Özet:

Acculturation has been researched a lot in applied linguistics, and many acculturation studies were made in second language learning/acquisition contexts. Also, there are some criticisms about the acculturation theory of Schumann in terms of the social distance component of the theory. Therefore, the present study aimed to study acculturation in a foreign language learning context and contribute to the acculturation theory by providing a solution to the criticisms about the theory. The present study was designed as a quantitative study. 81 students of the Turkish-medium and English-medium departments in a Turkish university participated in the research. The data was collected through the updated version of the Bogardus Social Distance Scale and was analyzed through independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, and descriptive statistics. The results of the study indicated that both the participants of the Turkish- and English-medium departments approached the native speakers of English positively. Also, the medium of the departments, the kind of the faculties, having been abroad, and having a sister(s) and/or brother(s) created statistically significant differences while gender, job status of family members, knowing another language, high schools the participants graduated from, and the sources of learning the English culture did not produce such differences. The possible reasons for these findings and the possible contributions of this study to the acculturation theory were discussed.

Anahtar Kelimeler: