A Study Of Acculturation Strategies Based On Acculturation Experiences

This study is designed to acquire an in-depth understanding of the acculturation strategies of ten American sojourners aging from 17 to 73 with various career identities based on their acculturating experiences in Kunming. Acculturation can be best understood in Berry's two-dimensional acculturation model, that is, the preservation of native culture and the social participation in the host society.The development of the study goes in line with two research questions: (1) How did the cultural background (value, communication styles, norms, habits, language and so on) of the ten American sojourners create influences on their sojourn lives in Kunming? (2) How did the ten American sojourners deal with a culturally different environment?By employing a qualitative research method—in-depth interviews, reports gained from interviews exemplify that the differences between the Chinese society—Kunming—and the American cultural background created a number of effects on the ten participants, both positive and negative. These effects determined their choices of strategies used to acculturate in Kunming. Among the ten participants, eight of them adopted integration while the rest two adopted separation at the time of interview. The strategy of integration not only provided the eight participants with emotional and supportive connection with their cultural group but also enlarged their social circles and allowed them a verbal space in a linguistically different society. The participants with the strategy of separation were more constrained by the contextual factors such as the residential location and the study/job situation than the subjective factors. Again, the linguistic incompetence of Chinese furthered their distance from the host society.