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In tandem with increasing attention to sociocultural contexts of learning, ESP researchers and practitioners have in recent years begun to advocate bringing into focus learners' identity, especially cultural identity, to further ESP's needs-responsive practice (Belcher, 2012; Belcher & Lukkarila, 2011). However, the research on cultural identity has for a long time tended either to essentialize cultural identity as being unified, permanent, and bounded to and by national culture or to romanticize it as readily selectable. Drawing upon the critical realist perspective (Archer, 2007; Block, 2013), this study analyzed 65 Chinese university students' discursive and meta-discursive acts in a simulated business writing task, including pre-writing group discussions, individual request writing, and post-writing reflective essays. By examining the (in)consistencies in these discursive and meta-discursive acts, the study revealed the multiple layers of cultural identities that the students constructed, co-constructed, and negotiated in the process. While the students seemed able to exercise agency in an attempt to claim ownership of Anglophone discourse in writing requests, they were unable to resist or undo the cultural stereotypes that make them feel culturally inferior. Implications for research and teaching in ESP and intercultural communication/rhetoric are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The structure of PPI became more disordered after multiple F-T cycles. • F-T cycles could effectively improve the emulsification property of PPI. • The changes of PPI structure and functional properties depended on F-T cycles times. This study investigated changes of the structure and emulsifying properties of peanut protein isolate (PPI) during multiple freeze-thaw (F-T) cycles. According to the Fourier transform infrared spectrum, the F-T treatment to PPI reduced the content of protein ordered structure significantly. The result of fluorescence spectrum revealed that the polarity of PPI surroundings first increased and then decreased. Similarly, the free sulfhydryl content and surface hydrophobicity of PPI increased firstly and decreased. However, the carbonyl content and particle size of PPI increased continuously after F-T treatment. The emulsification performance of PPI after F-T treatment was significantly improved. The emulsion prepared by PPI after 3 F-T cycles had the smallest mean particle size, the highest absolute value of zeta-potential and the most uniform microstructure distribution, showed the best performance of emulsifying ability. Therefore, it can be known that F-T cycles treatment could effectively change protein structure and improve protein emulsifying properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]