Resumen de Centering acceleration in an EMI transnational higher education context: a scaling practice and emotion perspective

Wendy Li, Peter I. De Costa

• This study explores how an English as an Additional Language undergraduate student, Wei, at a Sino-foreign joint venture university in China navigated interconnected temporal regimes shaped by neoliberal logics, institutional acceleration, and English Medium Instruction (EMI) expectations. Drawing on a single-participant case study, we adopt a scalar analytical framework to examine how macro-level discourses of internationalization and global competitiveness, meso-level EMI policy and curriculum structures, and micro-level individual agency worked together to shape our participant’s emotional and academic experiences. Our findings revealed how Wei internalized a neoliberal logic of time (i.e., perceiving the present as an investment for future gain), which was manifested in her anxiety over her GPA (Grade Point Average) and academic performance. Through adopting strategies such as impression management and GenAI use, we illustrate how she negotiated accelerated institutional tempos at the cost of undertaking emotional labor. The study contributes to the literature on language policy by constructing EMI not only as a language choice, but as a temporal governance that works to accelerate, evaluate, and shape EAL students’ learning within a broader globalized higher education landscape.