A Chronotopic Investigation of International Students’ Multilingual Identity (Re)construction in In-Person and Blended Study Abroad Contexts

The internationalisation of higher education has created diverse opportunities for students to engage in study abroad (SA). Traditionally, SA has been conceptualised as an in-person experience associated with linguistic and intercultural development. However, contemporary SA increasingly encompasses blended and virtual formats, each offering distinct affordances and constraints for how students use and experience language. These evolving contexts create new opportunities and challenges for the construction of multilingual identities (MI). Despite growing recognition of the multilingual turn in applied linguistics, little is known about how international students construct and reconfigure their MI across different SA formats, or how temporal and spatial dynamics shape this process. To address this gap, this study investigates how international postgraduate students (re)construct their MI during a one-year sojourn. A longitudinal embedded multiple case study was conducted over thirteen months with two groups of SA participants at an Australian university: one (n=10) enrolled in a traditional in-person SA programme, and another (n=10) engaged in a blended SA format, in which the first six months (semester one) were spent in their home country online before moving to the host university for the second semester. Data were generated through Q methodology, semi-structured interviews, photo journals, and photo- elicited interviews, collected at four time points across the year, enabling both cross-case thematic analysis and rich narrative accounts. Findings revealed the unique opportunities and struggles faced by participants as they negotiated their multilingual selves across different spaces and times. Their identity (re)construction was marked by tensions between empowerment and marginalisation, linguistic pride and self-doubt, and cultural loyalty and host-country integration. These tensions played out differently in academic, social, virtual, and transnational contexts, and shifted across past, present, and future orientations. Four broad trajectories (resistant, emergent, incremental, and thriving) capture the varied pathways through which students reconfigured their multilingual identities. The data led to the development of the Scalar-Chronotopic Tapestry Model, which conceptualises MI as threads of experience, evaluation, and emotion woven through time and space, punctuated by knots of tension and reconfiguration. The study contributes to the fields of applied linguistics and education by advancing understanding of MI as situated, evolving, and agentive. It underscores the importance of designing study abroad, whether in-person or blended, in ways that support students’ reflexive 3 work of living multilingually across complex temporal and spatial terrains. More broadly, the study demonstrates the value of approaching MI not as a fixed attribute but as an unfolding tapestry of experiences, evaluations, and emotions. By foregrounding the interplay of time, space, and agency, it opens new pathways for theorising identity in an era of increasingly hybrid mobility, while also recognising the lived struggles and possibilities of international students as they become, and remain, multilingual abroad.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Wei, Yuxuan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Forbes, Karen

• international students
• language practice
• multilingual identity
• study abroad

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/ebc12a19-38d7-4a8d-b066-9ce3f1e822f7/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.124618

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/394862