A Study On The Correlation Between Intercultural Sensitivity And Acquisition Of Culturally-Loaded Words Of Non-English Postgraduates

The purpose of English teaching lies not only in helping students master basic language skills such as listening,speaking,reading,writing and translating,but also in developing students' ability to conduct intercultural communication in English in a global context.Therefore,improving students' intercultural sensitivity and intercultural communication competence is of great importance in language teaching.Language is the carrier of culture,and vocabulary is the language unit that bears the most cultural elements.The words with rich cultural meanings or connotative meanings are called culturally-loaded words.Students' knowledge about the cultural meanings of the culturally-loaded words reflects their understanding of English culture to a certain extent.Many scholars such as Hu Wenzhong,Dai Weiping and Zhu Xueyan,etc.,have emphasized the significance of culture teaching and acquisition,but the vocabulary teaching in postgraduates' English classes still focuses on pronunciation,spelling,grammatical usage and literal meanings,while the cultural meanings are usually ignored.Therefore,even if many postgraduates have enough vocabulary,it is still difficult for them to conduct effective intercultural communication successfully.Intercultural sensitivity,as an important component of intercultural communication competence,plays an important role in improving students' intercultural communication skills and language acquisition.This thesis aims to study the correlation between intercultural sensitivity and culturally-loaded words acquisition of non-English postgraduates,as well as the influences of English proficiency on the two.Intercultural communication and intercultural sensitivity theories are employed as the theoretical rationale,and testing paper,scale,and telephone interview are the research methods,and SPSS21.0 is used as an analytical tool to find answers to the three questions raised in this study.The ultimate goal of the research is to sort out existing problems of language teaching and learning,to analyze the causes of the issues,raise feasible measures,and to further prove that language learning can better serve intercultural communication,expand postgraduates' international vision,and enhance their international competitiveness.In this study,the author takes 195 non-English postgraduates of Grade 2018 in Qinghai Normal University as the research subjects,and quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis are applied in the research.The author collects data throughtesting papers,scales and telephone interviews.During the research process,203 testing papers and scales are issued and collected,among which 195 testing papers and scales are valid respectively.In addition,the author selects 30 subjects for telephone interviews based on English proficiency,scale results,and testing paper results to explore other factors that influence intercultural sensitivity and culturally-loaded words acquisition.Through quantitative and qualitative analysis,the following conclusions are drawn: First,participants' intercultural sensitivity is at a medium level,and their English proficiency is positively correlated with their intercultural sensitivity;Culturally-loaded words acquisition is not satisfying,but it is positively correlated with English proficiency;Second,intercultural sensitivity is positively correlated with culturally-loaded words acquisition.Among the five components of intercultural sensitivity,the dimension “respect for cultural differences” correlates most closely with culturally-loaded words acquisition;Third,according to the correlation between the two,the author attempts to propose some practical and feasible measures to improve non-English postgraduates' intercultural sensitivity and culturally-loaded words acquisition.In the virtuous circle,students' culturally-loaded words acquisition and intercultural sensitivity can be improved simultaneously.Thus the language can better serve cross-cultural communication activities,thereby expanding their international horizons and enhancing their international competitiveness.