Saudi EFL Students’ Attitudes Toward the Target Culture and Its Relationship with Their Linguistic Backgrounds
- Wardah Saad Alshahrani
Abstract
Culture and language have long been focal points of investigation, and both have been intensively discussed in the academic literature, but little attention has been paid to the influence of EFL students’ linguistic backgrounds on their attitudes toward the target culture, especially in the Saudi context. This mixed-method study aimed to explore the impact of learners’ linguistic backgrounds (mainly their language academic achievement levels and contexts of language learning) on their attitudes toward the target culture. The data was collected using an online questionnaire. A total of 84 students from the Faculty of Language and Translation at King Khaled University participated in this study. A Pearson correlation coefficient test and thematic analysis were used to interpret the data. The results showed a significant relationship between the participants’ linguistic backgrounds and their attitudes. The results also indicated that the participants had an overall positive attitude toward the integration of the target culture into language learning. In light of the findings, EFL students’ linguistic background should be taken into consideration before embedding the target culture into language learning.
- Full Text: PDF
- DOI:10.5539/ijel.v14n6p97
Journal Metrics
Google-based Impact Factor (2021): 1.43
h-index (July 2022): 45
i10-index (July 2022): 283
h5-index (2017-2021): 25
h5-median (2017-2021): 37
Index
- Academic Journals Database
- ANVUR (Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes)
- CNKI Scholar
- CrossRef
- Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA)
- IBZ Online
- JournalTOCs
- Linguistic Bibliography
- Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
- LOCKSS
- MIAR
- MLA International Bibliography
- PKP Open Archives Harvester
- Scilit
- Semantic Scholar
- SHERPA/RoMEO
- UCR Library
Contact
- Diana XuEditorial Assistant
- ijel@ccsenet.org