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“Your English Sounds Almost British”: Everyday Linguicism and Racialized Subjectivity of an International Student in Hong Kong

TESOL Quarterly

Published online on

Abstract

["TESOL Quarterly, EarlyView. ", "\nAbstract\nThis article examines how everyday linguicism and racism shape the academic and social experiences of international students in Hong Kong, focusing on the racialized subjectivity of a South Asian graduate student. Although research on international students has mainly focused on Western higher education, little attention has been paid to the lived realities faced by racialized students in multilingual, postcolonial Asian contexts. Through a single in‐depth case study, the analysis shows how mobility repositions students within racialized and linguicized hierarchies: English‐medium classrooms offer academic access yet coexist with campus infrastructures dominated by Cantonese and Mandarin that structurally exclude nonlocal speakers; raciolinguistic ideologies portray South Asian English speakers as perpetually deficient, even when they are proficient; and gendered expectations place representational and reproductive scrutiny on women students. Framed through racialized subjectivity, linguicism, and intersectionality, the study demonstrates that belonging depends not only on language skills but also on navigating discourses and infrastructures that continually mark racialized international students as outsiders. By contextualizing these stories within Hong Kong's colonial legacies and linguistic hierarchies, the article extends research on linguistic racism beyond Western higher education and calls on universities to promote structural inclusion through multilingual communication, recognition of diverse Englishes, and proactive attention to intersectional inequalities.\n"]