An Investigation of International Students' Linguistic and Sociocultural Adjustments in the UK

英国一直是仅次于美国的国际学生第二大最受欢迎的学习目的地（UNESCO 2022）。随着英国脱离欧盟和COVID-19大流行，国际学生的稳定增长更加引人注目（HESA，2022）。英国教育的全球化性质并不是由国际学生的存在直接造成的，而是由于他们融入社区（英国理事会，2014）。研究发现（Page，2019，Lu，2021）国际学生的分离会导致他们的社交和学习成绩不佳，甚至会危及他们的人身安全。因此，从学生、大学和整个英国社会的长远利益来看，国际学生的融入是扩大EDI概念的主要因素（British理事会，2014，Bender et al，2019）。研究发现，生产性融合有利于旅居者的学习和社会满意度（Merola et al，2019，Lu，2021），并可以提高大学工作人员的多元文化意识，使融合成为一个互动的过程（Wang & Moskal，2019）。国际学生的高水平融合也可以减少英国社会的种族歧视，'Black Lives Matter'（弗朗西斯和赖特-里格尔，2021）和"亚洲仇恨"（Jeung 2021）激增使国际学生的参与变得更加紧迫和必要。因此，了解旅居者的适应经历，对于实现高质量的"以学生为中心的精神"是很重要的。（Schartner & Young，2016）以及EDI在英国大学中的应用。有大量的研究探讨了旅居者在英国的适应情况。然而，不同的领域已经被单独研究，并且缺乏研究它们之间的动态相互关系（Zhou & Todman，2009）。此外，很少有研究探讨国际学生采用什么策略来应对这种调整。此外，大多数研究探讨了旅居者在正式学术学习中的语言经验，但缺乏研究他们在交际社会环境中的语言适应，这进一步限制了对语言能力和社会能力之间相互作用的研究。这个博士后研究的目的是调查国际学生在英国的适应，特别是通过语言和社会文化领域。它试图探讨这两个领域之间的动态相互关系。我的博士研究调查了中国旅居者在英国的语言和社会经验，特别关注他们如何在不同的社交网络中寻求语言和非语言接触的启示。中国旅居者目前是英国最大的国际学生群体（HESA，2021），这些旅居者大多进行低水平的融合（Wu，2014，Lu，2021）。因此，对中国旅居者经历的深入了解为博士后的实地考察奠定了坚实的基础。这项博士后研究如果得到资助，将以我的博士研究成果为基础，通过包括更多样化的国际参与者群体，提供全面的理解和更深刻的见解。我的博士研究结果表明，“种族认同”在融合中起着至关重要的作用。此外，更好地了解参与者在适应过程中遇到的障碍，可以更清楚地了解如何提供更有针对性的支持，以尽量减少旅居者在这一旅程中遇到的学习和文化冲击。

The UK has consistently remained as the second most popular study destination for international students behind only the US (UNESCO 2022). The steady growth of international students is more remarkable alongside the UK's departure from the European Union and the COVID-19 pandemic (HESA, 2022). The globalised nature of education in the UK is not directly caused by the presence of international students, but due to the inclusion of them in communities (British Council, 2014). It has been found (Page, 2019, Lu, 2021) separation of international students can cause their poor social and academic performance, and even can risk their personal safety. That is why Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) policy has currently been highly emphasized in the UK.Therefore, the integration of international students is a principal factor in the expanding concept of EDI due to the long-term benefits for students, universities, and the whole UK society (British Council, 2014, Bender et al, 2019). It has been found that productive integration benefits sojourners' learning and social satisfaction (Merola et al, 2019, Lu, 2021), and can enhance university staff's multicultural awareness to make the integration an interactive process (Wang & Moskal, 2019). International students' high-level integration can also reduce the discrimination of race in the UK society, the 'Black Lives Matter' (Francis & Wright-Rigueur, 2021) and 'Asian Hate' (Jeung 2021) surge make the engagement with international students more urgent and necessary.Thus, it is important to understand the adjustment experiences of sojourners to achieve a high-quality 'student-centered ethos' (Schartner & Young, 2016) and the application of EDI across UK universities. There is ample research that explores sojourners' adjustments in the UK. However, different domains have been researched separately, and there is a lack of research that looks into the dynamic interrelationships between them (Zhou & Todman, 2009). Also, there is little research that probes what strategies international students employ to cope with such adjustments. Additionally, most of the research explores sojourners' language experience in formal academic learning, but a lack of research investigating their language adjustments in communicative social settings, which further limits the contribution to the investigation of interactions between linguistic competencies and social abilities.Following this, this postdoctoral research aims to investigate international students' adjustments in the UK particularly through linguistic and sociocultural domains. It seeks to explore the dynamic interrelationships between the two domains. This research also intends to probe what strategies sojourners employ to cope with such adjustments.My doctorate research investigated autonomous Chinese sojourners' language and social experiences in the UK particularly focused on how they sought affordances in diverse social networks for linguistic and non-linguistic encounters. Chinese sojourners are currently the largest group of international students in the UK (HESA, 2021), and these sojourners, mostly, conduct low-level integration (Wu, 2014, Lu, 2021). Therefore, a good understanding of Chinese sojourners' experiences lays a robust foundation for this postdoctoral fieldwork. This postdoctoral research, if funded, will build on my doctoral findings to offer comprehensive understanding and sharper insights by including a more diverse group of international participants. The findings of my doctorate research have shown that 'ethnic identity' plays a crucial role in integration. Also, a better understanding of participants' barriers during their adjustments can portray a clearer picture of how to provide more focused support to minimise sojourners' encountering learning and culture shocks during this journey.