Research On The Relationship Between Personalities And Acculturation Strategies Of International English Lecturers In China

In the context of the internationalization of education in China,international English lecturers have been continuously introduced,bringing about a dramatic rise of international English lectures in China.In recent years,acculturation problems of international English lecturers have become a research concern of scholars at home and abroad.In this thesis,the relationship between personality and acculturation strategy was explored with the purpose of predicting the acculturation strategies of international English lecturers with various personalities.Theories adopted in this thesis are Berry's Bi-dimensional Acculturation Model and Goldberg's Big Five Personality Theory.The former encompasses four acculturation strategies,i.e.integration,separation,assimilation,and marginalization,whereas,the latter consists of five independent facets of a personality,i.e.extraversion,agreeableness,conscientiousness,neuroticism,and openness to new experiences.Based on the above theories,the present thesis first surveyed the status quo of the personalities and acculturation strategies of international English lecturers,and then explored the relationship between them.Two questionnaires,Acculturation Strategy Scale and Big Five Inventory,were adopted to collect the quantitative research data and semi-structured interview was conducted to collect the qualitative research data,with 122 international English lecturers from universities in Zhengzhou City being selected as the research subjects.SPSS16.0.was adopted to process the questionnaire data and discourse analysis was used to analyze the interview data.It is revealed that: ? In terms of the status quo of the acculturation strategies of the international English lecturers,they chose integration the most,followed by separation,and then assimilation.They chose marginalization the least.In terms of the status quo of their personalities,the majority of the lecturers tend to be extroverted,agreeable,conscientious,emotionally stable and open to new experiences.Besides,gender and age have a significant impact on their acculturation strategies but education background and duration in China have no significant effect on this.? In terms of the relationship between their personalities and acculturation strategies: a)Extraversion,agreeableness,conscientiousness,and openness to new experiences,they conclude to integration positively,but to separation and marginalization negatively.Neuroticism concludes to integration negatively,but to separation and marginalization positively.Personality has no predictive effect on assimilation.b)The explanatory power of different personality facets on acculturation strategies varies a lot.Extraversion has the strongest explanatory power on non-marginalization,and openness to new experiences has the weakest on integration.c)International English lecturers rarely have a problem maintaining their original cultural identity.Those with different personalities have various problems in maintaining relationships with the Chinese society.More specifically,lecturers that are introverted or neurotic have serious problems in socializing with Chinese people.Lecturers that are disagreeable or close for new experiences have problems in both socializing with Chinese people and accepting Chinese culture.Lecturers that are disorganized have problems in experiencing Chinese culture.It is advised that: ? International English lecturers are supposed to predict their potential acculturation strategies by exploring their personality traits.? International English lecturer trainers should adopt diverse training methods for lecturers with different personalities.? Higher educational institutions should pay special attention to international lecturers with personalities that might lead them to separation and marginalization,and provide them with more help.