This study explores the language practices and beliefs of local employees at a Shanghai-based subsidiary of a German multinational company. We conducted a seven-month ethnographic study and collected ...data from the company’s publicly accessible documents, meeting transcripts, semi-structured interviews with five employees, and ethnographic notes. Qualitative data analysis revealed that local employees frequently utilized translanguaging practices despite the company’s implicit assumption that English would be used as the common corporate language. Four major translanguaging practices were identified: key terms in English, bilingual label quest, cross-language recapping, and cross-language alternation. In addition, local employees perceived language as both a resource and an obstacle, often engaging in translanguaging practices to establish their own linguistic and communicative spaces, indicating that translanguaging is a complex multilingual practice influenced by internal and external factors, subject to social milieu, personal language competence, and beliefs. Ultimately, this study extends the notion of translanguaging and probes its analytical benefits for understanding fluid and discursive activities in multilingual workplaces and the sustainability of linguistic ecology and knowledge dissemination.
Informed by a combined framework of 'translanguaging' and 'epistemic injustice', this paper examines how a group of teachers and students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds negotiated ...their knowledge participation through translanguaging in an English medium instruction (EMI) degree program at a Chinese university. Data were collected over a 12-month classroom ethnography, including lesson recordings, stimulated recalls, and reflexive journals. A thematic analysis of the data reveals that transnational teachers and students actively employed translanguaging to challenge the prevailing hegemony of Western thinking and knowing in the EMI environment. We identified three key translanguaging capacities that facilitated transformative knowledge negotiation: (1) counteracting testimonial injustice; (2) providing hermeneutical resources; and (3) enhancing the sensitivity of trans-epistemic practices. Our study attests to the value of translanguaging as a transformative strategy to generate epistemic access for transnational students engaged in EMI learning, informing efforts to foster educational equity in the internationalization of higher education and to empower transnational teachers and students to reclaim their epistemic contribution capacities in the EMI context.
Rainwater chemistry of extreme rain events is not well characterized. This is despite an increasing trend in intensity and frequency of extreme events and the potential excess loading of elements to ...ecosystems that can rival annual loading. Thus, an assessment of the loading imposed by hurricane/tropical storm (H/TS) can be valuable for future resiliency strategies. Here the chemical characteristics of H/TS and normal rain (NR) in the US from 2008 to 2019 were determined from available National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) data by correlating NOAA storm tracks with NADP rain collection locations. It found the average pH of H/TS (5.37) was slightly higher (p < 0.05) than that of NR (5.12). On average, H/TS events deposited 14% of rain volume during hurricane season (May to October) at affected collection sites with a maximum contribution reaching 47%. H/TS events contributed a mean of 12% of Ca2+, 22% of Mg2+, 18% of K+, 25% of Na+, 7% of NH4+, 6% of NO3−, 25% of Cl− and 11% of SO42− during hurricane season with max loading of 77%, 62%, 94%, 65%, 39%, 34%, 64% and 60%, respectively, which can lead to ecosystems exceeding ion-specific critical loads. Four potential sources (i.e., marine, soil dust, agriculture and industry/fossil fuel) were indicated by PCA. The positive matrix factorization (PMF) suggested Mg2+, Na+ and Cl− were primarily marine-originated in both event types, while 36% more sea-salt Ca2+ and 33% more sea-salt SO42− were deposited during H/TS. Agriculture and industry/fossil fuel were the main sources of NH4+ and NO3−, respectively, in both rain event types. However the NH4+ contribution from industry/fossil fuel increased by 13% during H/TS indicating a potential vehicle source associated with emergency evacuations. This work provides a comprehensive assessment of the rainwater chemistry of H/TS and insight to expected ecosystem loading for future extreme events.
Display omitted
•H/TS can contribute large rain amount and ion depositions within hours.•The large ion deposition can help exceed potential critical load of ecosystem.•Mg2+, Ca2+ and SO42− are more correlated with Na+ and Cl− during H/TS•H/TS can entrain more marine materials and deposit more sea-salt ions.•An increased NH4+ emission from industry/fossil fuel was observed during H/TS.
Past research on English-medium instruction (EMI) has primarily focused on language-related challenges with scant attention paid to how language is entangled with epistemic access and epistemic ...injustice. Informed by the perspective of “epistemic (in)justice”, this study focused on how a cohort of students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds negotiate a more epistemologically effective and equal access to knowledge negotiation in an EMI international relations master’s program in a Chinese university. Data were drawn from classroom observation, semi-structured interviews, and students’ reflexive journals. Qualitative thematic analysis of the data revealed unequal power relations in students’ epistemic participation and their resulting epistemic silence in classroom discussions. By illustrating how students cope with the epistemic challenges by drawing on individual-cognitive and social-cognitive resources, the findings suggest potential strategies for transnational students to counter the hegemony of English in EMI learning contexts. Implications for decoloniality in EMI education are discussed.
Inorganic nitrogen (IN) wet deposition flux and emission sources have been intensively investigated over the past two decades with a primary focus in rural areas and large metropolitan cities. ...Smaller coastal cities are often overlooked in these studies despite a substantial portion of the earth's population inhabiting these regions. Ammonia and NOx emission source apportionment estimations in these studies can be misleading without proper inspection of intermittent source (e.g., biomass burning and lightning) impacts on the airmass of rain events. This study measured the chemical composition (NH4+, NO3−, Cl−, SO42− and pH) and isotopic composition of ammonium and nitrate (δ15N–NH4+, δ15N–NO3-, and δ18O–NO3-) in rainwaters collected in a small coastal city (Corpus Christi, TX, USA) to aid in determining the emission source apportionments of NH3 and NOx. A novel approach coupling lightning and fire/smoke mapping products along with airmass back trajectories was developed to help determine the influence of biomass burning and lightning on individual rain events before applying to isotope source apportionment models. The annual IN wet deposition was 3.9 kg N·ha−1·yr−1, in which NH4+ and NO3− constituted 65% and 35%, respectively. Isotope mixing model results suggest vehicle emission contribution to NH3 can rival agriculture sources (i.e., fertilizer and livestock waste) in urban areas. Vehicles, biomass burning and lightning were significant NOx sources, while soil “biogenic” emissions increased substantially in certain rain events occurring in warmer months. This work qualified IN wet deposition flux and estimated IN emission source apportionments in a coastal small-sized city, which will inform regional N emission regulations and watershed restoration practices.
Display omitted
•A novel approach coupling mapping products with airmass trajectories to quantify intermittent sources was developed.•Vehicles had the highest contribution to NH3 emissions outcompeting agriculture emissions in the coastal city.•Vehicles had the highest contribution to NOx emissions followed by intermittent sources.
Drawing on neoliberal ideology as a theoretical lens, this study critically examines how neoliberal ideological assumptions shape the interpretation and implementation of TGUP (Top Global University ...Project) as an English-medium instruction (EMI) policy in the Japanese context at multiple levels of government, universities, and multilingual international students. We examined documents describing TGUP policies published both by the government and TGUP universities, and then contrasted these policies with interview data drawn from conversations with three key stakeholder groups (international students, EMI faculty, and administrative staff) in four focal universities. The findings reveal the conflicts of policy making at different levels and challenge the English-only ideology in EMI practices. By taking a critical language policy approach, the study offers a nuanced understanding of how neoliberal ideology constitutes a policy-to-practice gap in language policy and planning. We argue that EMI should not be reduced to English-only medium of instruction, but rather treated as an alternative approach to the internationalization and globalization of education, and understood as a learning space where multilingual students enhance their learning by relying on their shared language repertoires.
Drawing on Xiang and Lindquist’s notion of migration infrastructure, this study investigates how international students utilize contextual resources to enhance learning in English-medium instruction ...(EMI) degree programs in the Japanese context. We recruited 13 Chinese students enrolled in EMI postgraduate degree programs at four Japanese universities and collected data from semi-structured interviews and the participants’ reading/lecture notes. Qualitative content analysis revealed that despite the constraints of regulatory infrastructure (monolingual orientation at the institutional level), Chinese students utilized various resources offered by technological, social, and commercial infrastructures to facilitate their academic communication and foster their academic learning. The findings revealed that despite facing linguistic difficulties in their EMI program, the students used technological, social, and commercial infrastructural resources to access knowledge, developed multilingual habitus both in and outside their classrooms, and ultimately enhanced the quality of their cross-border education. This study provides migration infrastructure as a useful framework to examine international students’ challenges and adjustments in their cross-border education. In doing so, this study extends our understanding of international students’ experiences by going beyond a linguistic-centered perspective to encompass their language use as embodied socio-material processes. This paper concludes with implications for the implementation of English-medium higher education.
Organic nitrogen (ON) has been excluded in the majority of atmospheric N studies. However, dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) deposition influences coastal water quality and primary production creating ...an urgent need for comprehensive atmospheric ON characterization, especially in coastal airsheds. This study measured the concentration and isotopic composition of rainwater DON (δ15N-DON) and applied stable isotope mixing models to determine the ON emission source apportionments in a small-sized coastal city. The DON concentration averaged 10.6 ± 7.6 μM (n = 42), which was 29% of the total dissolved nitrogen in rainwater and produced a deposition flux of 1.5 kg N·ha−1·yr−1. The average rainwater δ15N-DON value was 8.3 ± 5.3‰ and isotope mixing model results suggested vehicles as a dominant source, overall contributing 35 ± 15% of ON emissions, followed by marine emissions (24 ± 16%), organic amines (18 ± 11%), organic nitrates (17 ± 11%), and biomass burning (8 ± 3%). Although secondary ON formations (i.e., organic amines and nitrates) had less contributions than primary emission sources (i.e., vehicles, marine, and biomass burning), it can be significant and rival primary emissions when the fertilizer application started. Our results fill knowledge gaps of ON wet deposition and emission sources in small-sized coastal cities and inform future atmospheric N mitigation strategies and coastal watershed restoration plans in similar regions. We call for further research determining the isotopic composition of ON emission sources and fractionation associated with primary emission and secondary formation in anticipation of creating a similar isotope-based foundation that has been used for decades to investigate inorganic nitrogen emissions.
Display omitted
Historically, dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) has not been characterized in the nitrogen profiles of most estuaries despite its significant contribution to total nitrogen and projected increase in ...loading. The characterization of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and DON processing from groundwater to surface water also remains unconstrained. This study attempts to fill in these knowledge gaps by quantifying the DON pool and potential sources in a semiarid, low inflow estuary (Baffin Bay, Texas) using stable isotope techniques. High NO3− and DON concentrations, and high δ15N-NH4+ (+55.0 ± 56.7 ‰), δ15N-NO3− (+23.9 ± 8.6 ‰) and δ15N-DON (+22.3 ± 6.5 ‰) were observed in groundwaters of a septic-influenced estuarine area, indicating coupled septic contamination and nitrification/denitrification. In contrast, groundwater of an undeveloped area provided evidence of inundation by bay water through high NH4+ concentrations and δ15N-NH4+ (+8.4 ± 3.0 ‰) resembling estuary porewater. NH4+ was the dominant nitrogen species in porewater of both areas and δ15N-NH4+ indicated production via organic nitrogen mineralization and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium. Surface water had similar nitrogen profiles (DON constituted ∼98 % of dissolved nitrogen pool) and potential source contributions, despite distinct nitrogen processing and profiles found in each water table. This was attributed to low nitrogen removal rates and prolonged mixing associated with long residence time. This study emphasizes the importance of DON in a low-inflow estuary and the isotopic approach to comprehensively examine both inorganic and organic N processing and sources serving as a guide to investigate N cycling in high DON estuaries globally.
Display omitted
•Isotopic fingerprinting to determine DON source apportionment in estuaries•Wastewater and PON were the primary N sources in the semi-arid estuary.•Low DON removal rate led to similar N profile of the bay at two distinct regions.•Comprehensive DON and DIN estuary profile from ground to pore to surface water•SGD was an important nutrient delivery pathway to arid/semi-arid estuaries.
Phytoplankton density can be influenced by a wide range of factors whereas the role of suspended particulate matter (SPM) are not clear in river that annually subjected to hydrodynamics shift. Here, ...spatial-temporal variation of environmental parameters and phytoplankton density were studied from January 2013 to December 2014 in Yulin River, a tributary of the Three Gorges Reservoir, China. Laboratory experiments were conducted to elucidate the key parameter and interpret how it impacted phytoplankton density. SPM is negatively correlated with phytoplankton density. Despite SPM in Yulin River revealed weaker NH
-N, NO
-N and PO
-P adsorption capabilities in comparison to that in other aquatic ecosystems, increase of water velocity from 0.1 to 0.8 m/s led to approximately 6.8-times increase of light attenuation rate. In experiments evaluating the aggregation of Chlorella pyrenoidosa upon SPM, floc size showed 7.4 to 22% fold increase compared to the SPM or algae itself, which was due to the interaction between SPM and phytoplankton extracellular polymeric substances. Our results suggest that SPM could contribute to the variation of phytoplankton density through the integrated process including light attenuation, nutrient adsorption and algae aggregation. This is the first evaluation of the multiple processes underlying the impact of SPM on phytoplankton.
PDF
