A Study Of Cultural Identity Development In Foreign Language Learning

Globalization has promoted intercultural communication and foreign languagelearning, both of which have become part and parcel of our life. Such developmenturges schol’ars to reflect on how foreign language learning shapes native languageand cultural identity. This thesis incorporates language learning and interculturalcommunication theoires to analyze the relationship between language learning andcultural identity development. It argues that language and culture are interrelated.Language does not represent a culture neutrally. Once acquiring a new language,learners will develop a certain degree of identification with the new culture, whichaffects their oirginal cultural identity. However, with the further study of foreignlanguage, the situation that target language and culture are served as the learners，absolute frame of reference changes. Thus two outcomes occur as following:(1) thenative language and cultural identity are maintained without being replaced by thesecond language and cultural identity;(2) two languages and cultural identities areinteractive, and enhance each other. The two outcomes demonstrate that learners”adopt the “integration strategy in the process of acculturation. They maintain theirnative cultural identity and meanwhile take in the second culture to form a newidentity. The process of learning a foreign language results in the breakthrough ofcultural boundary, and the development of intercultural competence.