Language Learners’ Acculturation Attitudes

Abstract

Learning a language involves knowledge of both linguistic competence and cultural competence. Optimal development of linguistic competence and cultural competence, however, requires a high level of acculturation attitude toward the target language culture. To this end, the present study explored the acculturation attitudes of 70 Iranian undergraduate students of English as a Foreign Language, following a one-semester academic sojourn in the United States. The data of the study were collected through a 29-item 5-point Likert scale acculturation attitude questionnaire. Findings indicated that sojourners tended to have close contact with the people of the target society while maintaining their original culture, adopting Integration and Assimilation strategies as their acculturation attitudes. The pedagogical implications of the findings suggested providing opportunities for students of English as a Foreign Language to immerse in the target language culture through organizing academic exchange programs.

Relationship between Cultural Distance and Pragmatic Comprehension

“…7, No. 2;2014 expressions of the British than South Koreans. Besides, there are lots of common cultural norms which are shared by the societies within a region.…”

“…Therefore, opportunities should be provided for students of English in foreign language contexts to be exposed to the cultural features of the target language society through pragmatic instruction (Rafieyan et al, 2013a;2013b;2013c), educational sojourn (Rafieyan et al, 2014), or telecollaboration (Rafieyan et al, in press). …”

“…7, No. 2;2014 Before checking the significance value of the t-test, the assumption of equality of variation of scores for the two groups needs to be assessed. This is done, in SPSS, through Levene's test for equality of variances.…”

“…7, No. 2;2014 networks whereas the other group was deprived from such a telecollaboration. The comparison of the performance of the two groups on the pragmatic comprehension test proved the significant positive effect of telecollaborative partnership on the development of pragmatic comprehension.…”

Pragmatic Comprehension Development through Telecollaboration

“…This is attributed to the fact that the sociolinguistic perspectives of the source language and the target language differ significantly from each other (Alptekin, 2002). Therefore, the ideal way to gain pragmatic competence in a certain language is through exposure to target language culture and contact with target language speakers (Farashaiyan & Tan, 2012;Rafieyan et al, 2014;Rafieyan et al, in press). Such an environment can be provided through educational sojourns, "periods spent abroad in a region where a target language is used as a medium of everyday communication" (Culhane, 2004, p. 50).…”