An Investigation On Postgraduate English Majors’ Cultural Identity Anxiety

Nowadays, with the advancement of globalization, the discussion around cultural identity and cultural identity anxiety during the process of intercultural communication is of great significance and necessity, which has attracted scholars and researchers abroad and in China. Postgraduate English majors are a group of EFL(English as a Foreign Language) learners with distinctive features.Taking 127 postgraduate English majors as its subjects, the present study aims to investigate their Chinese and western cultural identity as well as their cultural identity anxiety in Chinese context by adopting both quantitative and qualitative methods. The major findings of the present study can be stated as follows. Firstly, the participants’ Chinese and western cultural identity are both on a relatively upper middle level, with the former a little higher than the latter. Secondly, cultural identity anxiety is a phenomenon commonly existing among postgraduate English majors, with the anxiety degree highly close to a middle value. Thirdly, the participants’ cultural identity anxiety is negatively correlated with their Chinese cultural identity but positively correlated with their western cultural identity.The research results of the present study are enlightening for the education of postgraduate English majors in China. Given that there is a severe lack of Chinese culture input in English education, it is suggested that postgraduate English majors should be offered more opportunities to learn their native culture during the process of English learning, so as to enhance their native cultural identity, thus eliminating their cultural identity anxiety and improving their intercultural communication competence as much as possible.