Cultural Intelligence And English Language Proficiency

The relationship between cultural intelligence and language proficiency has now been a major concern in intercultural communication and second language learning. It has been generally accepted that theoretically speaking, language proficiency is of vital importance in intercultural communication and positively correlates with cultural intelligence. But the relationship between language proficiency and cultural intelligence is still unrevealed because of the mixed results from empirical researches on that.Reviewing recent years'studies, especially domestic ones, the lack of systematic theories and reliable measurements of cultural intelligence has become the chief obstacle in the investigation of the relationship between cultural intelligence and language proficiency. So this thesis aims at reviewing the current achievements on intercultural communication research and probing into the relationship between language proficiency and cultural intelligence.The thesis took the"cultural intelligence/ CQ"theory as its theoretical framework, and reviewed the theoretical proposals on the relationship between language proficiency and cultural intelligence. A group of 474 undergraduates were invited to participate in the ICAPS measurement to assess their cultural intelligence levels, and 300 valid samples were obtained. A Pearson r was employed to test the relationship between language proficiency (CET 4) and cultural intelligence level (ICAPS total). Results revealed that Chinese college students'cultural intelligence level was rather low. And the findings also indicated that there was no significant correlation between language proficiency and cultural intelligence. Therefore, in higher education, students'cultural intelligence cultivation must share equal importance with language proficiency development in second language teaching and learning. And systematic intercultural communication learning was proposed for college students.