Exploring the Language and Academic Investment of Taiwanese Double-Majored Students in English Departments

In an era shaped by globalization and technological advancement, students increasingly prioritize fields like medicine and engineering for their practicality and economic benefits (Schalin, 2015; Zakria, 2015). In Taiwan, public discourse often reinforces the perception that humanities education lacks practical value (Hiroshi, 2018; Lee, 2024), leading more humanities majors to pursue a second major to boost their employability. However, despite this growing trend, little research has explored their academic and language learning experiences.

This study attempts to address the gap in research by qualitatively examining the academic and linguistic investment of three double-majoring students originally from Foreign Languages and Literature (FLL). Drawing on the lens of learning investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015), the study analyzed data collected from semi-structured interviews and explores how this particular group of students’ academic and language investments in becoming double majors are (1) shaped by the dominant social discourse, (2) afforded or constrained by their ownership or lack of various types of capital, and (3) guided by their past learning experiences, current learning trajectories, and future aspirations. The findings highlighted that prevalent ideological discourses significantly shape students’ learning investments in the university. Meanwhile, their self-perceptions and the ways they are perceived by others change throughout their double-major academic journey. Besides, although they experience anxiety regarding societal pressures that favor certain disciplines over the humanities, they effectively leverage their existing capital and even transform it into affordances.

Based on the findings, the study calls for a critical reevaluation of tertiary education’s role in empowering students to make informed academic choices while ensuring equitable access to resources and opportunities across all disciplines. A detailed discussion of pedagogical and research implications will be included.