Research On The Intercultural Identity Of The Post-graduates Of English Majors In China

The author believes that intercultural identification is the inevitable result of the increasingly globalizing age (Y. Kim, 2009; Y.X. Jia, 2010). To prove this assumption, the author conducted a research on the cultural identities of the postgraduate English majors in China. Etic quantitative questionnaires and emic qualitative interview are combined for data collection to explore the identity rankings of the target population--- postgraduate English majors in Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT). By doing this, this paper intends to find out if they have an intercultural identity, to investigate what values or value orientations their identities are imbedded in, and what kind of intercultural identities they have (western individualism as dominant or traditional values as dominant).Globalization has been a huge challenge to the construction and reconstruction of values and identities of the people the world over. The first decade of 21st century has witnessed a burgeoning interest in identity issues among scholars in the field of sociology and cross-cultural communication. Will identities be westernized as some western scholars predicted, or be localized? Does the cultural heritage of Chinese Confucian values and philosophical ideas, the core values such as benevolence (仁)and empathy (恕) endure despite China's modernization during the process of globalization? Or have the traditional identities in China been transformed into individualistic identities that are popular in western countries? With this in mind, an exploring study of cultural identities becomes the main focus of this thesis.The author holds the view that the identity shift to the intercultural identity is the historical decision due to the impact of globalization and that of the development of multiculturalism.In the age of globalization, different cultures influence and penetrate into each other. The Eastern and the Western cultures are gradually brought together, and as a result they are mixed and integrated. We need to realize that the interconnectedness and interdependence between globalization and localization, as well as pluralistic integration have become the reality of today's world, in which various cultures are mutually formative and mutually reciprocal. Different cultures and cultural identities transcend their original national borders and incorporate and hybridize with each other. Intercultural identity has become a benchmark of the era. The research on intercultural identities is becoming extremely urgent, because it reflects the most fundamental changes in a globalizing world.Since the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, China has been facing more and more global challenges. Face-to-face interactions, exchange of information through mass, internet and other mediated forms of communication on a global scale have brought individualistic values to the Confucianism-oriented collectivistic Chinese society. In the meantime, as a part of the globalization process, China's traditional cultures also influence other cultures in the world. Traditional cultures and identities in China are experiencing historical changes under the impact of globalization.In the context of globalization, this paper intends to study the identity changes of a special group in China---postgraduate English majors, who have been influenced by Confucianism and traditional cultural values since they were in primary school. However, since junior high school most of them have learned English and western cultures for at least 10 years. Years of learning English language and western cultures have gradually made them become more familiar with western cultures, and know better western lifestyle and values. They begin to evaluate and redefine their traditional identities from a new perspective, by getting rid of the stale and taking in the fresh. On the one hand, postgraduate English majors highly value their traditional cultures, such as family values, respect for their teachers and love for their parents. On the other hand, however, they like to embrace some aspects of the western individualistic values. All these characteristics have made them a special group with intercultural identities that include both traditional and western values and identities. Since they are a typical group with intercultural identities, the author assumes that they may have a higher cultural compatibility than non-English learners in intercultural identification process.In the present study, it is assumed that the graduate students, to different degrees, embrace a glomeration of identities, i.e., each of them is, interculturally or globally integrated or hybridized. Based on the collection of etic quantitative and emic qualitative data, as well as questionnaires and individual interviews, an identity-ranking theory (S. Kulich, 2008:203-230; J.H. Turner, 2004, as cited in Kulich: 203) is employed to test the identity rankings of the postgraduate English majors. Their identities are designed to respond to specific situations and are arranged into hierarchies of salience and importance (Turner, 2004). By analyzing the result based on the identity rankings, this paper intends to locate the cultural identity patterns of this group, so as to prove our hypotheses concerning their differentiated degrees of intercultural identities.