Xu Siqun (Adrian) used to be an excellent student in the English Department, School of Foreign Languages, Shenyang Normal University, between the years of 2000 and 2004. After graduation with BA in English, Adrian became an English teacher in the same department where he studied. As is the custom, only the most excellent student can have such an opportunity. In two years’ of teaching, he has taught several classes such as English Reading, English Grammar and Listening class on undergraduate level.

After winning the Edinburgh China Master’s Scholarship, he went to Scotland to do his Master of Science Applied Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics and English Language, the University of Edinburgh, and graduated in September 2007. In 2010，he pursued his doctorate in Sociolinguistics at the School of English, the University of Nottingham under the supervision of Prof Roshni Mooneeram, Prof Geoff Hall, and Prof Louise Mullany.

Adrian’s interest lies in language and identity construction (qualitative methods), conversation analysis, discourse analysis, social networks and communities of practice, particularly the analysis of gender and the co-construction of identity in family, and classroom discourse from interactional sociolinguistics and conversation analysis perspectives. He is also interested in the development of interdisciplinary frameworks to integrate sociolinguistic research and theory into conversation studies in private and non-institutional settings.

Apart from his teaching, Adrian is diligent in his research and has cooperatively worked with others in publications.