A Study of Remote Acculturative Orientations among Iranian EFL Teachers: Are We Taking on Them? abstract
Acculturation has traditionally been termed as a process of change that occurs in two or more formerly distinct cultural groups following a sort of contact (Redfield, Linton & Herskovits, 1936; Sam, 2006). As many commentators have so far fathomed and asserted on the basis of such definition or the similar and sometimes vague ones, acculturative contact must be direct and sustained, thereby excluding non-face-to-face communications and indirect exposures to a foreign culture (Sam, 2006). Recent studies, however, have challenged this assumption. Cheung-Blunden and Juang (2008), for example, have demonstrated that bidimensional acculturation towards both Chinese and Western (mostly British) cultures can occur among nonimmigrant adolescents in Hong Kong. Remote acculturation, as a modern and globalized type of acculturation, refers to a diversity of cultural changes in behaviour, attitude, identity, values and perceptions among people which are incurred in indirect and sporadic contacts between and vicarious exposures to culturally and geographically separated communities (Ferguson & Bornstein, 2012).The present study aimed at investigating the presence of remote acculturation among 50 Iranian EFL teachers who were highly familiar with the English Language and its culture, very much involved with teaching it for years in Iran, and who, having studied English Literature or English Teaching for BA, all achieved their MA in TEFL. The present study critically assessed the perceived distance between their mainstream culture and English culture and furthermore their acculturative orientations, styles and attitudes, which involve the way people prefer to relate to the society of settlement (cultural adoption) and country of origin (cultural maintenance). In this study, the teachers’ acculturation orientations, attitudes and preferences were investigated in a Bidimensional Acculturation Scale via a questionnaire (Marin & Gamba, 1996). As such, acculturation was assessed in multiple domains (private domains such as family and marriage, and public domains such as work and school). The psychological well-being of the participants was also probed. The results revealed signs of remote acculturation in EFL teachers’ behaviors, preferences and attitudes. However, signs of integration were also traced, i.e., there was an inclination among the respondents both to maintain their original culture and national identity and at the same time to get closer to the American norms. The study bears significant implications on the multidimensional effect of such intermittent contacts of Iranian EFL teachers with the target language in the process of culture change, an issue not brought under the spotlight of extensive research in the Iranian EFL learning context.