Investigation Into The Intercultural Communication Competence Of Non-English Major Freshmen In A Chinese University

As the world is developing,communication between people from different backgrounds becomes more and more important.Meanwhile,the global communication is also facilitated by the development of science and technology.Nowadays,people in different parts of the world can exchange ideas without face-to-face communication.The interactions among people who do not speak the same language and do not have similar cultural background occur frequently worldwide.The challenges of global communication multiply if the individuals are not provided with the necessary knowledge about cultural differences.This study examined the current situation of the intercultural communication competence of non-English major freshmen in three aspects.Firstly,this research aimed at investigating the general level of intercultural communication competence of non-English major freshmen in a Chinese university.Secondly,the study attempted to find out whether there existed significant difference in intercultural communication competence between students of high English proficiency and those of low English proficiency.Thirdly,it discussed the differences in intercultural communication competence between male students and female students.168 non-English freshmen in Jiangxi Normal University were invited to participate in this study.Three instruments were used in the research: a socio-cultural test,a language proficiency test and an in-depth interview.20 students and 5 teachers were selected to be interviewed.SPSS17.0 was used to analyze the data from the questionnaires,and the data from the interviews were used to supplement the quantitative data.Based on the data collected in this study,some major findings can be summarized as follows:(1)Non-English major freshmen’s intercultural communication competence is rather weak in general;(2)Non-English major freshmen’s development of the intercultural communication competence is unevenly.The students’ non-verbal communication competence is weaker than their verbal communication competence and their Big “C” Culture competence is weaker than small “c” culture competence;(3)In terms of the total score of the socio-cultural test,there exits significant differences in intercultural communication competence betweenmale and female students.However,as to each part of the test,there exists no significant difference between male and female students;(4)There exists significant difference in the intercultural communication competence between high English proficiency students and low English proficiency students.However,there is no significant difference in the non-verbal and verbal communication between these two groups of students.Based on the findings of this study,some implications for the cultivation of non-English majors’ intercultural communication competence are offered in the following aspects:(1)the current education system should be reformed;(2)English teachers should elucidate the concept of intercultural communication competence clearly for students and they should provided their students with appropriate training in intercultural communication competence;(3)culture-related activities should be carried out for students;(4)teachers should help students deepen their understanding about cultural differences and form different thinking patterns;(5)more efforts should be made to tackle the problems in the cultivation of intercultural communication competence.Finally,some limits existed in the investigation and some suggestions for future studies are put forward.