L2 Academic Discourse Socialization in a US Chinese Language Flagship Program

Focusing on a group of learners enrolled in a master’s Chinese Language Flagship program at a Mid-western university in the US, the current study attempts to reveal the academic discourse practices promoted in the Flagship program and uncover the multiple levels of practices instructors do to socialize the students to become competent members of the target academic community. Informed by the theoretical framework of language socialization (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986), this study adopts an ethnographic design to collect audio and video recordings of class interactions in two graduate seminars, semi-structured interviews with students and instructors, and participant observation field notes. The analysis reveals two important practices, academic oral presentation, and Sòng or group recitation of Classical Chinese phrases , as loci and resources for students’ discourse socialization. While the two courses share a similar instructional sequential structure that entails pre-class scaffolding , performance elicitation , and feedback , they are enacted in different ways and for different purposes. On a micro-level, teachers often initiate shifts between content-focused and language-focused activities to fulfill the program’s goal to promote language and domain proficiency development. The findings suggest that L2 academic discourse socialization is a complex and contextualized process that involves moment-to-moment, dual-or multi-level negotiation of expertise.


Introduction
As English has become the lingua franca of higher education and research in many western contexts since the 1980s, scholars in applied linguistics have taken various theoretical and methodological approaches to studying second language (L2) learners' learning of English academic discourse across various disciplines.In contrast, the potential of other languages for academic purposes, including Chinese, remains under-researched and under-appreciated (Wang, 2019).With China's economic and cultural rise, there has also been a rise in Chinese language study in the past decade.The number of L2 International Journal of Chinese Language Teaching (2022) Xinyue Lu Chinese learners studying in Chinese higher education has steadily increased to nearly half a million as of 2017 (Zou, 2018).In the US, Chinese Language Flagship programs have also provided pathways to professional proficiency in Chinese by preparing and enrolling their students in academic courses at Chinese universities.Until recently, scholars have started to recognize the value of Chinese for academic purposes (CAP).A number of academic Chinese textbooks have been published in fields such as science and technology (e.g., Yu et al., 2014), medicine (Mo, 2012), and philosophy (Zhao, 2009).Recent promising endeavors include the creation of a Chinese academic word list (Liu et al., 2016), academic corpus (Tao, 2018), and genre-based curriculum (Wang, 2019).
Despite the growing interest in CAP, the precise and complex nature of L2 Chinese learners' engagement with Chinese academic discourse remains limited.The field of CAP research has been dominated by the language-focused approach.Many CAP studies attempt to reveal the academic and linguistic knowledge that students must master to meet their academic domains through corpus-based and genre-based research (e.g., Liu & Wang, 2019;Tao et al., 2018).Scholars have examined the uses of hedges (e.g., Chang et al., 2012), metadiscourse (e.g., Li & Chang, 2019), and code glosses (e.g., Hui, 2009) in Chinese academic discourse.Researchers have also noted L2 Chinese students' significant linguistic difficulties in academic programs and what contributes to their linguistic challenges (e.g., Gao & Liu, 2016;Shan, 2008;Peng & Yan, 2019).
Although scholars have identified some of the linguistic features of academic Chinese and the challenges students face in acquiring the Chinese academic discourse, the relative lack of socioculturally situated studies points to a need for more research in this area.As argued by Duff (2010), academic discourse is "not just an entity, but also a social, cognitive, and rhetorical process and accomplishment, a form of enculturation, social practice, positioning, representation, and stance-taking" (p.170).Thus, academic discourse learning involves more than the acquisition of linguistic knowledge, but also the culturally valued ways of being and doing in the target community.Dong and Han (2014) have also called for more CAP studies to move beyond the linguistic objectives to examine the teaching and learning process of academic Chinese.
The present study is an attempt to address this need.Taking the language socialization (LS) theory that foregrounds newcomer's learning as to become full-fledged members of a community through language and to use language (Schefflein & Ochs, 1986), this study explores L2 Chinese learners enrolled in a US Chinese Flagship program, aiming to uncover the practices and dynamics in their participation in the Chinese academic community.In particular, I examine the academic practices valued by the Flagship program in terms of classroom-oriented discourse.In doing so, I use the following term more or less interchangeably: (academic) discourse socialization, language socialization, and (L2) socialization with the abbreviation LS as a cover term (see Duff, 2010).

Theoretical Background
The study is framed along the lines of academic discourse socialization research.Grounded in ethnography, language socialization (LS) focuses on the process of becoming culturally competent members of a community through language use in social activities.LS is primarily concerned with (1) how novices are socialized to use language, and (2) how novices are socialized to becoming competent members of a community through language use (Ochs, 1993;Ochs & Schieffelin, 2008, 2011;Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986).Thus, within the LS framework, language and culture are seen as inseparable, and language is considered to be both the object and medium of socialization.The locus of LS is languagemediated social activities in which novices participate with other members of the community, and through the social interactions, novices are expected to perform shared and expected practices specific to that cultural setting.
Early work on language socialization primarily focuses on how children acquire their first language through interactional routines with their caregivers from cross-cultural and ethnographic perspectives (e.g., Heath 1983;Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986).Their findings demonstrate that children's language development was a socially, linguistically, and culturally mediated process with the acquisition of both sociocultural knowledge and interactional competence.By the end of the 1990s, scholars directed their attention to language socialization in multilingual contexts where learners of a second or third language seek "competence in the languages, and typically, membership and the ability to participate in the practices of communities in which that language is spoken" (Duff, 2011, p. 564).Researchers have applied LS theory to examine L2 language socialization, and many have demonstrated that L2 learners face challenges due to the social and cultural differences between their home and the target language(s) (e.g., Morita, 2000;Zappa-Hollman, 2007).L2 LS researchers have also challenged the expert-novice membership which often posits old-timers as experts of the communities and argued that L2 learners also hold varying degrees of expertise in different dimensions that might mediate their involvement and participation in the target communities (e.g., Burhan, 2020;Morita, 2000).Further, scholars have recognized that socialization is bidirectional, reciprocal, or multidirectional and always temporally, socially, and spatially situated and contingent (Duff & Anderson, 2015;Talmy, 2008).
With the unprecedented demographic growth in foreign post-secondary students studying abroad, a growing body of LS research has paid attention to L2 academic discourse socialization (see reviews in Duff & Anderson, 2015;Morita & Kobayashi, 2008).Academic discourse, including "the forms of oral and written language that are privileged, expected, cultivated, and conventionalized, and therefore, usually evaluated by instructors, institutions, and others in educational and professional contexts" (Duff, 2010, p.175).According to LS theory, learners not only gain knowledge of language and an ability to participate in a new academic discourse community through using language appropriately but also gain non-linguistic knowledge such as ideologies, identities, and other cultural knowledge valued in the target discourse community.From the LS perspective, L2 academic discourse learning does not aim to evaluate teaching or learning by focusing on their verbal behavior in separation from each other; rather, it conceptualizes classrooms as sites where the expert and novice come to negotiate and create multiple, dynamic, and sometimes contradictory knowledge and skills, values and norms.Hence, taking a LS perspective to academic discourse socialization allows for more explicit attention to the interconnections between L2 learning and sociocultural contexts; It also helps to reveal the discursive practices and requirements of the target academic discourse community, as well as the ways students are positioned through the academic discourse.
Among the examined academic discourse practices, oral presentations have received numerous research attention.Morita (2000), for instance, explored oral academic presentations as one of the most Xinyue Lu common academic activities in a graduate TESL program.Through the analysis of the LS process, Morita reveals that oral presentation involves not only content knowledge and cognitive skills but also cultural knowledge of expressing epistemic stance, engaging others, and collaborative constructing knowledge.Both non-native and native English speakers gradually become socialized in oral academic presentations as they prepare for, observe, perform, and review their presentations.Zappa-Hollman (2007) also examined native and non-native students' socialization in academic presentations with a focus on their experiences across disciplines.Close resemblances were identified between the presentations of social science classes (anthropology and comparative history) and between the natural sciences classes (biochemistry and neuroscience).Even non-native students were able to deliver effective presentations, their challenges with academic vocabulary or listening comprehension might undermine some of their expertise of authority during the discussion phase.In out of class contexts, Burhan (2020) looked into L2 learners' socialization in conference presentations.Following a group of international students in an engineering research team preparing for a team conference presentation, Burhan discovered that the LS in the field of engineering is a top-down, expert-guided process, and students were guided to employ multiple modes to construct and present new knowledge.
Another common oral practice that serves as the locus of LS in academic communities is group discussions.For example, Ho (2011) examined the nature of small group discussion in a TESOL program and how it afforded graduate students' socialization into the program's academic discourse.As the most common activities in the program, small-group discussion socialized students into constructing professional identities, developing critical-thinking, and making intertextual connections.Students, including both native and non-native, were able to draw on their unique perspectives and expertise in socializing each other to the discipline-specific discourse.In line with the findings in Ho (2011), Guo and Lin (2016) uncovered that the discourse culture of a TESOL program in Taiwan was also a collaborative one.Through co-construct meaning together, learners socialized each other into the valued culture by enacting personal experience in critical thinking and making connections between theories and self.In the field of engineering, Vickers (2007) also found that students' experiences and backgrounds in subjectmatter knowledge could position them as socialization agents in peer-led LS.However, the enactment of learner agency is a complex process that often involves identity negotiation, especially for L2 students.As Morita (2004) discovered, while some international students were more willing to exercise their personal agency in a Canadian classroom, some preferred to remain at the periphery as a way to maintain their home culture.
Scholars have also examined the LS into academic writing practices, which provide valuable insights into how students are prepared and positioned as writers through classroom discourses and resources outside of the classroom (e.g., writing center).Feedback practice was found to be a prominent means by which students learn to negotiate their learning of the academic register.In a study of five Japanese students' writing practices in a Canadian university, Séror (2019) found that L2 students were often positioned as less competent writers through instructors' negative feedback.Although both instructors and students recognized the importance of the feedback practice in learning academic writing, in reality, the feedback given hardly meets the expectations on both sides.Students often felt being marginalized and positioned as "deficient" or "error-makers," as opposed to positive positionalities, such as "emerging scholars," which impeded their participation in their academic communities.Nam and Beckett's (2011) case study focused on students' LS into the written discourse through engagements with various writing resources.In the examination of the students' access to academic writing resources, the researchers found that the available resources, such as the writing center, were too general for students' discipline-specific writing needs; however, the discipline-specific resources failed to meet their L2 needs.The findings suggest that the struggle of developing both language and discipline competencies is a common issue in L2 students' academic socialization.
Most recently, scholars have shifted their gaze to out-of-class contexts to gain a broader understanding of LS through students' engagement with various social networks.Andrew (2011) investigated L2 learners' community placement experiences in an English academic language program.Through examining the reflective journal writing, the researcher argued that community placements opened learners to the situated identities and ways of beings.Through exposure to the authentic cultural and linguistic context, students developed their cultural and communicative competence.Seloni (2012) undertook a microethnography of first-year doctoral students attending a US university and found that non-academic spaces interactions, such as support group meetings, also serve as important practices in academic socialization.By giving and providing each other academic and affective support, L2 students sought to understand the dynamics of their new academic community as well as the new dynamics of the reading, writing, and speaking practices (Seloni, 2012).
Studies of L2 academic discourse socialization have exemplified that LS occurs across a variety of modes and physical spaces.These studies also highlight the social and dynamic nature of LS, suggesting that LS is a contingent process that is shaped by multiple factors (e.g., linguistic backgrounds, subjectmatter knowledge), and deliberate choices.So far, most studies have investigated students' LS into single academic activities (e.g., oral presentation, group discussion, academic writing).Moreover, the majority of studies were conducted in North American contexts where students are socialized into English academic discourses; research on LS into academic discourse of other languages has received far less attention (Duff, 2010).Thus, exploring the case of academic discourse socialization of L2 Chinese students in a Chinese Flagship program can provide insights into the types of practices favored in Chinese academic discourse and bring a unique perspective to the process and practice of academic discourse socialization in L2 scholarships.

Method
This paper was grounded in a larger project that aims to understand the LS of L2 Chinese students in a Chinese Flagship program through various academic discourse practices.Taking an ethnographic approach, I followed the participants in two graduate seminars during the 2020 spring and summer semesters.The research questions addressed in this paper are: 1. What are the academic discourse practices that graduate students are expected to learn in order to become competent members of the target academic community?With the permission of the program director and course instructors, I was able to observe two core courses, Domain 767 and Chinese 567, and sat in many program events such as thesis defense, holiday celebration, and participated as a mentor in students' peer group meetings.The focal participants in this research include three American students (Shi, Jiang, and Zou) with diverse domain interests and the two instructors of the observed courses.At the time of the investigation, all student participants were in their second quarter of study as master's students.More information about the participants is included in the appendix (see Appendix B).The instructors, Lee and Ning, have taught those two courses for several years.The two courses are required core courses for the department's Master of Arts programs.Domain 767 is a domain-based research and methodology development course instructed by Ning Laoshi.This course was designed to prepare students to establish their knowledge in their selected fields (domains).Students take turns to present their research topics on a weekly basis with the guidance of Ning Laoshi.Chinese 567, instructed by Lee Laoshi, was designed to familiarize students with Classical Chinese and Chinese idioms and how they are being used in modern Chinese discourse.This course is structured mainly as a graduate seminar in which students are expected to discuss topics related to Classical Chinese.Each course met twice a week for 2.5 hours.Although Ning Laoshi and Lee Laoshi each were responsible for one course, they often sat in each other's class to serve as an additional assistant.

Data collection
Data were collected during a 7-month period through multiple data methods (Appendix C): (1) classroom observations of 18 lessons, (2) video/audio recordings of classroom interactions (about 47 hours), (3) formal and informal interviews with students and instructors (about 39 hours), and (4) collection of relevant documents such as course syllabus and teaching materials.During the data collection, I observed the two courses periodically, conducted interviews with the students and professors, and attended core academic events where the participants were also required to present.At the time of the study, I was a Ph.D. student in foreign language education and a tutor of the Chinese conversation club at the same institution.I managed to establish strong relationships with the participants by attending their classes, interacting with them outside of the classroom, and discussing their interests during club meetings.As a researcher, my role oscillated between a participant observer and a distant observer depending on the context in which the participants were interacting.I was a distant observer during the initial stage of my class observation and in larger department events where my focal participants were not at the center of the events.As I established relationships with the participants, I was invited to contribute to the class discussion by the instructors, who viewed me as an additional resource for their class.My role as a participant-observer became more crucial outside of the class interactions.Because of my formal experience as a Chinese instructor and the fact that I was not affiliated with the Chinese Flagship program, the participants tended to view me as a friend, a resource, and an expert whom they would be willing to show frustrations and sought out suggestions.

Data analysis
In order to obtain an ethnographic understanding of the patterned ways of doing in the Flagship program, interview data were first transcribed and interpreted through thematic analysis with program documents to achieve overall familiarity with the program's academic culture and goals.I then focused on identifying academic discourse practices through video and audio playbacks.By academic discourse, I specifically refer to the oral and written practices that individuals draw upon in social activities (e.g., writing a seminar paper, leading class discussions) that are constitutive of the target academic community.This definition hinges on the notion of practice; here, I largely rely on Goodnow et al.'s (1995) conceptualization of practices as "meaningful actions that occur routinely in everyday life, are widely share by members of the group, and carry with them normative expectations about how things should be done" (p.1).After identifying the major practices, I created and closely analyzed a series of transcripts of classroom videotaped interactions (see Appendix D for transcription keys).Tracing each identified practice across time and space, I then coded the emerging cultural ideologies and themes underlined the practices.Through viewing and reviewing the recordings and the transcriptions, I selected critical events that were most revealing and representative in the video data and translated them into English.Member check was conducted with participants in order to ensure the accuracy of the translations.Based on the revealing segments, I made various interpretations and decided to add more details (e.g., screenshots of the slideshow) to complement my analysis.In addition, I also conducted a comparative analysis between Chinese 567 and Domain 767, including syllabus, teacher interviews, and interactional data, which helped me understand the multiple levels of socialization practices adopted in the program.

Academic culture of the Chinese Flagship Program
As an advanced language program situated in the university's department of East Asian Languages and Literature, the Chinese Flagship program has a provision to develop both language proficiency and domain proficiency.As stated in its program mission, the program serves to "... establish a replicable institution that produces professionals with a superior level of Chinese proficiency and professional relationships in the target culture.Upon completion of this program, students will not only have advanced traditional language skills but also have the ability to make professional decisions appropriate for both their native culture and the target culture" (Midwest US-China Flagship Program).
The language proficiency expectation aligns with the ACTFL's proficiency guideline (2012), which defines superior level speakers as being able to participate fully and effectively in formal and informal settings on various topics from both concrete and abstract perspectives.Accuracy and fluency are also desired in such communication.Domain proficiency, on the other hand, emphasizes students' ability to use Chinese in an academic discipline or career area.Students enrolled in the program are expected to take up individual domain exploration, identifying their interest, and finding out how that interest is expressed in Chinese language and culture.As the program director explained, "we want our students to leave our program with the ability to pursue their personal interests and goals, and deal in Chinese with what they think is important in their lives" (personal communication, July 6, 2020).
In addition, intercultural competence is also highly valued.The Flagship program is known for its performed culture approach, which promotes contextualized language use and performance.One important construct of the performed culture approach is to develop a second-culture worldview (Walker & Noda, 2000), or "a third culture space," as Lee Laoshi puts it (personal communication, July 6, 2020), so that learners can become aware of the social contexts in the target language and "perform" accordingly in the target culture.
While the performed culture approach values intercultural understanding and interpersonal communication skills at its core, the overt emphasis on "performance" sometimes leads to superficial Xinyue Lu understandings of such expectations.For example, one student perceived the primary goal of the program was to prepare students to "represent the program" as "highly proficient Chinese speakers" during crosscultural communication (Personal communication, May 28, 2020).Such perceptions mirrored Lee Laoshi's analogy of students as "actors who can perform flawlessly on the stage after years of training" (personal communication, July 6, 2020), which seemed to underscore the importance of the development of understanding and competence.Despite the disaccorded perceptions students and instructors hold toward the program expectations, all the courses were designed with the idea that language learning involves developing students' capability of performing in the target culture.
Associated with the promoted performed culture approach, the ability of 习 Xí is also considered crucial.The concept of Xí, originated from Analects, represents the Confucius pedagogy of learning and practice.The ability of Xí entails "practice, try out" and the enjoyment of learning as reflected through Confucius's words, "To learn and at the right time to put into practice what you have learned, is this, not a pleasure?"(Walker, 2010).Students are expected to develop the autonomy of learning outside of the class and are encouraged to "put into practice" what they have learned in class while enjoying such a learning process (Lee, personal communication, July 6, 2020).
Another set of values, which is often discussed as inherent in the graduate level of study, is research and analytical skills.As a masters-level program, Flagship students are expected to write and defend a domain-related research thesis in Chinese.They are expected to develop high autonomy in searching for their interest and learn how to analyze and solve research problems, including "locating the literature, synthesizing the information, adjusting the methodology, and tailoring the presentation to meet the audiences' expectations" (Lee, personal communication, July 6, 2020).The academic culture described so far is closely related to the promoted academic discourse practices within the Flagship program, which I examine in detail in the next section.

Oral academic presentation
An oral academic presentation was a practice promoted in both observed classes.In Domain 767 and Chinese 567, the student presenters' basic task was to report on a self-selected topic and lead a short question and answer (Q&A) session.The practice of oral presentation was valued and promoted because the instructors believed that it would allow the students to engage with the instructors and peers as practice before their foray into the actual thesis defense and similar real-world situations after graduation.Besides, giving an oral presentation also served the purpose to promote analytical and critical reading and thinking skills on the part of the presenter.Lee Laoshi stated, "We do not teach the four language skills (i.e., speaking, listening, reading, and writing) separately at the advanced level.We ask students to do oral presentations in every class.The presentation is more like an oral report.In preparation for the presentation, students need to read a lot of academic articles and practice how to convey the ideas, both in oral and written forms, to an audience with little knowledge of the domain" (personal communication, July 6, 2020).
As Lee Laoshi explained, the ability to convey information to the non-expert is an important transferable skill in students' future careers.In addition, the oral presentation also afforded the learners an opportunity to narrow down their research interests and develop professional expertise in diverse domains.Students were given considerable freedom in the selection of topics.As such, oral presentations served multiple objectives and reflected some of the academic values promoted in the Flagship program.
Although the frequency and objectives of the oral presentation differed from one another in the two courses, they shared a similar format that resembles a typical oral defense practice in the Flagship program (see Table 1).In Domain 767, students were requested to give an oral presentation on a weekly basis.However, in Chinese 567 and other Flagship core courses, students were typically only requested to give a final oral presentation on their term paper.Despite the differences, in both courses, presenters assumed that the audience had little or no knowledge of their topic, and they were expected to hold the floor until they finished the report stage.Such characteristics represented an aspect of academic apprenticeship in that they were intended to serve as practice for "real world" academic or professional presentations.The character of the oral presentation as a practice for discourse socialization was expressed through the presenter's delivery of the speech, communication of epistemic stance, and construction of presentation as a multimodal practice.

Delivery of the Speech
One important aspect of the discourse socialization of oral presentation was the delivery of clear, confident, and error-free speech.In the Flagship program, an oral presentation was intended to be a "performance" that presenters were expected to demonstrate their public speaking skills.The desired public speech skills included vocal clarity and making eye contact with the audience.Vocal clarity was usually associated with the use of correct tones and error-free expressions.Chinese is a tonal language with five tonal values, and tonal information is crucial for Chinese speakers to comprehend spoken Chinese.A change in tones can alter the meaning of the syllable.For example,汉语 hànyǔ means Chinese, but 韩语hányǔ means Korean.Because of this particular feature of spoken Chinese, students were constantly reminded by the instructor to articulate accurate tonal pronunciations.In the following excerpt, both Lee Laoshi and Ning Laoshi addressed the importance of vocal clarity after Shi's presentation.In this example, Lee Laoshi first praised the overall performance of Shi's presentation, then drew her attention to the pronunciation of hànyǔ by asking her to repeat it one more time (turn 1).After hearing Shi's mispronunciation of hànyǔ into hányǔ in turn 2, Lee Laoshi explicitly pointed out that the mispronunciation led to potential confusion and provided the correct tone in his feedback.In turn 5, Ning Laoshi joined the conversation and pointed to another speech error that Shi had in her expression.By putting stresses on the misused word "support" and the correct word "lead to," Ning Laoshi again emphasized the accuracy of the speech performance.Another aspect of speech delivery was making eye contact with the audience.Instructors often told the students that they should make eye contact with their audience while presenting because avoiding eye contact makes one look nervous and unprepared, and often prevents them from getting their points across.One student recalled during the group interview, "My teacher said that I always kept my head down when I was delivering the presentation.I need to avoid doing that again and stare at the audience instead" (personal communication, January 6, 2020).However, students also expressed that being unable to read scripts or notes in the PowerPoint slides was particularly challenging for their accuracy.The extensive feedback they received on grammatical and pronunciation errors sometimes demotivated them to take risks to take their eye focus away from the screen.

Communication of epistemic stance
Student presenters had primary control over the class time and were expected to demonstrate a good understanding and analytic skills to the general audience, including their opinions, attitudes, and beliefs in relation to the topic they presented; that is, they communicated their epistemic stance (Ohta, 1991) to the audience.In the Flagship program, the communication of epistemic stance was realized through the use of epistemic markers (e.g., hedges) and the manifestation of a relative expert position during interactions.The realization of the epistemic stance through epistemic markers is often considered an important aspect of language socialization because novices must learn to display their knowledge (or lack of it) in a way that makes evident their competence as members of a community (Ochs, 1993).Through the use of epistemic makers, Flagship students were able to establish their stances (e.g., to express their doubt or certainty) and convey a variety of subjective meanings (e.g., confidence, identity) to the audience.
Because Flagship students did not share common interests, they were typically the most knowledgeable person in the classroom about their topics.Thus, they were often perceived to be a good source of knowledge and were constituted as a relative expert in oral presentations.Students often demonstrated their relative expertise by making accessible the domain-specific content through examples and personal experiences.Their stances were also manifested through the actions of defending their ideas and addressing any questions that arose during the Q&A stage.In the excerpt below, Jiang presented on the topic of the phenomenon of Chinese webcomics, in which she mentioned SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) as an analytical tool for her research.In this excerpt, a student questioned her use of the SWOT method.Jiang responded to the question and defended her decision to use it for her own research.In this example, the audience first asked Jiang to clarify where the SWOT would be applied (turn 1).In response, Jiang stated that she planned to use this method to analyze comics (turn 2).Then, the audience questioned the response by directing the objective of analysis from comics to comic businesses.Although the audience questioned the use of SWOT in her design and provided another scenario where SWOT can be used (i.e., human resources), Jiang established her credibility as a relative expert by providing a clear objective of which she planned to apply the SWOT technique (turn 4) and establishing her beliefs that the technique can be used beyond the business field (turn 6).Even though presenters usually took up relative expert stances (with various degrees) during a presentation, such stances were not static.For example, in the following excerpt, even though Zou demonstrated himself as a knowledgeable source of the topic by successfully addressing the question raised in line 1, his relative expert stance changed when Ning Laoshi interjected the conversation.From turn 1 to 6, Zou positioned himself as a relative expert by linking the rise of rock music in Chengdu to the city's geographic location in response to the audience question.Ning Laoshi, joining the discussion (turn 7), demonstrated her expertise in the topic by providing geographical information of Chengdu and how that contributed to its advantages in developing rock music.Consequently, Ning Laoshi took the expert stance from Zou by providing suggestions on Zou's use of the map in his PowerPoint slide.

Multimodal aspects of the presentation
Another salient aspect of the discourse socialization in the oral presentation practice was understanding the use of multiple modalities during an oral presentation.In addition to the speech delivery features (i.e., vocal clarity and eye contact) discussed before, a successful presentation also entails the use of appropriate, efficient, and aesthetic images, diagrams, and charts in the presentation slides.Although the instructors did not state explicitly that this was part of the evaluation, many students tried to make their slides pretty, engaging, or memorable.Students often used visual design functions in PowerPoint and employed images, diagrams, and charts to support their presentation.The effective use of visual support was also perceived by instructors as a good demonstration of students' analytical skills.For example, in the aforementioned excerpt (Excerpt 3), Zou used a map in his slideshow to demonstrate the geographic location of Chengdu.Ning Laoshi suggested that by adding geomorphological features, the map itself could be self-explanatory to explain the rise of rock music there.
The multimodal feature of the presentations also involved the aesthetics of the slide show.Despite the common slide features, such as the color scheme, type of fonts, and the appropriateness of pictures inserted, the textual organization was considered as an important aesthetic aspect by the Flagship instructors.For example, the following excerpt from Ning Laoshi's feedback to Shi's presentation on cross-border marriage in southwestern China illustrates the aesthetics of slide in relation to character organization.
In her feedback to Shi, Ning Laoshi explicitly commented on the aesthetic perspective of the slideshow was to maintain consistency and balance in its textual organization.By pointing out that organizing all phrases by two characters in a row looks "much better," Ning Laoshi socialized students into thinking about how the textual organization is associated with the aesthetics in the Chinese discourse community.Because Chinese aesthetics value balance in asymmetry (i.e., Yin and Yang), such values were manifested here through the balanced characters in each row as more desirable and pleasing.Excerpt 4 Ning …... from the aesthetic perspective, " 儿童教育 , 经济发展 , 年轻优 势 "were all organized by two characters in a row, so the first one, " 生 活质量 " should also be formatted in that way.If you organize them two characters in a row, it will look much better.

The practice of 诵 Sòng
Another valued practice identified from the Flagship program was the practice of 诵 Sòng.Sòng is a common literacy practice in Chinese language education that is used to develop proficiency and understanding in Classical Chinese (also known as literacy Chinese) through recitation.The Sòng practice in the Flagship program entails group recitation or reading-aloud of Classical Chinese pieces (e.g., Analects, Tao Te Ching) and Chinese idioms, followed by teacher-led interpretation activities such as lectures or material-centered discussions.
According to Lee Laoshi, the primary goal of Sòng was to help students to familiarize the uses of Classical Chinese and conventional expressions (e.g., idioms) in modern Chinese and establish an understanding of the Chinese persuasive strategies (personal communication, July 6, 2020).The materials used for recitation include Classical Chinese literature Analects, Tao Te Ching, and The Art of War, and common Chinese idioms.In addition, students were required to watch modern Chinese materials that discuss the use of Classical Chinese in modern contexts.
The Classical Chinese pieces selected for Sòng in Chinese 567 were often loaded with moral and ethical values lessons and emphasized that being a moral/ethical person is an essential trait for speakers and rulers.Those pieces also have epistemological attention.For example, both Confucius and Laozi were concerned with knowing the world through a dynamic interplay of symbols and symbolic performances.The dialectical way of thinking, also known as Yin and Yang, was also advocated through Tao Te Ching, which promoted the non-attachment of language in speech and aiming to bring opposite elements into a harmonious whole.
Chinese idioms, especially Chengyu (four-character idioms), was another important objective of Sòng.Chengyu, which literally means "composed fixed-language," is a unique type of conventional Chinese expression that originated in Chinese historical records and literacy.For example, 焉知非福 yān zhī fēi fú was an idiom introduced in Chinese 567 that originated from a classical piece Huai Nan Zi.This idiom tells the story of an old man who lost his horse only to find it months later, accompanied by another stallion.This story is now used to indicate that when bad things happen, fortuitous events are forthcoming.Xinyue Lu Although the Sòng practice in Chinese educational traditions is often associated with moral and ethical disciplines, the Sòng practice in the Flagship program does not heavily emphasize the learning of traditional Chinese values; rather, it concerns the use of Classical Chinese and idioms as part of the commonsense knowledge among native speakers of Chinese in modern society.Moreover, the use of Classical Chinese phrases and idioms is also associated with formal and academic discourses in modern Chinese.These special phrases are common in Chinese formal written discourse, such as scholarly essays and news articles, and observed in a wide range of formal spoken genres, including academic lectures, TV reports, and so on.As Lee Laoshi said, "If our graduate students do not understand those idioms and do not know how to use them, their oral and written expressions are not still broken (not good enough)" (personal communication, July 6, 2020).Thus, the practice of Sòng represents an aspect of the Chinese discourse in realistic academic and professional contexts in which understandings and proficiencies of Classical Chinese and idioms are desirable skills.Through the Sòng practice, students were socialized into the value of concise language use and the ideology of idiomatic expression as a "high culture" in Chinese academic discourse.

Less is more
One salient feature of discourse socialization in the practice of Sòng was that ideas should always be presented in a concise and economical way to the audience or interlocutors; that is, less is more.The Chinese language highly values efficient and economic expressions in both spoken and written discourse.The value of effectiveness is particularly notable in Chinese people's favor of using four-character idioms in formal speech because these idioms are often extracted from traditional conventions and are in accord with traditional aesthetics of the balanced structure and concise wording.On the other hand, because the Chinese language strives for conciseness, Chinese expression is sometimes "vague" and "metaphorical," as some components are intentionally spared from the discourse.In the following excerpts, Lee Laoshi explicitly discussed the concise feature of Chinese discourse and how that has contributed to the differences between English and Chinese academic writing.

Lee
One of the most prominent characteristics of Chinese discourse is 意在言外 yì zài yán wài (much more is meant than said; implied meaning) and 点到为止 diǎn dào wéi zhǐ (to make a point without going into details).Chinese people consider the function of language as cues.They don't appreciate using language to fully present your ideas… You should bear this in mind because if you cannot understand this, your Chinese can't improve further anymore.

Excerpt 6
Lee …why is writing in Chinese different from English?If you write in English, you, as the writer, have to make sure that your ideas are clearly communicated to the reader.This is called writer responsible writing.However, Chinese favors READER responsible writing, which means readers are responsible for making sense out of the writers' ideas.Thus, you should learn to understand the implied meanings behind Chinese discourse.
In the first excerpt, Lee Laoshi drew on two idioms 意在言外 yì zài yán wài and 点到为止 diǎn dào wéi zhǐ to describe the concise feature of Chinese discourse, both of which suggested the value of less is more.By the two idioms, Lee Laoshi suggested to the students that as a speaker/writer of Chinese, one should strive to use the fewest numbers of words in its expression and hide the implications between the lines.Accordingly, when listening or reading in Chinese, one must understand what someone implies through language.Lee Laoshi believed an understanding of less is more was essential to advance Chinese learning.In the second excerpt, Lee Laoshi provided an example of how such values were enacted in Chinese academic writing by introducing students to the concepts of "reader responsible" and "writer responsible" writing.Stating that Chinese favors reader-responsible over writer-responsible writing, Lee Laoshi pointed to the need for students to understand the implied meanings behind Chinese discourse in order to become a competent member of the discourse community.

Language ideology of idiomatic expressions
While students were socialized into valuing the concise language use through the practice of Sòng, they were also socialized into the language ideologies pertaining to the use of idiomatic expressions in Chinese academic discourse.Unlike in English academic discourse, where slang and idioms are rarely appreciated, the use of idioms in Chinese academic discourse is often associated with "cultured" and "intelligence" (Lee, personal communication, July 6, 2020).Fluent use of idioms and Classical Chinese phrases in discourse displays one's competence in Chinese culture and literacy, thus being highly desirable in formal occasions.The use of idiomatic expressions is also perceived as a way to display intelligence and is often used by politicians, entrepreneurs, or scholars to reinforce their social status and social identities.
In the Flagship program, great emphasis was put on developing students' ability to use idioms and cultural references in discourse properly.In the following excerpt, Lee Laoshi provided an example of proper employment of quotations from classics in conversation with Chinese people.

Lee
…… If you talk about education with a Chinese people, and you can fluently recite Confucius' words, " 学而时习之，不亦说乎 xué ér shí xí zhī, bú yì yuè hū " (to learn and at the right time to put into practice what you have learned, is this, not a pleasure?),your interlocutor would be IMPRESSED by your knowledge.This is our goal, using elegant language to communicate with Chinese people.
In this imagined conversation with a Chinese speaker, the use of Confucius' words in a topic about education was viewed as an attribute of what was expected for a knowledgeable speaker in Chinese ideology.By describing the interlocutor's reaction as "impressive" and the classic works as "elegant," Lee Laoshi esteemed the ability to cite from classics or ancient works, encouraging students to develop competence in the proper use of idiomatic expressions.

Multi-level of socialization at the flagship program
The previous section presents two valued academic practices, oral presentation and Sòng, which involve not only the learning of content knowledge but also social and cultural knowledge (e.g., stances, values, and ideologies) promoted in the academic Chinese discourse community.In this section, I describe how the program is organized to promote students' socialization into the aforementioned practices at the level of curriculum design and classroom interactions.

Curriculum design: A three-stage instructional structure
As discussed in the context section, the program was designed under the philosophy of the performed culture pedagogy, which strives to engage students in "contextualized performance" and "autonomy learning."Upon this approach, many courses were organized in a similar sequential structure that entails three stages: pre-class scaffolding, performance elicitation, and feedback.With the pre-class Xinyue Lu scaffolding that happens prior to the class, performance elicitation and feedback predominantly happen during class time, although feedback for student's written assignments might also occur after class in a delayed manner.This instructional structure requires students to self-study materials prior to the class and be ready to demonstrate their knowledge in class through multiple forms of performance.Immediate feedback comes after each performance, as the instructors believe that students "learn better by making mistakes" (Ning, personal communication, July 30, 2020).Although the two courses observed both took a similar three-stage instructional structure to socialize students into the valued practices, the three stages were enacted in different ways (see Table 2).Domain 767 was the primary site to socialize students into the oral presentation practice.The pre-class scaffolding in this course took the form of one-on-one tutoring between the instructor and individual students.During one-on-one sessions, Ning Laoshi helped students to identify topics, search for relevant scholarly articles, and list out key points for their next presentations.In Ning Laoshi's words, her job was to scaffold the students to "set up a direction and frame a structure" (personal communication, July 20, 2020).Based on the consensus reached during a one-on-one conference, students were expected to prepare PowerPoints and practice their presentations.Class time was intentionally allocated for students to display communicative competence and domain knowledge through individual presentations (performance).Students took turns presenting on a topic for approximately 20 minutes, immediately followed by a short Q&A.The feedback practice was often embedded within the Q&A during which Ning Laoshi and other instructors explicitly evaluated students' performances and provided feedback to signal their expectations.The following excerpt demonstrates how explicit feedback was communicated during the Q&A of Zou's presentation on a famous Chinese rock star Tang.At first, Lee Laoshi praised Zou's strong narrative skills.Then he identified the areas for improvements, pointing out that the presenter's lack of a conclusion had contributed to the analytical underperformance in his presentation.After that, Lee Laoshi shifted from talking directly to Zou about his presentation to include the rest of the audience by pointing out that Zou's problem was one commonly shared by students who had previously presented, emphasizing their overall need to make stronger arguments.In doing so, Lee Laoshi signaled to the presenter and other students what the expectation was in presenting their research.Zou responded with an acknowledgment of Lee Laoshi's feedback through nodding in turn 2. After that, the conversation shifted back to a regular Q&A with a question initiated by Lee Laoshi centering on Tang, the subject of the presentation.The shift between explicit feedback and Q&A was a pattern often observed in Domain 767, which served as an important practice to socialize students into the desired oral presentation practice.
On the other hand, the three stages in Chinese 567 were realized in different manners.Chinese 567 served the main purpose to socialize students into the Sòng practice.As the instructor, Lee Laoshi utilized self-study handouts/videos as pre-class scaffolding materials.The handouts/videos contained groups of Classical Chinese phrases or idioms, along with their etymologies and detailed explanations of linguistic items in modern Chinese (see Appendix E for an example).With the assistance of the handouts, students were expected to comprehend and memorize the materials before class.During class time, Lee Laoshi asked questions to elicit students' performance in the forms of group recitation, read-aloud, or opinion-sharing.The performance was usually followed by immediate feedback on pronunciation, fluency, or comprehension and often accompanied by in-depth explanations of the recited phrases.The performance and feedback stages were mostly achieved through the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) sequence (Wells, 1993), in which the instructor held primary control of the conversation.The instructor would take responsibility in prompting students' performances through responses and provide feedback for evaluation or ongoing participation.As evident in the following example, Lee Laoshi initiated an IRF which involved the performance of Sòng of a Classical Chinese phrase and provided feedback to promote students' ongoing participation.In this example, Lee Laoshi first initiated a request for a group recitation through the cues "recite that phrase" of "Yin and Yang" and "beauty and ugliness."Students responded by reciting the phrase together.Immediate feedback was provided for the students' group recitation performance.Lee Laoshi first acknowledged that the response was correct to his prompt through "very good," then evaluated the performance in terms of fluency and indicated that the students were not fluent enough.The explicit evaluation did not conclude the sequence; another sequence was built into the same turn.Through the use of "Again," Lee Laoshi scaffolded students into ongoing participation in the Sòng practice and made explicit to the students that the expected performance of Sòng requires more than memorization, but also fluency.Xinyue Lu

Organization of classroom talks: Shifts between content-focused and language-focused activities
Another pattern that emerged from instructor-student interactions was the frequent shifts between content-focused activities (e.g., material-centered discussion, presentation) and language-focused activities, such as grammar and pronunciation feedback and practice.This pattern was observable in both courses and often initiated by the instructors following their discovery of students' mistakes.Domain 767, as a research experience course, closely replicates the frame of a typical thesis defense event or real-world academic presentation.The content of Domain 767 was centered on the different research topics students brought into the class mediated through the oral presentation practice.Chinese 567 was designed under the frame of a common graduate seminar, in which Classical Chinese was its core theme.The practice of Sòng served the purpose to socialize students into the modern use of Classical Chinese and its related values and ideologies.While the two core practices mainly served content purposes in different formats, both instructors similarly organized their classroom talks.They frequently shifted between content-specific activities and language-focused activities to help students develop language proficiency along with their domain proficiency.The following excerpt, as an extension of the previous example (Excerpt 9), demonstrates how Lee Laoshi shifted the conversation from a contentcentric Sòng practice into a language-centric discussion of the pronunciations of 为 (wéi/wèi).
Excerpt 10 1 Lee I heard TWO pronunciations of 为 (wéi/wèi As soon as Lee Laoshi captured the students' pronunciation mistake during a group recitation from turn 1, he posed a question that shifted the original content-centric Sòng practice into a language-centric discussion on the pronunciation and function of the mispronounced word 为 (wéi/wèi).The word 为 is a polyphone in Chinese.With a change in its tone, the meaning (as well as word class) also changes accordingly.From turn 3 to 5, two students shared their opinion on which pronunciation should be adopted according to the meaning it served in the sentence.As Jiang believed it meant "for" and thereby should be pronounced as wèi, Zou argued that wéi, which means "to become," represented the accurate meaning of the phrase.In turn 7, Lee Laoshi brought the discussion to an end by drawing students' attention to the grammatical function of zhi within the same phrase and thereby deciding the word class of 为 and the correct pronunciation associated with it.Concluding this language-focused discussion with a firm answer that wéi was the correct pronunciation, Lee Laoshi then shifted the class back to its original track of content-centric discussion on the handout to the end of turn 7.As shown in this example, the shifts of classroom discussions from content-focused activities to language-focused activities were often triggered by student mistakes, such as mispronunciations, grammatical mistakes, and typos.These shifts were often realized through the change of practice frames and topics, for example, changing from a Q&A frame of a presented topic on webcomics into an IRF sequence of pronunciation repair practice.The shifts were also marked with a change of registers, with the language-centric talks often loaded with metalinguistic terminologies such as "verb, noun, subject and predicate" as used in the example shown above.While the shift to language-centric practices was predominantly initiated by the instructor, the shift back to content-centric activities could also be initiated by a student, especially in Domain 767, where students were expected to take on the epistemic stance in defending themselves during the Q&A stage.

Discussion
This study endeavors to yield a better understanding of the academic discourse socialization of L2 Chinese students in a US Flagship program.Taking a language socialization perspective, I explored the larger sociocultural context of learning in the Flagship program and identified two promoted academic practices, oral presentation and Sòng, both reflected important local values and expectations and served as loci and resources for students' discourse socialization.As students were socialized into oral presentations, they were socialized into particular speech delivery manners, communication of epistemic stance, and construction of presentation as a multimodal practice.Practicing Sòng, or group recitation of Classical Chinese or idioms, socialized students into valuing concise language use and idiomatic expressions as intelligence display in Chinese academic discourse.Aligning with many previous language socialization studies, the findings suggest that L2 academic discourse socialization in the Flagship program is a complex process that involves more than the learning of the target language but also the sociocultural knowledge associated with the practices.The process of acquiring academic language is embedded in and constitutive of the process of becoming socialized to be a competent member of a discourse community.As students were practicing oral presentation and Sòng, they were inducted into understandings of rules and specific behaviors valued in the local academic context.Thus, the learning of academic discourse must be understood as a contextualized, cultural-sensitive process.
Although many previous LS studies have documented students' socialization into oral academic presentations in higher education contexts, these presentations were mostly delivered in collaborative groups in classrooms (e.g., Kobayashi, 2016;Zappa-Hollman, 2007) and typically resulted in final presentations and term papers, which do not hold real-world consequences.These presentations were often consisted of largely bottom-up opportunities for meaning-negotiations from peers and instructors and served as forms of academic apprenticeship into discipline-specific skills and practices (e.g., Guo & Lin, 2016;Ho, 2011;Morita, 2000;Zappa-Hollman, 2007).In contrast, the Flagship students were preparing individual research presentations for more realistic goals such as thesis defense and professional reports.Because students shared divergent interests that ranged from engineering to sociology, the goal of the oral presentation was to socialize students into general academic discourse skills rather than discipline-specific practices.The frame of the oral presentation in the Flagship program closely replicates the form of public speaking, which prioritizes individual performance of speech delivery and display of expertise.This is also different from previous studies conducted in L2 English academic communities, where oral presentations were often constructed as a collaborative learning practice that involves active engagement with the audience during a presentation (e.g., Burhan, 2020;Guo & Lin, 2016;Morita, 2000).In addition, the oral presentations in the Flagship program demonstrate cultural and language-specific expectations that are distinct from the English context.As a feature of Xinyue Lu speech delivery, vocal clarity in academic Chinese is often associated with accurate tone pronunciations.The visual effects of the PowerPoint design also reflect Chinese aesthetics of balance and asymmetry as manifested through the textual-level organization of characters.
The practice of Sòng has been previously discussed in Chinese heritage language socialization in which it serves the purpose of socializing children into Confucius ideologies such as respect the elder and value of education (e.g., Jia, 2006).The objectives of Sòng, Classical Chinese and Chinese idioms, have also been discussed as formal speech registers in advanced spoken Chinese (e.g., Zhang, 2016).This study reveals another important function of Sòng in Chinese academic discourse that has rarely been discussed in the CAP literature.Through an examination of the characteristics of the Sòng practice in the Flagship program, I found that the Sòng practice mainly served as a medium to socialize students into the ideologies of thinking how Classical Chinese and idioms are viewed and used in modern Chinese academic contexts.While there was less emphasis put on the moral/ethic socialization as heritage language education does, the Flagship students gradually came to understand and value the use of concise language and idiomatic expressions as valued ways of displaying knowledge and expertise in Chinese academic discourse.
This study also reveals the multiple levels of socialization practices at the Flagship program, which contributes to our understanding of how apprenticeship operates in a Chinese academic discourse community.More specifically, the two observed courses both enacted a similar three-stage instructional sequence to socialize the students into the promoted discourse practices via experts' prior class scaffolding and explicit feedback following student performance of the practices.The findings suggest that the academic discourse socialization at the Flagship program includes both top-down guidance on how to prepare for a performance and bottom-up opportunities where students try to figure out their academic practices in a trial-and-error manner.This is consistent with many previous studies on academic discourse socialization in which students learn from teacher modeling, performing, and reviewing the academic practices (e.g., Kobayashi, 2016;Morita, 2000).At the interactional level, instructors often initiated shifts between content-focused activities and language-focused activities to maintain the program's goal of developing both language and domain proficiencies.Although the instructors put in much effort to assist students in their domain exploration, they also found it nearly impossible to provide adequate guidance for student's different domain-specific needs.Therefore, students were expected to count on themselves for their domain studies, while the instructors served as an assistant for language development.The findings demonstrate a common struggle faced in many language Flagship programs and CAP studies.As language flagship programs emerged in response to the need to prepare students for professional competence in a world language, many programs focus only on achieving high language proficiency while ignoring the students' need to acquire discipline-specific knowledge and skills (Murphy & Evans-Romaine, 2016).Similarly, CAP programs often adopt the general language proficiency test HSK to prepare students for academic studies in Chinese institutions.However, the content relevance of HSK in a particular academic context is under scrutiny (Peng & Yan, 2019).These findings suggest the need to develop more specialized CAP curriculums, pedagogies, and assessments in which students can learn language side by side with discipline-specific content.
The tension between the development of language proficiency and domain proficiency also led to the complex and dynamic negotiations of expertise between Flagship students and their instructors.Unlike many previous academic discourse socialization studies where L2 students were often both the content and language novices (e.g., Baffy, 2018;Burhan, 2020), in the Flagship program, students were positioned as a language novice but a content expert of their domains.Because students were expected to be responsible and autonomous in their domain studies, they were considered the more knowledgeable ones of their topics while the instructors held relative novice positions in their LS into the academic communities.In addition, the expert-novice relationship manifested in the Flagship program was not a static one.While the students were holding primary controls of their presentations, their epistemic stances could be challenged when instructors spotted their mistakes and stepped into the conversation 是以：是，代词；以：介词。"以是"的倒装。因此，这样的话，所以 圣人，最高的理想人物。注意，道家的圣人不同于儒家的圣人。道家圣人顺从自然，不求名利。 处：动词，处理，对待 无为：顺其自然不恃 (shì)，不把它掌握在自己手中。不认为都是我做的。恃功 ( 自负功高 ) 功成：功，名词，成，动词。事情做成了 不居：不居功为己有，不居功自傲。 夫唯弗居，是以不去。 夫 (fú), 发语词，用在新句子的开头。 唯：副词，正因为 弗居：不把它据为己有，不居功为己有 不去：不会离开，失去。去国，离开国家。和现代汉语，到什么地方去的意思不同。 Chinese language program is one of the states' earliest and largest Chinese language programs.It provides eight levels of Chinese language courses with various summer or extended study abroad opportunities in China.The Chinese Flagship Program is at the highest level of language courses.The program aims to prepare advanced to superior-level Chinese language learners to function in Chinese working environments with professional capabilities in Mandarin Chinese for related careers.The two-year program generally divides training into two periods of time: students take language and content courses on the US campus during the first year of study and spend their second year at a Chinese university while taking an internship in China (Appendix A).Students are expected to graduate with academic and professional experience in China and a domain-related research thesis written in Chinese.

Table 1
Characteristics of the Oral Presentation

Table 2
Curriculum-level Socialization ZouMy understanding is that godmother carries more weight, which suggests that Tang has a close relationship with the rise of rock music in Chengdu.
LeeGood, but it was still not fluent enough.Because you will speak with Chinese people in the future, you HAVE TO be able to recite it fluently.
).Who can tell me which one it should be in this phrase?GOOD that you have different opinions.If you want to figure out how it should be pronounced, you have to take a look at the " 之 zhī" in this phrase…We already knew three functions of zhī in a sentence.It can serve as a verb, a pronoun, or a particle to connect a subject and a predicate.In this phrase, zhī was used as /// a function word [a particle] to connect the subject and the predicate, so 为 should be pronounced as wéi (to become) as a verb./// Ok, now let's go back to our [handout] discussion.