An Empirical Study On The Correlation Between Intercultural Sensitivity And The Acquisition Of English Idioms Of Non-English Major Postgraduates

Idioms,regarded as the cream of a language,play a significant role in the process of learning a foreign language.Familiarity with a wide range of idiomatic expressions and the accurate use of them has been deemed as one of the indications of language competency for EFL learners to some extent.Most of these idiomatic expressions carry abundant cultural connotations and associations,including geographical environment,lifestyle,religious belief and historical events and so forth,which embody the thoughts,emotions and views of the speakers in foreign countries.However,it is these complicated cultural information that poses difficulties for EFL learners to understand or use idioms appropriately,which in some way impedes cross-cultural communication.Meanwhile,as an essential part of intercultural communication competence,intercultural sensitivity has been a research focus in recent years.After consulting relevant literature,it is found that most researchers focus on the studying of idiom acquisition and intercultural sensitivity respectively,with a few researches concerning their relationships.However,one’s mastery of cultural information has a direct effect on idiom acquisition,so it is crucial to enhance his or her learning of foreign cultural connotation.Meanwhile,intercultural sensitivity reflects one’s willingness to know about cultural differences.Thus,an investigation into the correlation between idiom acquisition and intercultural sensitivity not only can have a general picture of the status quo of second language learners’ idiom acquisition and intercultural sensitivity,but also elevate the mutual development of idiom acquisition and intercultural sensitivity.Furthermore,the majority of the studies of idiom acquisition and intercultural sensitivity are made on undergraduates and middle school students,with few taking postgraduates as subjects.In addition,given that postgraduates are nation’s elites and professional researchers specially cultivated by our nation,this group should be given due concern.Therefore,this paper conducts an empirical study on the level of intercultural sensitivity and idiom acquisition of non-English major postgraduates based on different language proficiency levels.Three research questions are raised as follows to guide the research:Research Question 1: What is the status quo of non-English major postgraduates’ intercultural sensitivity? Is there any difference in terms of intercultural sensitivity between two groups of students with different language proficiency levels? If there is,in what aspects?Research Question 2: What is the status quo of non-English major postgraduates’ acquisition of English idioms? Is there any difference in terms of idiom acquisition between two groups of students with different language proficiency levels?Research Question 3: What is the correlation between non-English major postgraduates’ intercultural sensitivity and acquisition of English idioms?To answer these research questions,one hundred and six students of non-English major postgraduates in one comprehensive university are invited to participate in the experiment.To fulfill these research objectives,this study integrates quantitative and qualitative research methodologies.Intercultural Sensitivity Scale(ISS)is used to investigate participants’ intercultural sensitivity level and idiom test paper is employed to evaluate participants’ acquisition of English culture-loaded idioms.Totally 100 questionnaires of ISS and idiom tests are collected after excluding six invalid data.Moreover,twenty five participants are assigned to the low proficiency group and twenty nine participants are classified as high proficiency based on their final exam scores.The data collected from the 100 questionnaires and idiom tests are input into SPSS 13.0 for further analysis.Semi-structured interviews are used to collect qualitative data in order to supply complementary information and to find out the potential factors that influence participants’ intercultural sensitivity and idiom acquisition.Through the data collection and analysis,the following research findings are found:1)The intercultural sensitivity level of participants in this experiment is on the intermediate level as a whole,which means that participants in the present study possess a relatively positive attitude toward other cultures.Among the five constructs,“Respect for Cultural Differences” gains the highest score while “Interaction Confidence” gets the lowest score.Besides,results find that language proficiency does not have significant effects on the learners’ intercultural sensitivity among the non-English major postgraduates.2)Participants’ idiom acquisition is far from satisfactory since their mean scores of idiom tests are rather low.When it comes to the dependent variable,it is found that language proficiency has a positive effect on learners’ culture-loaded idiom acquisition.3)The five constructs of intercultural sensitivity are correlated in varying degrees.In terms of the correlation between intercultural sensitivity level and idiom acquisition,results indicate that participants’ intercultural sensitivity level is affected by their acquisition of culture-loaded idioms.Among the five constructs,“Interaction Confidence” is the only construct that is significantly related to idiom acquisition.Some pedagogical implications are proposed based on the above findings.On the one hand,it is desirable for teachers to help learners to enhance the learning of English culture-loaded idioms by improving their intercultural sensitivity.Educators ought to instill the importance of improving intercultural communication competence into students in their daily teaching.Top priority should be given to the intercultural education.What is worth mentioning is that the cultivation of interaction confidence can greatly help improve intercultural sensitivity.To be specific,courses that can effectively cultivate learners’ intercultural sensitivity should be established.On the other hand,a good grasp of English culture-loaded idioms can contribute to improving intercultural sensitivity.Educators should put an emphasis on the culture teaching and encourage students to know about hidden cultural connotations in various ways instead of mere language teaching.Students should be encouraged to use English idioms more frequently and flexibly.What’s more,different teaching methods in accordance with students’ language proficiency should be adopted in view of the significant influence of language proficiency on their acquisition of English idioms.