THE SOCIOLINGillSTIC MODEL OF ACCULTURATION: AN EMPIRICAL REASSESSMENT OF SCHUMANN'S FINDINGS

Abstract

This study is designed to assess the relationships between two variables: the subjects' awareness of the target culture on the one hand, and their level of achievement in learning the foreign language, on the other. The focus of the study is a reassessment of Schumann's Acculturation Model which was originally designed to investigate the impact of the target culture on learners of ESL. The study is concemed with three pa11icular samples of second year university students taking English as a major. The first group was taken as a random . sample from the. Department of English, A n Shams University. However, all the students in this group obtained their education at Lant,'lJage Schools before joining the Depa11ment of English. Unlike those of the first group, the students of the second group, who were also second year students at Ain Shams University, were at Arabic Schools during their pre-university education. The third group consisted of students from the Department of Islamic Studies in English, AI Azhar University.