Abstract

Along with the ever-increasing internationalisation of higher education in the UK come increasing numbers of Chinese students. Consequently, the adaptation and acculturation experiences of what is frequently termed ‘the Chinese Learner’ is attracting increasing numbers of researchers from such diverse fields as contrastive rhetoric, comparative education, social psychology, cross-cultural studies, and sociopragmatics. While these studies have certainly provided some valuable insights, few among them have attempted to differentiate between the differing Chinese heritage societies of ‘Greater China’: Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. It is from this apparent lacuna in the existing literature that the present study was borne. The aim therefore was to conduct a comparative study of the adaptation and acculturation experiences of a sample of twenty-four ‘Greater Chinese’ higher education students in the UK, divided equally between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese. Qualitative data was collected through individual semi-structured interviews which focused on four main areas: motivation for studying in the UK; experience of adaptation to the educational environment; experience of adapting to living in the UK; perception of differences and similarities between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese.