Cultural Factors in English Teaching and Learning 英语专业毕业论文.doc

Cultural Factors in English Teaching and LearningI. IntroductionNowadays, culture plays a very important role in the foreign language classroom. Because cultural differences may give rise to misunderstanding that exists in intercultural communication. So the teaching of culture in the English classroom has been becoming a heated topic and people pay more and more attention to the cultural studies and intercultural communication in recent years. Therefore, culture teaching is feasible in the foreign language classroom. It can help English learners raise the cultural awareness and develop the communicative competence. Many researchers and educators worldwide wrote articles to present their views on the importance of culture teaching and the principles and methods to carry out culture teaching. Most of English teachers have already recognized the impossibility of an English acquisition without the relevant cultural understanding. Both scholars and practitioners have reached a consensus that the inclusion of cultural teaching in English classroom should be a must. D. hymes, the well-known American sociolinguist, held that communicative competence should include not only linguistic competence, but also the full understanding and a good command of the sociocultural elements closely related to the language use. In the current understanding of the place of culture in second and foreign language pedagogy, the work of Michael Byram has played a prominent role. In the late 1980s, Byram observed that culture represents “hidden” curriculum in second and foreign language teaching .He indicated that language teaching can rarely take place without implicitly teaching the culture of its speakers because language invariably refers to their knowledge and perceptions of the world, the concepts of culture and culture learning. Byram also pointed out that communicative competence involves “appropriate language use which, in part at least, is culture specific” (Byram 61). In practice, the importance of teaching foreign culture has been recognized a wealth of suggestions on classroom treatment of cultural aspects has been offered by Allen and Valette. Besides, American applied linguist G. Robinson put forward an important concept that through language and cultural teaching learners would gain “cultural versatility”. That is to say, through learning culture, learners would change internally. This view point is quite significant.In China, most scholars have widely considered the importance in foreign language teaching and learning. In the 1980s, Mr.Xu Guozhang published his Culturally-loaded Words and English Language Teaching, in which he indicated that in different languages, many words with equivalent surface meanings have different cultural connotations in fact owing to different cultural traditions, folk tales and values, etc. Hence fore, many other scholars like Deng Yanchang also attempted to explore how culture has remarkable impact on the forms or use of the particular foreign language and devoted him to researches in this field. Reflections have been made on culture teaching since the late 1990s. The earliest reflection on the objective of culture teaching can be found in the book Foreign Language Teaching and Culture written by Hu Wenzhong and GaoYihong (1997). They maintain that, to English major students, the objective of culture learning is more than a tool (English-grasping), more than being equipped with communicative skills to survive in modern society, and nothing like making themselves modernization. Several years later, Gao Yihong extends their view in her doctoral dissertation Foreign Language Learning: “1+1>2” (2001), she claims that language and culture learning in the best case will generate creative energy and elevate personality.In order to communicate with foreigners correctly, language learners have to know the differences between Chinese and foreign cultures. So the process of learning foreign language is a process of learning its culture. Though many linguists and teachers, either abroad or domestic, have already realized the importance of culture learning, the problem is how to teach culture in the English classroom. Those theories of language and cultural teaching are not meaningful unless they are really applied to teaching practice. This paper aims to find out the importance role of culture in the English classroom and propose two tentative suggestions to the problems of cultural learning existing in the English classroom. .The Importance of Cultural Factors in English Teaching and LearningA. The Relationship between Language and CultureWhats culture? Culture is complex. The major institutions within the culture contain church, government, education, military, mass media, monetary systems, and so on. So to give a definition of culture is more difficult than to give an illustration of its influence. Culture refers to the patterns of customs, traditions, social habits, values, beliefs and the language of a society. Within each society people will find a national culture. As culture is so inclusive, it permeates all mens behaviors. Because of international contacts, people in the world keep in frequent touch with each other. Intercultural communication occurs when a member of one culture produces a message for consumption by a member of another culture. Because the different cultures misunderstanding and barriers often happen in the process of communication. We know language is a useful tool for people to communicate with each other. And it is a common feature to all cultures and that allows the members of the culture to communicate with one another. Culture contains every aspect of peoples life. The connection between them is so strong that it is hard to talk about single one without others. Language is influenced by culture. All cultures seem to believe that history is a kind of chart that guides its members into the future and it gets passed on from generation to generation. However, the relationship between the two is more complex than the relationship of a part and the whole. On the one hand, language is the carrier and container of culture. Some social scientists even consider language as the keystone of culture. All the components of culture, such as beliefs, customs, institutions, objects, arts, and techniques, can be describes, analyzed, and evaluated by language. Peoples experience about them is stormed and transmitted by language as well. On the other hand, language is influenced and shaped by culture; it reflects culture. The two interacts, and the understanding of one requires the understanding of the other.1. Cultures Influence on Language.The influence of culture to language can be roughly explored in three major domains: lexicon, syntax and register.LexiconLexicon, or vocabulary, is the basic construction element of a language and the mainstay of the existence of the vast language system. Both of them have universal characteristics, which make different languages able to express a large number of common concepts, and have national characteristics, which make a certain language possible to reflect some unique understanding of a certain culture. For this reason, the cultural difference is reflected most outstandingly and widely on the level of vocabulary. The most awkward situation in translation is that sometimes, these words, such as “brunch (breakfast lunch) and “motel” (motor hotel) in English, but not in Chinese. On the contrary, there is “馒头”in Chinese, while English people have no idea what kind food of it is and it can only be translated into “steamed bread”. Cite an example, in Chinese, “blue” means “肃穆、美好”, but in English “blue” implies “depression, sorrow”, such as “in a blue mode”, “a blue outlook”. Moreover, some words seem to mean the same thing or the same concept superficially; however, what they in fact refer to are not or not totally the same .Each actually has its own culturally loaded meaning. One word may take more meaning than its “translation”, or there may be some other subtle differences between them. Yet the conceptual difference is just a drop of water in the vast sea of the cultural differences demonstrated by word meaning. A great divergence is in the endless association meaning behind the words. So for students who are learning English, it is essential that know not only the conceptual meaning of words, but also the cultural information the words have with them, and otherwise serious misunderstanding can occur in cross-cultural communication.SyntaxEnglish is a language governed by strict rules and regulations. However, Chinese grammar is very flexible .It has also been discovered that English adopts the branching sentence pattern, like trees with trunk, one or more branches and twists, while Chinese relies particularly on the temporal sequence and adopts the linear sentence pattern, like a flowing river without tributaries. There are also some other important differences. The linguistic contrast between these two languages has been related to the cultural traditions in English-speaking countries and China.RegisterMore differences will be known in language and culture, if the way language used in everyday life is examined. That is what we will talk about the differences between languages at the level of register. The register evolves from the context. Therefore, the register produced in different cultural context will inevitably reflect different cultural characteristics. For example, the English and Chinese ways of greeting, congratulations, etc, have differences in various degrees. In a word, cultures differ from each other and each culture is unique. As culture is diverse, language is diverse.2. Languages Influence on Culture.Language is an inseparable part of culture as well. “Language pre-eminently embodies the values and meanings of a culture, refers to cultural artifacts and signals peoples cultural identity (Byram Cultural Studies in FLE 41) Brown has provided another such definition in which he describes language as “the most visible and available expression of a particular culture” (Brown 128).As language is the carrier of its culture, language and culture are interdependent and interactive, and to learn a foreign language is also to learn a foreign culture. Accordingly, learning English is not only a process of learning language system itself, but also a process of learning its culture. Many linguists and scholars hold the view that cultural interference is one of the main obstacles in English learning. Since cultural differences are reflected in various aspects such as words, grammar, context, etc, if Chinese learners of English neglect cultural factors during their contact with native speakers, they will find they will make “cultural mistakes”, which are more serious than incorrect handling of grammar or mispronunciation.In one word, the more profound and detailed study of the cultural knowledge an English learner gains, the less communicative barriers will occur in his actual use of English. Familiarity with cultural factors in the language itself can make English use correct and proper. Thus, English learners are required to improve their sensitivity to the cultural differences both in and out of English itself and make a good combination of language study and cultural study. Therefore, language is influenced by culture and influences culture, too. B. Culture Teaching and Learning in English ClassroomIn order to have a clear understanding of the culture teaching in English classroom, it is essential to clarify the goal of culture teaching and the content of it.The theory of culture teaching which evolved during the 1960s and 1970s was influenced by a simultaneous emphasis on behavioral objectives in education. Writers on culture were eager to show that, even if the concept of culture was somewhat vague, cultural goals could be expressed in clear and unambiguous. Seeley describes the goals of culture teaching as seven skills to be developed in the learner:a. The sense, or functionality, of culturally conditioned behavior. The student should demonstrate an understanding that people generally at the way they do because they are using options the society allows for satisfying basic physical and psychological needs.b. Interaction of language and social variables. The student should demonstrate and understanding that social variables such as age, sex, social class, and place of residence affect the way people speak and behave.c. Conventional behavior in common situations. The student should indicate an understanding of the role convention plays in shaping behavior by demonstrating how people act in common mundane and crisis situations in the target culture.d. Cultural connotation of words and phrases. The student should indicate awareness that culturally conditioned images are associated with even the most common target words and phrases.e. Evaluating statements about a culture. The student should demonstrate the ability to make, evaluate, and refine generalities concerning the target culture f. Researching another culture. The student should show that she has developed the skills needed to locate and organize information about the target culture from the library, the mad media, people and personal observation.g. Attitudes toward other societies. The student should demonstrate intellectual curiosity about the target culture and empathy towards its people. (Seelye 9)The same also applies to Valette, who summarizes the goals of culture teaching in five categories.a. Cultural awareness, knowledge about the contributions of the target culture to world civilization, knowledge about differences in the way of life as well as an understanding of values and attitudes in the second language community.b. Command of etiquette, i. E. polite behaviorc. Understanding of daily life.d. Understanding of cultural values, requiring the interpretation of the target culture and the learners own culture.e. Analysis of the target culture, based on theories of cultural analysis as the Emergent model or basic needs. (Stern 213)All of linguists or educators stress the cognitive goals of culture learning: knowledge about the target culture, awareness of its characteristic and of differences between the target culture and the learners own culture; and a research-minded outlook, i.e. willingness to find out, to analyses, to synthesize, and generalize. Also included in this cognitive set of objectives is an emphasis on understanding the sociocultural implications of language and language use. At the same time, nearly all of these lists recognize the affective goals of culture teaching: interact intellectual curiosity, and empathy. Finally, they all acknowledge a behavioral component, both receptively in that students should be able to interpret culturally relevant