The Cultural Impact of Chinese Students’ Self-Construals on Communication Competence

The purpose of the study sets out to address issues, such as whether the mainland Chinese students better develop interdependent self-construals than the Chinese sojourners, and to what extent a Western cultural context affects the Chinese sojourners’ perceptions of self-construals on interdependence and independence. This research compares a sample of 40 mainland Chinese students and a sample of 20 Chinese sojourners studying in Wales. The respondents were asked to complete a structured self-completion questionnaire. The findings seem to suggest that culture teaches one how to think, conditions one how to feel, and instructs one how to act, especially how to interact with others. It concludes that both the mainland Chinese students and the Chinese sojourners have well-developed interdependent self-construals and independent self-construals. It is also suggested that the traditional cultural values brought with the Chinese sojourners have been well-preserved in a Western cultural context.