A Study Of Non-Englih Majors' Intercultural Nonverbal Communicative Competence

In the process of globalization, people from different cultures around the world meet frequently. Thus the study of intercultural communication is becoming increasingly important. As we all know, intercultural communication involves verbal communication and nonverbal communication, of which the importance of the latter is often neglected because it is somewhat ambiguous, subconscious and spontaneous. But as an indispensable component to intercultural communication, nonverbal communication accounts for a large potion of people's communication.At present, college English teaching is a compulsory course in colleges or universities. According to College English Curriculum Requirement (2007, 18), the objective of college English teaching is to develop students'ability to use English in a well-round way, especially in listening and speaking, so that in their future studies and careers as well as social interactions they will be able to communicate effectively.Since nonverbal communication is an indispensable component in any effective communication, students'competence in nonverbal communication becomes a must. But unfortunately, due to the fact that nonverbal communication is perhaps ambiguous and somewhat beyond necessary awareness, college students tend to neglect nonverbal communication. As a result, most college students though have learned English for several years, and even those who have passed the College English Test Band 4 (abbreviated as CET4) and Band 6 (abbreviated as CET6), find it difficult to communicate fluently and successfully with native speakers.Under the above research background, 120 non-English majors from Suzhou University have participated in the present study and two research questions are put forward:1. What is the overall picture of non-English majors'intercultural nonverbal communicative competence?2. Do non-English majors with higher English linguistic competence have higher intercultural nonverbal communicative competence?This study has attained the following findings:1. Non-English majors'intercultural nonverbal communicative competence is unsatisfactory. Both those who have passed CET4 and CET6 do not have satisfactory intercultural communicative competence.2. Non-English majors with higher English linguistic competence do not have higher intercultural nonverbal communicative competence. Non-English majors'intercultural nonverbal communicative competence is not directly proportional to their linguistic competence.Thus, on the one hand, students'sensitivity and awareness of intercultural nonverbal communication should be enhanced, as well as their competence. On the other hand, college English teachers should change their traditional college English teaching approaches and deliver lectures on intercultural nonverbal communication, because non-English majors'intercultural nonverbal communicative competence could not be improved without teachers'efforts.