The study is aimed at exploring Master’s students’ sense-making of various second language (L2) texts and its correlation with interpretation depth and the students’ intercultural competence. The significance of this research lies in the fact that it provides an insight on culture-specific issues challenging for advanced and proficient Ukrainian learners of English when they make sense of L2 vocabulary, interactions, public, mass and social media discourse. The study is based on a questionnaire with open-ended questions filled in by forty Ukrainian Master’s students. The subjects were asked to interpret several English vocabulary items, idioms, linguistic landscape signs as well as mass media and social media texts. The findings suggest that the students’ intercultural competence rests on the information obtained from English textbooks as well as from current mass and social media content. When facing ambiguity or uncertainty, the students tend to show a lack of cultural awareness and resort to first language (L1) assumptions in their sense-making, which may entail a wrong or inaccurate understanding. The students’ interpretation of public, mass and social media texts reveals their insufficient background knowledge of L2 culture, which does not lead to inaccuracies in sense-making but prevents comprehensive understanding of messages. The study argues that Master’s students majoring in English need to enhance their cultural awareness, to develop their intercultural competence and to be prepared for continuous learning of L2 cultural schemata.

中文翻译：

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理解文本：EFL 学生的跨文化能力和解释深度

本研究旨在探讨硕士生对各种第二语言（L2）文本的意义构建及其与解释深度和学生跨文化能力的相关性。这项研究的意义在于，它提供了对高级和熟练的乌克兰英语学习者在理解 L2 词汇、互动、公共、大众和社交媒体话语时所面临的挑战的文化特定问题的洞察力。该研究基于由 40 名乌克兰硕士生填写的开放式问题问卷。受试者被要求解释几个英语词汇、习语、语言景观标志以及大众媒体和社交媒体文本。研究结果表明，学生的跨文化能力取决于从英语教科书以及当前大众和社交媒体内容中获得的信息。当面对模棱两可或不确定性时，学生往往表现出缺乏文化意识，并在他们的意义建构中诉诸第一语言（L1）假设，这可能导致错误或不准确的理解。学生对公共、大众和社交媒体文本的解读揭示了他们对二语文化背景知识的不足，这不会导致理解不准确，但会妨碍对信息的全面理解。研究认为，英语专业硕士生需要提高文化意识，培养跨文化能力，为持续学习二语文化图式做好准备。