Cultural Awareness in English Teaching.doc
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1、Cultural Awareness in English Teaching Abstract: Language is the carrier of culture. Unless understanding the culture of the target language can learners use the language in an accurate and appropriate way. This thesis discusses the cultural differences between China and English-speaking countries,
2、aiming at evoking English educators and learners attention to culture teaching and learning. Key words: English teaching; cultural differences; culture teaching 英语教学中的文化教学 摘要:语言是文化的载体,只有了解所属的文化才能准确恰当地运用语言。本文通过论述在英语学习中遇到的一些中西文化差异现象,旨在引起英语教育者与学习者对文化学习的重视,进而提出几个文化教学的方法。 关键词: 英语教学 文化差异 文化教学 Cultural Awa
3、reness in English Teaching I. Introduction In the 20s-30s of the 20th century, the study of cross-cultural communication has drawn interest in the USA. It focuses on the problems arising from communication between people of different cultural backgrounds and seeks solution to these problems. The aim
4、s of English teaching, in the same way, are to enable students to master the pure language and to communicate with the people from the English-speaking countries. However, because of the differences in all aspects of custom, way of thinking, norm, value and etc., English learners often make mistakes
5、 by applying their own culture to the foreign one. It is the greatest obstacle for the failure in successful communication. It also demonstrates the defect of our English teaching-lack of cultural awareness. English teaching in China, especially in middle and high school, follows a stereotyped model
6、, that is wordphrasesentence pattern, with less concern of culture. Overemphasis on grammar and the ignorance of cultural differences frequently result in misunderstanding even conflict in intercultural communication. Thus, culture learning, both home and foreign culture learning appears to be cruci
7、ally significant. This paper, from aspects of daily communication, vocabulary, nonverbal behavior and values, discusses the ways of teaching of culture. II. Relations between language and culture 2.1. Conceptions of language and cultureTo start with the discussion of culture teaching, two conception
8、s are indispensable to be mentioned, namely language and culture. Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. Language is a social phenomenon, and each stands for one culture. Broadly speaking, communication refers to the communication between any of two persons of
9、the same or different cultures. In this thesis, we discuss the one which accruing between native-speakers and nonnative-speakers. Culture, in a broad sense, means the total way of life of a people, including the patters f belief, customs, objects, institutions, techniques, and language that characte
10、rize the life of the human community. In a narrow sense, culture can be mostly found in folk culture, enterprise culture or food culture. In these senses, culture is the common ground of the people of a given community, where they share the same material culture and spiritual culture as well. Conver
11、sely, neither peoples way of thinking nor behavior is not influenced by their culture. Language, too, as an important element of culture, is permeated with the characteristic of its original culture.Culture and language intrinsically depend on each other. On the one hand, language, as the crystal of
12、 a culture, plays an important role in transmitting its own culture. When a child acquires his mother tongue, or a person moves to another country and learns the local language, the transmission of culture takes place. In these two cases, the difference is just the extent of acquisition of the cultu
13、re. The function of language to culture shows that language is the surface form of the culture. What people say directly reflects their attitude, belief, values and etc., -that is culture. The reason embedded in this phenomenon that there are various languages in the world is that cultures are diver
14、se. So, in a deep sense, the nature of the linguistic differences lies in the differences between cultures.On the other hand, culture conditions the form of its language. And continuously, culture put its essence into the language, which then becomes the connotation of culture and the content of the
15、 language. No language can be separated from its culture. The following examples bellow will show how the Chinese and western philosophy exercise influence on their languages respectively. Traditionally, the Chinese people put more emphasis on unity, which takes heaven and human as a whole. Reflecti
16、ng to language, Chinese language is parataxis, which contains less or no conjunction, e.g. “枯藤老树昏鸦, 小桥流水人家, 古道西风瘦马, 夕阳西下, 断肠人在天涯”. Among the twenty-eight characters of this poet, there are fourteen nouns without a verb and conjunction, but the wretched context is vividly exposed. It is comprehensibl
17、e to Chinese people. Whereas, being a language featured by analysis, English is hypotaxis with strong sense of logic, such conjunctions as and, if, although, but, considering are often used in sentences. e.g. “if winter comes, will spring be far away”, the use of “if” compacts the structure of the s
18、entence and present the hypothetical relation of the two clauses. 2.2. Importance Of Culture TeachingIn modern society, with the globalization of the world, contacts in all sorts of fields, such as economy, science and technology become more and more frequent. It is inevitable for people around the
19、world to communicate with those from another culture. To avoid unexpected misunderstanding, which is caused by ignorance of cultural differences, it is important to carry on culture teaching. Since language is inseparable from culture, culture teaching is indivisible from English language teaching.
20、Although educators have been aware of the necessity of culture teaching, it is not popularized in education. In terms of learners, language competences do not only refer to the ability to speak in a language, but also to use the language in an effective way. Among Chinese English-learner, it is comm
21、on that they create “Chinglish”, which is a structure combined Chinese way of thinking and English linguistic form. Although there is no need to create Chinglish”, Chinese foreign language educators should consider how to use English to express their own culture as well in cross-cultural communicati
22、on. This should base on the accurate understanding of both home and foreign culture. In this way, students language competence can be fully acquired. Therefore, sufficient exposure of the foreign culture sees essential in a long run. In addition, the advantages of culture teaching are easily found i
23、n the whole English teaching program. Firstly, culture teaching does great good to language acquisition in learning language itself. As we discuss above, the English structure and expression are related to culture, thus, culture teaching will certainly a beneficial subsidiary to English language tea
24、ching. The procedure of culture learning is at the same time of the developing of language ability. Secondarily, culture teaching satisfies students curiosity about the totally different environment of the other country. What English learners want to learn about is not just the sign of the language,
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