Study On The Relationship Between Chinese Non-English Majors' Tolerance Of Ambiguity And English Proficiency

Tolerance of ambiguity (TOA) is a concept that was first presented in 1949 by psychologist Frenkel-Brunswik, referring to the way an individual or group perceives and processes information about ambiguous situations or stimuli when confronted by an array of unfamiliar, complex, or incongruent clues. Since its first appearance it has attracted researchers from all over the world in various branches. Learning English is a process in which Chinese learners will consistently experience all kinds of ambiguities, whether in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, discourse structure or cultural backgrounds and so on. Therefore, it is inevitable for Chinese students to encounter language uncertainty and ambiguity when learning English. Tolerance of ambiguity, as an important factor of individual difference, is paid more and more attention to by linguists on the foreign language learning. However, not much work has been done to study Chinese non-English majors'TOA.The present study is designed to explore the relationship between Chinese non-English majors'TOA and English proficiency. It focuses on these aspects: exploring TOA characteristic of non-English majors in general and the correlation with English proficiency; comparing the differences in English proficiency among the students with high, middle and low levels of TOA; comparing the differences in TOA among the students with different levels of English proficiency.Subjects in this study were 204 non-English majors from Chongqing University. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to study Chinese non-English majors'TOA. Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale (SLTAS) designed by Ely (1995) was selected to assess the degree of TOA of all the subjects. After that, statistical analyses were conducted with SPSS software. For qualitative research, a classroom observation and an interview were adopted.Based on the quantitative and qualitative analyses, this dissertation draws the following conclusions: Students have different degrees of TOA during their English learning. Most students have the middle level of TOA; some have the high and low levels of TOA. There is a positively statistical correlation between TOA and English proficiency, that is, the higher the level of ambiguity tolerance is, the more successful an individual tends to be in second language acquisition. One-way ANOVA indicates that the high level of TOA group scores significantly higher than the middle and low level of TOA groups, but the middle and low level groups are not found to be significantly different. Students with different levels of English proficiency also have significant TOA differences.The findings of the present research prove that TOA is an important predicator to evaluate language study, which has both theoretical and pedagogical implications and may provide insights into both language learning and language teaching process. The teacher can help students heighten their tolerance of ambiguity so as to enhance their English proficiency.