Acculturation of university students in Northern Cyprus

Abstract

This study addresses learner acculturation in the English Preparatory School of Eastern Mediterranean University in Famagusta, Northern Cyprus, and it examines the role of learners’ social and cultural identities conveyed through teaching English in a foreign language context. Qualitative research using in-depth interviews with 10 participants of Turkish, Azeri, Uygur (China) origin, and Palestinian students, was employed to gain a nuanced understanding of how the acculturation process is experienced, and what role cultural and motivational factors play. The findings of this study reveal that participants are closely aligned with their home cultures, and thus have little motive to distance themselves and integrate into the host culture. Although Turkish students have more motivation to integrate with the host culture, the results reveal that all students involved in the acculturation process display a separation strategy, and therefore find themselves facing difficulty integrating themselves within different cultures in the English as a Foreign Language context. For this reason, the type of motivation participants display changes from intrinsic to extrinsic and instrumental motivation can be seen as depending on the students’ overall motivation patterns as well as their cultural backgrounds. The closer the students’ culture to the culture of the target language and host culture, the better the acculturation process will prove to be. Finally, the findings show that cultural background, language learning, and motivation are closely interrelated in the learner acculturation process.