维吾尔族学生在汉语社区的意义建构及文化融入策略研究

A Study on the Meaning Construction and the Cultural Integration of Uygur College Students in Han Speaking-Community

本研究采用质性研究方法,选取9名维吾尔族大学生进行深度访谈、田野观察及实物资料收集,采用解释现象学及扎根理论方法,对内地新疆籍维吾尔族大学生在汉语社区社会化过程中之意义建构与文化融入策略进行研究。结果表明:(1)面对生活喜好差异及社区环境差异,维吾尔族大学生生成了高比重正向意义构建,分别采取部分融入及完全融入的文化适应策略;(2)维吾尔族大学生在生活喜好及社区环境差异生成的意义构建,与情感态度差异生成的意义构建交互,影响甚至决定维吾尔族大学生的文化适应速度及走向。文章最后以跟踪采访数据展现维吾尔族学生在饮食观及语言观影响下文化适应的心理动态。

Negotiating meaning within the process of socialization is a dynamic psychological construct connecting an individual with the environment.This process represents itself as a competency in adjusting to the environment achieved by actively embracing the changing environment.Having encountered numerous cultural shocks,Uyghur college students who study in the hinterland continuously innovate their original cultural schema of knowledge,and hesitate about where should they stay:in the periphery or center of the Han community?From the perspective of social integration,that an individual continually renews the end value of his or her psychological representation by accommodating cultural differences and making corresponding changes is a kind of optimistic behavior,which is defined as“positive psychological representation”.In contrast,the result of an individual refusing to renew this psychological representation is called“negative psychological representation”.The Uyghur differ from the Han in many ways of diet and daily life.Understanding and handling these differences appropriately is the primary challenge that Uyghur students in the hinterland have to face in order to harmoniously integrate into the Han community.Cultural integration is the decisive factor for the social integration.Based on the extent of original cultural schematic knowledge a new member keeps,and the extent of participation into the new community a new member reaches,Berry categorizes the strategy of cultural integration into four types:assimilation,separation,integration and marginalization.Although more and more Uyghur students are migrating to Han communities for the sake of study,related research on the cultural integration of this group is still very rare.This study selected nine Uyghur college students,ages 21 to 26,from a hinterland university(hereafter called the Almond University)through snowball sampling method and conducted a nine-month investigation using a multi-methodological approach of in-depth interviews,field observations and the collection of physical material on how they negotiate meaning and cultural integration during the process of socialization in the hinterland.The study took a representative sample in terms of gender,grade,personality,major,educational background and academic performance.Hence,it,to some extent,reflected the general situation of how Uyghur students negotiate meaning and cultural integration when they face the differences in the Han community.The study includes four stages.Stage 1:Invited A,B,C,D and E via the snowball sampling method,and transformed the interview text into code numbers.Stage 2:Invited F,G,H and I via the theoretical sampling method,and transformed the interview text into code numbers until no new code numbers appeared.This indicated that the code numbers obtained in this study had reached saturation.Stage 3:Conducted informal interviews with B and H to gain a deeper understanding of their past experiences and corresponding construction of meaning.This latter stage lasted for 2 months,and was carried out 1-2 times a week.Stage 4:Made in-depth interviews with B,D,F and H,and paid a return visit to all participants.The study shows that while facing differences in life preferences,the Uyghur college students sought common ground while at the same time reserved differences,using mostly the integrated strategy of cultural integration.When they faced differences in the community environment,they held a positive psychological construction,using mostly an assimilation strategy of cultural integration;and when they faced differences in emotional attitudes,which is usually more stable,they adopted either an integrated or separated strategy of cultural integration,among which the adoption of separated strategy arose from their poor performance in Chinese language skills.A nine-month follow up investigation of this group showed a great change in their views on language.For example,concerning their attitude to learning mandarin,in the beginning they learned the language passively in order to enter the university.But later,they learned it actively because they realized the value of the language itself.Through learning mandarin,they got to know the culture behind the language,formed the habit of thinking in Chinese,gradually enjoyed learning Chinese and integrated themselves into hinterland culture.However,though most of the Uyghur college students in the hinterland,while facing difference of life,and culture and environment on the campus,actively negotiated the meaning of their identities and integrated themselves successfully and smoothly,their relatively low level of the mandarin still remained the main obstacle preventing them from integrating into the new community.For helping them to better adapt to the life in the hinterland,we provide three suggestions as follows:1)increase the enrollment number of Uyghur students in the junior and senior high schools in the hinterland,and arrange for college preparatory courses in the hinterland.This is suggested because the research shows that the students who have experience studying in junior and senior high schools in the hinterland not only have good mandarin speaking language skills,but also are able to integrate themselves much better into the life and culture of the hinterland;2)increase the financial assistance for students from rural families,and provide more part-time job opportunities on campus for Uyghur students.In this way they will have more time to study and participate in the Han-community activities;3)provide more opportunities for them to show-off their strong interest and/or natural instincts in singing and dancing on the campus so that they will have more confidence when they communicate with the Han students,and expand their social network.