A Study on Non-English Major Students' Competence in Conveying Chinese Culture in English

With the close relationship between language and culture, leading culture teaching into foreign language teaching is commonly agreed by foreign language education around the world. However，target language culture seems to be overemphasized in English language teaching in China while the learning of native culture in English is ignored. With the intercultural communication and second language acquisition research as the theoretical framework, the study took 86 non-English major students in Northwestern Polytechnical University as subjects，by the instruments of Chinese culture-specific items test，questionnaire and interview to examine learners’ ability to express home culture in English and investigate learners’ perceptions and attitudes of Chinese culture and culture teaching in college English education. Findings from questionnaire and interview show the subjects have positive attitudes towards home culture and strong passion for learning Chinese culture in English, whereas test results indicate the subjects have much difficulties in expressing home culture in English. Analyzing factors accounting for this phenomenon, the study puts forward some suggestions such as curriculum development and testing in the hope that a more balanceable culture teaching in English language teaching classroom would help to accomplish an equal and two-way intercultural communication.