Attitudes and 'cultural distance' in second language acquisition

The present study tries to investigate the relationship between attitudes, second language proficiency, and ‘cultural distance’. The working hypothesis is that it is important for students in a foreign country to have a sound and critical, but of course not hostile, attitude to the host people. 170 foreign students at the University of Bergen, Norway, were given three questionnaires, each consisting of the same twenty-four adjectives. The students were asked to indicate on a five-point scale how well each one of the adjectives described Norwegians, their fellow countrymen, and the ideal person. The students were grouped according to ‘cultural distance’, defined as an interaction of three factors: exposure to Western culture and language; distance between target language and mother tongue, and distance between target language and official/second language. The results showed significant differences between the groups in attitudes towards Norwegians, fellow countrymen, and ideal person, and the correlation analysis showed a negative relationship between grades and one to three of the four attitude variables in all groups. None of the groups revealed a positive relationship between grades and attitudes. These results indicate that there is a relationship between a balanced and critical attitude to the target people and proficiency in the target language in the case of adult language learners.