A Study on the Relationship Between Intercultural Communication Apprehension and Acquisition of Culturally Loaded Words of Chinese Students in UK

Abstract

In recent years studying in the UK has become one of the popular options for Chinese students to enhance their academic qualifications. However, as the duration of studying in the UK is shorter than that of other English-speaking countries, it has become a problem whether Chinese students can adapt to the intercultural environment within a short time. In this paper, 63 Chinese students who are not majoring in English were tested on their mastery of culturally loaded words and their intercultural communication apprehension. The results were tested by Pearson's correlation test and concluded that there is no significant relationship between the two, and the reasons for this conclusion are discussed. Based on the questionnaires and random return interviews the authors believe that there are three reasons for this: firstly, due to the short period of study abroad students generally believe that learning culturally loaded words is not very important. Secondly, international students preferred to stay with people of the same race. Thirdly, even in intercultural interactions, people use fewer or no culturally loaded words to avoid ambiguity.