This book offers the first interdisciplinary study of how different generations of Chinese individuals learned and used the French language as an intrinsic part of their engagement with new worlds—both tangible and envisioned—and with their emerging selves.

Drawing from Wittgenstein’s understanding of language as a “form of life,” this book presents foreign language acquisition and utilization as social, cultural, and epistemological activities of traversing from one form of life to another. Through such “traversing,” one sees a new world and becomes a new self. It explores not only how Chinese individuals acquired French, including its historical and ideological dimensions, the sociocultural milieux, the methods and materials involved and created, the institutions and networks formed, and the memories and emotions evoked, but also how they used the language to communicate new worlds and selves to different audiences. It demonstrates that, more than a tool for accessing Western science, thought, and culture, the French language profoundly shaped their development into, and their identity as, modern Chinese intellectuals.

This book is suited for readers who are interested in the history of language and the history of modern Chinese intellectuals, while its interdisciplinary scope and transnational approach would also resonate with those passionate about Sino‑French exchanges.

Vivienne Xiangwei Guo is a historian of modern China at King’s College London, UK. Her research focuses on the intellectual, political, and cultural history of modern China. Her most important publications include monographs Negotiating a Chinese Federation (2022) and Women and Politics in Wartime China (2019).