A Case Study On The Intercultural Effectiveness And Intercultural Sensitivity Of English And Non-English Majors Of ECUST And The Relationship Between The Two Dimensions

Based on the theories of intercultural communication and intercultural communication competence models and assessment scales, this paper adopts the intercultural effectiveness scale and intercultural sensitivity scale in the three scales for intercultural communication competence proposed by the famous intercultural communication scholar Chen Guo-ming. The subjects are 149 students randomly selected from East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST). The paper measures the six aspects (behavioral flexibility, interaction relaxation, interactant respect, message skills, identity maintenance, and interaction management) of intercultural effectiveness and five aspects (interaction engagement, respect for cultural differences, interaction confidence, interaction enjoyment, and interaction attentiveness) of intercultural sensitivity of the English majors and their counterparts from other majors. The thesis utilizes SPSS 18.0 software and uses the Independent-Samples T Test to compare the similarities and differences. It analyzes the reasons for the differences and proposes some feasible measures. And the paper adopts correlation analysis to look into the relationship between intercultural effectiveness and intercultural sensitivity.The research reaches the following three conclusions:(1) students from the English major and other majors at ECUST do not vary at intercultural effectiveness while the first group is better at interaction engagement and respect for cultural differences of intercultural sensitivity. The main reasons for the differences are the interests in intercultural communication, more efforts made in learning, and more intercultural communication experiences of the English majors; (2) to eliminate these differences, the students from other majors should realize the significance of intercultural communication competence in their study, daily life and work, the university and society should offer more platforms to improve the students’ intercultural communication competence, and the forms of English tests can be modified appropriately; (3) intercultural effectiveness and intercultural sensitivity are closely related.