The Third Space Identity Construction： A Narrative Inquiry into a Chinese College EFL Learner’s Experience of Online Intercultural Writing Exchange

Drawing on in-depth interviews with a Chinese EFL learner, this qualitative study explores her identity changes throughout her engagement in the third space-the online intercultural writing exchange. The findings show that her productive construction of the third space is marked by a transformation from a reticent student to an open thought sharer and her claim of a legitimate ownership of using English as a global language. A split is exposed between her newly acquired English rhetorical conventions and her deeply rooted perceptions in the Chinese context. It is suggested by the study that EFL learners be provided greater opportunities to explore language as both a linguistic system and a sociocultural practice where they can exercise their agency and expand the range of identities.

Using Social Media to Promote Intercultural Communication Between Chinese and American University Students

This paper reports a five-year computer-mediated intercultural exchange project between Chinese and American university students that explores the use of various social media tools with WeChat application as the main medium in collaborative intercultural assignments. The study combines quantitative and qualitative approaches by using questionnaires and action research, to investigate how Chinese EFL and American CFL learners increase their intercultural communication competence by assessing their knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and skills of discovery and awareness. The findings reveal their changes and progress in the following variables: knowledge about the variety and subtlety of both the home and target cultures, a different worldview, and cultural study methods;awareness of the importance of differences and similarities between the home and target cultures, their negative reactions to these differences(e.g., fear, ridicule, disgust, feeling of superiority, etc.) and therefore, critical evaluation of the target and home cultures;attitudes from excitement or blind admiration of the target culture to confusion, anxiety or frustration about the cultural differences, later to toleration and appreciation of cultural differences, adaptation to the target culture, and eventually to openness and readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures and belief about one’s own;skills to contrast the target culture with their own, to demonstrate a capacity to interact appropriately in a variety of different social situations in the target culture and resolve cross-cultural conflicts and misunderstandings. This research will serve as a valuable reference for computer-mediated intercultural communication teaching and open up new possibilities to extend classroom teaching by bridging the gap between second-hand knowledge and hands-on experience.