| Intercultural contact refers to the contact with speakers as well as cultural products of the target language.It plays a vital role in the language learning process of the college students.Meanwhile,the cultivation of college students’ intercultural communication competence has become one of the research focuses of college English teaching in China.Therefore,it has certain practical significance to improve college students’ intercultural communication competence by selecting appropriate intercultural contact.With the increasingly frequent international exchanges,diverse intercultural contact paths have emerged.Many scholars have theoretically proposed that intercultural contact could promote the development of intercultural communication competence,but few of them have practically investigated how and to what extent these two factors correlated with each other.In addition,relevant research has mainly focused on certain components of intercultural contact or intercultural communication competence,and the overall research is rare.Given the above,this study aims to explore the correlation between intercultural contact and intercultural communication competence through the combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods,in order to provide enlightenment and suggestions for the development of the college students’ intercultural communication competence.In this study,there are three research questions to be addressed:(1)What is the general situation of the college students’ intercultural communication competence? Are there differences in intercultural communication competence among college students of different genders,majors,and grades?(2)What is the general situation of the college students’ intercultural contact?Are there differences in intercultural contact among college students of different genders,majors,and grades?(3)How is the college students’ intercultural contact correlated with their intercultural communication competence? And can intercultural contact of the collegestudents predict their intercultural communication competence?In this study,257 college students from Shandong Normal University are involved,and questionnaires as well as semi-structured interview are employed as the research instruments to collect data.SPSS 21.0 is adopted to analyze the data collected from the questionnaires,and the data obtained from the interview is qualitatively processed.Results are listed as follows:College students’ intercultural communication competence as well as their intercultural contact are both below the intermediate level;genders,majors as well as grades do exert significant influence on these two factors,in which the ICC and intercultural contact situations of the female,liberal arts and senior college students are significantly better than that of the male,science and junior college students.Besides,the correlation between college students’ intercultural contact and intercultural communication competence is significant and positive.And the college students’ intercultural contact shows a strong predictive validity on their intercultural communication competence.On the basis of the results,some constructive suggestions have been posed to promote the development of college students’ intercultural contact and intercultural communication competence.Finally,limitations of this study and suggestions for further studies are proposed. |
