46th Annual Meeting of the BAAL (British Association for Applied Linguistics)
PhD Student Yu Jiang presents at 46th Annual Meeting of the BAAL in Edinburgh 5-7 September.
Yu Jiang is a student within our department studying a PhD Applied Linguistics, as part of her research she attended the 46th Annual Meeting of the BAAL and successfully presented on the topic of Gender Issues in the development of L2 self. Below Yu Jiang has written about her experience below:
'Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 5 - 7 September 2013
Conference theme: Opening New Lines of Communication in Applied Linguistics
It is 8:00am on a regular Wednesday morning and I am on the train to Edinburgh. I have looked forward to this journey for a month -- the amazing views of Edinburgh and the annual reunion of scholars, students and anyone who shares a similar interest in applied linguistics and the BAAL, like myself. When I attended the annual BAAL conference for the first time in 2005, I was impressed by the number of participants. I couldn’t help but imagine the audience for my presentation the following day and I began to practice the slides on the train.
My topic was Gender Issues in the development of L2 self, which is part of the research for my PhD thesis. In this presentation, I explore the gender differences in the development of L2 English learners’ ideal/ought-to L2 self among 113 English major students attending three universities in China. The data were collected three times over a 12-month period using questionnaires and interviews. Statistical analysis revealed that the female learners’ ideal/ought-to L2 self was significantly higher than the male learners. In addition, the female learners’ ought-to L2 self, but not their ideal L2 self, increased significantly over the period while male learners’ L2 ideal/ought-to L2 self remained unchanged. Gender differences were also found in the interactive relationship between ideal L2 self and ought-to L2 self. With subsidiary information from the interview, the study confirmed that female and male learners developed their ideal/ought-to L2 self in different ways during their long-term L2 English learning. With the understanding of gender differences in self concept, the study suggests that macro-social political changes in gender issues in China have influenced female learners’ L2 selves.
My presentation was arranged for the morning of the 5th in Wardlaw Room B of the conference centre. There were around 15 people in the audience in the lovely medium-small room. The presentation started on time and finished with several pleasant questions from other presenters about my research design and methodologies. Dr. Isabel Tasker raised a question about further plans for extending my studies and, at the conference dinner the following day, we continued the discussion and extended the research on L2 Chinese learners, which was her research speciality.
In addition to my own presentation, I also attended many presentations from other keynote speakers during the two and a half days of the conference, such as Kathryn Woolard from the University of California, Jannis Androutsopouls from Universität Hamburg, and Svenja Adolphs from the University of Nottingham, as well as other academics. The talks covered a wide range of topics and updated my knowledge of the recent research interests at the cutting edge. Additionally, it was also a privilege to have the opportunity to get to know many other academics, such as Prof. Paul Meara, Katja Mäntylä, Martin Willis, Jo. Angouri and Maja Petrovska.'