Acculturation Strategies Among Chinese Overseas Students In America

The study of acculturation, currently representing one of the major areas of investigation in cross-cultural field, explores the changes resulting from contact between two distinct cultural groups, especially in social and psychological aspects rather than in physical aspect. Great attention has been attached to different acculturation strategies with the frequent coming up of acculturation problems, in the context of ineluctable globalization. The present study aims at finding out the preference of acculturation strategies among Chinese overseas students in America, and the factors influencing their choosing of these strategies, in the hope that it will provide helpful references to the teaching of College English in China. The survey sample consists of thirty Chinese overseas students (mean age = 26.9), who are currently studying in America for their bachelor's, master's or doctor's degree. The mean duration of their sojourn in America is 2.8 years. Berry's Acculturation Attitude Scale is used as the major instrument to identify their predominant acculturation strategy. Some other scales together with the items designed by the author are also used as supportive instrument to track down the influencing factors. One third of the subjects are interviewed through BBS about their language use in America. Data obtained from the questionnaires are processed in SPSS 11.0.Results of the survey indicate that integration is the most preferred acculturation strategy of the Chinese overseas students, followed by assimilation and separation, and marginalization is the least preferred one. Significant predictors are found from three sets of variables, demographic, intercultural contact, and psychosocial adjustment. And four multi-regressional formulas are got to establish the dynamic relationship between each strategy and their dominant predictors. Last but not the least, language, rather than value, is proved to play a crucial role in overseas students' acculturation. The results implicate that more attention should be paid to promote students' awareness to use English, to advocate the subjective condition of integration, and to activate ESP teaching in the College English education in China.