A Study On Cultural Vacancy Of Non-English Majors

With globalization, the world is becoming a small, intersecting village where weincreasingly contact with people who are culturally different. Interculturalcommunication has become a communicative act that no one can avoid, especially forthe foreign language learners. Therefore, acquiring the knowledge and skills ofintercultural communication becomes a priority for people to become a global citizenin the21stcentury.The fact that people enjoy different cultural backgrounds greatly influencesintercultural communication, even results in the failure of interculturalcommunication. Therefore, cultural factors such as values, ways of thinking, religions,etc. should be emphasized. As a component of intercultural communication, culturalvacancy is an essential part but usually neglected in English teaching and learning.Cultural vacancy is the uniqueness existing in one culture that is hard to explain inanother culture, which is an obstacle for intercultural communication. So far, scholarsat home and abroad have contributed a lot to the study of cultural vacancy both inpractice and in theory. However, their studies mainly focused on the comparison oflanguages, the relationship between cultural vacancy and translation, etc. Research onthe understanding of cultural vacancy of some specific people has never done before.Conducting a research on this aspect becomes especially necessary. Due to differentgeographic features, historical background, social customs, etc., Chinese culture andAmerican culture differ greatly from each other. Communication between China─thelargest developing country and America─the largest developed country becomesmore and more frequent. Knowing cultural vacancy between Chinese culture andAmerican culture is a necessity.The thesis aims to explore non-English majors’ understanding of culturalvacancy between Chinese culture and American culture in English learning andteaching. Based on literature review and theoretical background, the author designs a quantitative research in which one questionnaire is used as the major instrument. Inthe research,316non-English majors from Shandong Normal University, JinanUniversity, Shandong Radio and TV University and Shandong Institute of Commerceand Technology University are chosen as the subjects. Through analyses, it is foundthat students’ understanding of cultural vacancy is not satisfactory. The main reasonsfor this situation are then elaborated from three aspects: universities, teachers andstudents themselves. Finally, on the basis of the investigation, some feasiblesuggestions for cultural teaching and learning of non-English majors are put forward,such as cultivating intercultural sensitivity, obtaining cultural empathy. In addition,some specific suggestion for universities and teachers are also illustrated.In conclusion, by the acquired information of non-English majors’ currentunderstanding of cultural vacancy, the thesis tries to demonstrate that knowingcultural vacancy is not only effective in eliminating cultural barriers but also essentialin developing intercultural communication competence.