An Empirical Study Of Chinese Culture Aphasia Of English Graduate Students At Xi’an International Studies University

In recent years, many scholars and college teachers gradually realize that when students learn a foreign language, they should not only learn the words, phrases and grammatical structures, but also learn the culture of that language. So, many college English teachers integrate culture teaching into their English class. But the problem is that the culture teaching only refers to target language culture. Students’ home culture is largely neglected. This kind of English teaching has caused a serious problem among English majors: Chinese culture aphasia. “Chinese culture aphasia” is put forward by Cong Cong, a professor of Nanjing University. It means that students cannot express Chinese culture in proper English. When Chinese English majors are asked to introduce certain Chinese culture, they find it hard to find proper English words to make foreigners understand them. Intercultural communication is a two-way activity and it would not make sense if one side cannot provide new information to its counterpart. Thus, English majors should not only know about English culture but also Chinese culture to achieve successful communication.This thesis aims to study the English graduate students’ Chinese culture aphasia degree at Xi’an International Studies University. Besides, the thesis tries to find out whether there are differences concerning Chinese culture aphasia degree among students from different research fields. The author conducted questionnaire surveys among 200 English Graduate Students. The questionnaires are two tests actually: Chinese culture knowledge test and translation test. The results show that:(1) English Graduate students have the problem of Chinese culture aphasia.(2) Students from translation research field achieved the highest score in both tests. Then, the author analyzed the possible reasons about the problem of Chinese culture aphasia and put forward some solutions.