Abstract:

In recent years, along with the rapid development of globalization, international sojourn has become a universal phenomenon. International sojourners will experience culture shock when they move to a new place with different culture. The more shock they encountered the more anxious they will feel. Cultural shock can be measured by acculturation. This study aimed to explore the relationship between acculturation and Subject Well-Being. A review of relevant literature explores that acculturation is Bidimensional. That means acculturation is included both host cultural and home cultural orientation. One hundred and twenty six sojourners in Birmingham who were from the People^’s Republic of China completed questionnaires, which assessed three dimensions including host-national identification (HNI) co-national identification (CNI) and Subjective Well-being (SWB).There were no many barriers about language and customs in sojourners^’ lives. Though they were keen to contact with natives theses aims are not fulfilled at all. In fact, they live together with Chinese and always accompanied by Chinese. HNI and CNI were measured separately and found that the score of acculturation to host culture are lower than the score of belonging to home culture. What is more, there was no significant correlation between HNI and CNI. Then host and co-national identity scores were subjected to a median split, and 2×2 analyses of variance were performed. In this case, four modes of acculturation strategies including integration, separation, assimilation and marginalization were divided. Subjects with strong host national identification experienced less sociocultural adjustment difficulties. In another words, respondents who endorsed separatist and marginalizatist experienced the greater amount of social difficulty. General measures of Subject Well-being were correlated with host acculturation and urban livability of Birmingham. Feeling “more” Englishman, the more like with Birmingham and the higher levels of satisfaction. These results of positively correlated between acculturation and SWB extended and offered empirical evidence for Ward^’s theory. Further, Step-wise regression analysis suggested that only the contact with host nationals was important predictor of positive affect with life satisfaction.

Key words: sojourner, acculturation, subjective well-being, Birmingham, UK

摘要：

文化融入是文化地理研究的重要内容。本文以英国伯明翰市中国旅居群体为例，着重探求文化融入与生活质量间的耦合关联。研究发现，生活质量与英国文化融入呈正相关关系，相关系数为0.286，与国际认可的Ward系数基本吻合；在文化融入的众多指标中，“与本地居民交往”对生活质量的影响最为突出。中国旅居群体在伯明翰的文化融入状况处于从“基本生存”向“身份认同”转化的过渡期，希望与本地居民交往并得到认可与尊敬，但是这种需求远远没有实现，致使整体生活满意度偏低。为了缓解文化冲击带来的焦虑，中国旅居者特别是“分离”等类型的群体十分依赖中国文化并从中寻求各种支持，表现为居住的集聚及族裔经济的繁荣。但研究表明，对母国文化身份的坚守与生活质量提升并无直接关联；而“整合”与“同化”人群英国文化融入的行为性和实践性等方面较强的情况下，生活质量比较高。

关键词: 旅居, 文化融入, 生活质量, 伯明翰, 英国