingual capacities to operate successfully between languages and to negotiate domain expertise with members of the target community. It is important to help students recognize the boundaries of transgression and the target‐society expectations so as to co‐construct a desirable third space for both parties.