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

No matter in ancient times or modern times,animals are closely related to human life and play various roles in human life.Therefore,many words or idioms related to animals have been derived.Animal idioms,as one of the important parts of culture-loaded words,contain rich cultural connotations.However,due to different cultures,the connotations of animal idioms from different countries or regions vary from one to another.The rich cultural connotation,to a great extent,has brought difficulties to second or foreign language learners when they learn,understand and use animal idioms,and to a certain extent,it has hindered intercultural communication.Meanwhile,intercultural sensitivity,one of the components of intercultural communication competence,affects the cultivation and development of intercultural communication competence.Therefore,many scholars have paid much attention to intercultural sensitivity.In recent years,many studies have been done to explore the idiom acquisition and intercultural sensitivity of second language learners,but most of them are independent,and there is very little research on the relationship between idiom acquisition and intercultural sensitivity.During the process of idiom acquisition,learners’ mastery of cultural connotation of idioms directly affects their understanding of the true meaning of idioms.Therefore,learning and mastery of target culture has become a key to second language acquisition.Intercultural sensitivity reflects the degree of learners’ understanding and acceptance of cultural differences.Therefore,the study of the relationship between idiom acquisition and intercultural sensitivity not only helps us understand the current situation of second language learners’ acquisition of different cultures,but also helps to realize the mutual promotion of idiom acquisition and intercultural sensitivity.In addition,there are more researches on undergraduates and middle school students,but less on postgraduates.However,it is well-known that postgraduate students are well-trained professionals in our country.Their groups are expanding,and their roles in intercultural communication will become more and more important.Therefore,in order to help second language learners achieve better intercultural communication,it is necessary to take postgraduate students as the research object.To sum up,this paper aims to explore the status quo of intercultural sensitivity of non-English major postgraduates and their acquisition of animal idioms of different types,and to explore the correlation between animal idiom acquisition and intercultural sensitivity.In addition,second language proficiency is also investigated as a variable to explore whether language proficiency level affects learners’ idiom acquisition and intercultural sensitivity.This study specifically answers the following three questions: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?Research Question 2: What is the status quo of non-English major postgraduates’ acquisition of English animal idioms and whether their acquisition of English animal idioms is affected by language proficiency?Research Question 3: What is the correlation between non-English major postgraduates’ intercultural sensitivity and their acquisition of English animal idioms?A total of 109 non-English major postgraduates from Jiangnan University participated the experiment.During the experiment,the subjects completed the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale,Animal Idiom Test,and Vocabulary Size Test separately.The Intercultural Sensitivity Scale and Animal Idiom Test are used to measure students’ intercultural sensitivity and idiom acquisition respectively.Vocabulary Size Test is used to ensure that there is a significant difference between the two groups in terms of language proficiency.All the results except for seven invalid ones were input into SPSS24.0 for statistical analysis.Apart from 7 subjects who handed in invalid feedback,all the other subjects were divided into high language proficiency group and low language proficiency group based on their latest final English test scores.In order to enrich the research results,in addition to quantitative analysis,qualitative analysis is also applied.According to the results of Intercultural Sensitivity Scale and Animal Idiom Test,ten representative subjects were chosen to participate in a semi-structured interview to explore other influencing factors of intercultural sensitivity and idiom acquisition.Through the data analysis,the following results are obtained: 1)The intercultural sensitivity of the subjects is in the medium level,and learners have a positive attitude towards other cultures.Among the five constructs of intercultural sensitivity,students’ Respect for Cultural Differences is the strongest,while Interaction Confidence is the weakest.In addition,language proficiency level has no significant effect on intercultural sensitivity.2)Animal Idiom Test shows that subjects’ mastery of animal idioms is quite disappointing.Among the three types of idioms,idioms with the same or similar conceptual meaning and connotative meaning in both languages are better acquired than the other two types.In addition,subjects’ acquisition of animal idioms is significantly influenced by their second language proficiency.3)The five constructs of intercultural sensitivity are correlated with each other.In the high language proficiency group,there is a significant correlation between participants’ Interaction Engagement and their acquisition of animal idioms.In addition,intercultural sensitivity significantly affects the acquisition of animal idioms with the same connotative meaning but different conceptual meaning.In the low language proficiency group,there is no significant correlation between intercultural sensitivity and animal idiom acquisition.Based on the research results,teachers and schools can take some effective measures to improve students’ intercultural sensitivity and idiom acquisition.First and foremost,teachers should make students be aware of the importance of improving intercultural sensitivity and idiom acquisition in intercultural communication.Secondly,in the second language classroom,teachers should abandon the traditional teaching method which only lays emphasis on language skills.They should combine culture teaching with language knowledge teaching,and encourage students to learn more about different cultures and excavate cultural information behind idioms through multiple channels.Outside of the classroom,teachers can organize various kinds of activities to help students make practical use of their second language knowledge and cultivate their intercultural communication competence.Finally,school should offer some courses that can really cultivate students’ intercultural awareness and create a real and natural intercultural communication environment for students.