Culture Factors in English Teaching英语教学中的文化因素.doc

硕士学位论文英语教学中的文化因素内容提要 由于社会文化知识的缺乏 即使语言准确无误 也会产生误会 这是中国学生进行跨文化交际时常见的问题 本文试图说明为什么在英语教学中必须重视文化因素 以及如何把文化教学融入语言教学之中 本文以阐释文化与语言的密不可分的关系以及外语教学的目的为理论依据 提出了在英语教学过程中如何传授文化知识和培养学生文化能力的具体目标 内容和方法 ABSTRACT Owing to the lack of socio cultural knowledge misunderstanding may arise although the language used in communication may be faultless. It is common among Chinese English-learners when they communicate with people from English-speaking cultures. This paper is an endeavor that intends to show why we should emphasize the importance of culture in teaching English and how we should blend the teaching of culture into that of language. With the exposition of the integral relationship between language and culture and objectives in English teaching as the theoretical bases the writer attempts to propose the goals content and methods of teaching cultural knowledge and developing students cultural competence. INTRODUCTION Once a fifty-year-old foreign teacher was telling her students what she had seen on her journey to China. As she mentioned that she felt a little tired after the journey one of the students said to her with great concern: “You should have a good rest today. You should not get too tired at such an old age.” The foreign teacher was very unhappy when she heard it and said: “I dont think Im that old. Please dont worry about it.” Why was the teacher so unhappy The reason lies in the different perceptions of the concept of old age indifferent cultures. In the West people associate the concept of old age with uselessness. While in the Eastern culture people usually show their respect to the aged. It is no wonder that the solicitude expressed in the Chinese way as shown in the example above hurt the western teachers feeling. Events like this are fairly common when Chinese students communicate with the English-speaking people. Because of cultural differences misunderstanding may arise although the language the students use in communication may be faultless. Therefore it is obvious that the mastery of a foreign language or more specifically here English is not just that of its phonology grammar and lexis. Apart from listening speaking reading and writing culture in language learning is an indispensable skill. It is always in the background ready to unsettle the good language learners when they expect it least making evident the limitations of their communicative competence. 1 However we have neglected the importance of culture teaching for long. In English teaching too much emphasis has been laid on learning grammatically correct English rather than learning how to use English appropriately in a particular context. That is why students commit such errors in communication as that in the example above. Nowadays more and more foreign language teachers have realized that language and culture are closely intertwined that it is impossible to teach language without culture and that culture is the necessary context for language. Culture teaching derives from social and cultural anthropology. In Britain it is called “background studies”. In France it is often referred to as “civilization”. In Germany where the concept originated it is more usual nowadays to describe culture teaching as “landskunde” area study. The history of this aspect of language teaching dates back at least to the early 1950s and even further to the beginning of the century. As early as 1918 a seminal British report Modern Studies emphasized the need for a better knowledge of a country and its people as part of second language education. Before World War and in the inter war years it was beginning to be recognized that the study of the history geography and institutions of the country was regarded as a useful background and complement to language and literary studies. After World War the growth of social science in particular anthropology and sociology led to a different emphasis which is laid on what is often referred to as the “way of life” or “life style” of a community in culture teaching. Nelson Brooks the leading language teaching 2theorist of the 1960s was one of the main advocates of a strong cultural component in second language curriculum. Since then more and more language teachers have come to recognize the importance of the cultural aspect in language teaching. Apart from the Introduction and the Conclusion the thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter is an account of some basic concepts of culture. It involves the definition of the term “culture” and a discussion of the three elements of culture and different ways of culture classification. The second chapter gives a description of the relationship between language and culture which shows the necessity of teaching culture in language learning. Also in the second chapter is included the description of the major objectives in language teaching: communicative competence and cultural competence. The focus will be put on the description of cultural competence. In the third chapter a detailed description will be presented of the goals and the content of culture teaching to see what should be carried out for culture teaching in classroom practice. A list of methods will be suggested for culture teaching in the fourth chapter. 3 Chapter One The Concept of Culture1.1 The definitions of culture The concept of culture which has to be understood before we can attempt to determine the content and goals of culture teaching is notoriously difficult to define. The traditional concept of culture as great achievements refinements and artistic endeavor or in Brooks term formal culture is widely referred to as culture with a capital C. This contrasts with way-of-life culture or in Brooks term deep culture which is referred to as culture with a small c and includes peoples customs way of life behavioral norms social institutions personal relationships and so on. The combination of these two very wide and diverse approaches has led some writers to abandon the attempt to define culture. For example Seelye refusing to offer a precise definition simply describes it as “a broad concept that embraces all aspects of the life of man”. Seelye 1984:26 The concept is hard to define but many sociologists and anthropologists still tried to make definitions about it. For example among these definitions Good enoughs definition which is widely accepted and cited runs as follows: “A societys culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members. Culture is not a natural phenomenon it does not consist of things peoples behaviour or emotions. It is rather an organization of these things. It is the form of things that people have in mind their models of perceiving 4relating and otherwise interpreting them”. Good enough 1964:36.According to this definition culture is knowledge or socially acquired knowledge including both “know-how” and “know-that” but it is knowledge which is shared and negotiated between people belonging to all of them and not being idiosyncratic to any single one. Geertzs definition stresses the systematic and inherited nature of the knowledge or culture. He said culture is “an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols a system of inherited conceptions expressed in a symbolic form by means of which men communicate perpetuate and develop their knowledge about attitudes towards life”. Geertz 1975: 89. Much of that knowledge is symbolically expressed in arte facts and behaviours and is formulated as rules norms expectations as moral and legal codes as proverbs as parental instructions to children. There are three general categories in the definition of culture. “There is first the “ideal” in which culture is a state or process of human perfection in terms of certain universal values. Then second there is the “documentary” in which culture is the body of intellectual and imaginative work in which in a detailed way human thought and experience are variously recorded. Finally third there is a “social” definition of culture” Williams 1965:57 in which culture is a description of a particular way of life which expresses certain meanings and values not only in art and learning but also in institutions and ordinary behaviour. It is the third of these that we will take for the definition of the term “culture” in this paper. 5Here the term “culture” following the definitions of sociologists and anthropologists refers to typical behaviour in daily situations including personal relationships family life value systems philosophies in fact the whole of the shared social fabric that makes up a society. In more formal terms culture can be defined as “membership in a speech community that shares a common social space and history and common imaginings. Even when they have left that community its members may retain wherever they are a common system of standards for perceiving believing evaluating and acting. These standards are what is generally called their culture”. Claire Kramsch 1998:10 The nineteenth-century British anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor first defined culture as everything human beings made and taught to future generations. “Culture” he said “is that complex whole which includes knowledge belief art moral law custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. ” Tylor s definition was the first to clarify the distinction between two basic sociological concepts: society and culture. Following his lead modern sociologists used the term quotculturequot to refer to all the aspects of behavior that are learned from others rather than from individual experience. Every baby for example learns to grasp objects through trial and error but the quotproperquot way to hold chopsticks or a friends hand is culturally defined. Society on the other hand refers to any organized collection of people with a distinct identity a territorial area and a distinctive way of life a culture. A society is not a culture but it is a people with a common 6culture. A culture is not a society but it is the transmissible way of life of a society. Culture can exist apart from their societies: the Roman Empire disappeared for example but much of its culture was preserved and passed on through manuscripts and works of art.1.2 Elements of a culture There are three elements for a culture: norms values andsymbols.1.2.1 Norms Norms are the guidelines people are supposed to follow in the irrelations with one another they are shared rules that specify appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Norms tell people what should or should not be done in a specific situation and enable people to anticipate how others will interpret and respond to their words and actions. Norms vary from society to society from group to group within societies and from situation to situation. Polite and appropriate behavior in one society may not be acceptable in another. For example: in Chinese culture it is normal for people to greet each other by saying “Have you eaten” “Where are you going” “Where have you been” However in English-speaking cultures these greetings will prove counter-productive and people will be irritated when asked “Where are you going” for they may think it is a threat to his privacy. Social norms shape our emotions and perceptions. For example people are supposed to feel sad and depressed when a family member dies. People usually hold norms but at times they violate them. For example we consider it a kind of bad behavior to 7eavesdrop on an intimate conversation yet we occasionally do that. Most of the time people follow norms more or less automatically. This is particularly true of unspoken norms that seem self-evident such as responding to a person who address you. People keep them because it seems right to conform and because they want approval and fear ridicule rejection or in some cases punishment.1.2.2 Values Values are the general ideas that individuals share about what is good or bad right or wrong desirable or undesirable. These notions transcend particular situations or interactions. Unlike norms the rules that govern behavior in actual situations with other people values are broad abstract concepts. As such they provide the foundation that underlies a people s entire way of life. Even the games people play reflect their values. A good illustration is found among the Tangu a people who live in a remote part of New Guinea. The Tangus play a sports game in which there are neither winnersnor losers. The idea that one individual or group should win and another lose bothers them for they believe winning generates ill will. In fact when Europeans brought soccer to New Guinea the Tangus altered the rules so that the object was for two teams to score the same number of goals. Some times their soccer games went on for days It is important not to confuse norms with values. The distinction is highlighted by a young childs obedience: A child obeys the parent because failure to do so may result in punishment or jeopardize rewards a norm. But the child as yet does not judge the 8behavior as desirable or undesirable in its own right a value. Likewise you may stop at a red light even when there is no traffic a norm yet you do not attach an underlying value to stopping for a red light under these circumstances. In sum norms constitute rules for behavior values provide the criteria or standards we use for evaluating the desirability of behavior.1.2.3 Symbols The third element of culture is symbols. The study of the meanings people attach to the things they do and to the things they make is central to the study of culture. These meanings may be stored in such symbols as the cross the flag or even the kiss. A symbol is an object gesture sound color or design that represents something other than itself. As an element of culture symbols refer to conventionalized signs that have been endowed with special meaning by the members of a given culture. For example a circle is nothing more than a closed curve all points of which are at an equal distance from a point at the center. But for the Oglala Sioux one tribe of American Indians the circle represents all that they know and feel and believe about the universe. The Oglala believe the circle to be sacred because the great spirit causes everything in nature to be round except stone. Stone is the implement of destruction. The sun and the sky the earth and the moon are round like a shield though the sky is deep like a bowl. Since the great-spirit has caused everything to be round mankind should look upon the circle as sacred for it is the symbol of all things in nature except stone. For these reasons the Oglala make 9their camp circular and sit in a circle at ceremonies. Symbols do not necessarily look sound or resemble what they stand for. In some cultures black is the color of mourning in others white or red suggests grief. These colors like all.