Ｃｕｌｔｕｒａｌ Ｄｉｆｆｅｒｅｎｃｅｓ ａｎｄ Ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ Ｔｅａｃｈｉｎｇ

李　毅

[Abstract]Language is closely related to culture. They are inseparable. On the one hand, language is the carrier of culture; on the other hand, language is influenced and shaped by culture. Understanding one requires understanding the other. If the English learners have no cross-cultural awareness, they will be impossible to use the target language as the native speakers. And the ignorance of cultural differences also causes some misunderstanding and unpleasantness in the intercultural communication. It is important to teach culture in English education. This paper expounds the connotation of culture and language, points out the reasons of culture teaching in English education, and raises some suggestions and methods on English culture teaching.

[Key words]Language;Culture;Cultural awareness;English teaching;Culture teaching

[中图分类号]G642[文献标识码]A[文章编号]1006-9682(2009)08-0049-02

1.Introduction

The importance of culture has been widely recognized in English teaching. However, how to teach culture is a problem faced by language educators. In traditional language education, the aims of a language teaching course are often defined to the four language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Culture teaching is not considered to be a target as important as the above mentioned. Because of lacking of cultural knowledge, students often make cultural mistakes when they communicate with native speakers. Language is shaped by culture and belongs to culture. On the one hand, language is the carrier of culture. On the other hand, language reflects culture. The anthropologist William Haviland suggests that “people maintain cultures to deal with problems or matters that concern them.”(Tang Degen, 2000: 87)It is believed that culture evolved for the same reasons: it serves the basic need of laying out a predictable world in which each of us is firmly grounded and thus it enables us to make sense of our surroundings. This paper will make a study of culture teaching in English education. At the same time, it emphasizes the importance of mastering cultural differences to English learner.

2.Language and Culture

(1)What is culture?

A simple definition offered by Ferraro well serves the purpose. He defines culture as “everything that people have, think, and do as members of a society.”(Song Li, 2004: 24) From the definition it is known that culture permeates every aspects of our life. The study of culture, therefore, covers all of the items that come under each category. However, what the paper concerns are only those things that are closely related to interpersonal communication, especially things that tend to be different across cultures. Culture is not only a characteristic of individuals but also the property of a community. Culture involves learned and shared behaviors, norms, values and material objects. It also encompasses what people create to stand for values, attitudes and norms.

(2)What is language?

“Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.”(He Zhaoxiong、Mei Deming, 1999:9)This definition has captured the main features of language like this: systematic, arbitrary, symbolic, vocal and used for communication. Language is the tool that enables us to share our experiences with others. It is a set of symbols used and understood by a large community of people, plus the rules for combining those symbols. And it is also the process by which people became involved in the order of the physical and social environment.

(3)The relationship between language and culture

Language and culture are intertwined. It is impossible to separate them. So the relationship between them is also the content and form. The form is determined by the content, in turn, content affects and is reflected by its form. Firstly, language expresses cultural reality. It is the carrier of culture, take the word “dragon” for example, it is a positive term in China. Its common associations are “good luck and fortune, wisdom, royal and noble etc.” But in English, the word “dragon” refers to a dreadful creature, and it is associated with fierceness and derogatory sense when used to describe a person. So language not only expresses facts, ideas, or events, but also reflects the peoples attitudes, beliefs, world views and so on. Secondly, as the carrier of culture, language also affects development of culture. Culture is shared by a society. Each culture consists of how a social group represents itself, its technological achievements, monuments and works of art and of its historical identity recorded and passed down by the pop culture, all of them are composed of its social identity. People in a culture share symbols of it. To sum up, culture and language are shaped by each other. Language is not a matter of neutral codes and grammatical rules. So when they learn a language, what they need is not just the competence of language, but also its content and culture.

3.Cultural differences and English teaching

Culture not only dictates who talks with whom, about what and how the communication proceeds, it also helps to determine how people encode messages. They are inseparably interwoven. Understanding one requires understanding the other. Therefore, learning a language well not merely means mastering its pronunciation, grammar, words, and idioms. It is also the culture learning, so language and culture should be taught simultaneously in class.

(1)Cultural differences and language differences

It is easy to lead to misunderstanding and unpleasant because of the ignorance of cultural difference. Here are some illustrations, which students may come across in their daily life.

1)In addressing

In Chinese students homework, we can see such words: Director Song (宋局长), Manager Gao(高经理), These words are not idiomatic usage of English and sound odd to English native speakers. Chinese prefer to address others by using their titles or occupations. They think the surname comes last in order to show respect for the person concerned. However, this custom is not totally applicable in English in that only a few occupations or titles are used before a persons last name: Dr.(Doctor)is used to address medical doctors and university professors who have earned a doctorate degree; Mrs. to address a married woman;Miss to an unmarried woman; Ms for an unmarried or married woma; Mr. for man.

2)In apology

In our daily life, a timely apology can prevent the deterioration of the good relationship between people or states. Chinese people, however, are less frequent and more flexible in making apologies. Lin Dajin points out that many Chinese learners misuse the word “sorry” When they want to show modesty, they like to say‘sorry, my English is not good or ‘sorry, I didnt do it very well.And when they want to show gratitude they also present it in the form of an apology.”(Song Li, 2004:16)but in English “Im sorry” is never used to show the speakers gratitude. In the above situation, it is more appropriate to say“I really appreciate your time” in English.

3)In compliments

English speakers tend to accept compliments happily while Chinese people prefer to efface themselves by denial or claiming that they are not worthy of the praise. For example, a foreign friend is looking at a Chineses beautiful drawings with great admiration. “Your drawing are quite life like!” As the response to her compliment, the Chinese remark, “Drawing pictures is my hobby, but Im not quite good at it.” The foreign friend will be upset if his comments are rejected again as it usually happens with the Chinese. That is very likely to be taken as rejection of her ability to judge. So cultural differences in response to compliments may result in misunderstandings in social interaction across cultures.

(2)Culture teaching

Students may have this kind of experience: when they listen to something familiar to them, it is easy to understand. Even if there are some new words in the material, they can guess the meanings according to the contexts. However, when they encounter some unfamiliar materials or something not closely related to cultural background, they may feel rather difficult. Take “red-letter days” for example, which is a simple phrase and is easily to be heard, means holidays such as Christmas and other special days. But students cant understand them without the teachers explanation. So in language teaching, teachers should not only pass on knowledge of language and train learners competence of utilizing language, but also enhance culture teaching. Language and culture are so inextricably linked that it is obvious that cultural background is necessary in language teaching. Teachers should help students to solve the difficulties in language as well as in culture.

4.Suggestions of culture teaching

It is clear that cultural background knowledge is necessary in language teaching. So when teachers decide the teaching goal of a class, they should consider how to teach. And the perfect way is to put the cultural background knowledge in the text into a classified narration and to give the specific practicable teaching program. Firstly, each culture offers distinct options, and exhibits distinct patterns associated with areas of daily life such as employment, housing and shopping. In order to help students to understand the cultural background knowledge better, the teachers should create some situations for the students to do some imitative communication. Secondly, encourage students to read extensively, the acquisition of knowledge of western culture mainly depend on reading textbooks, literal works, magazines, and newspapers, through which students can know a nations psychology, cultural characters, customs and habits, social relation etc. Thirdly, teacher should be familiar with the concept of visual aids: physical objects such as postcards, photographs, images, and symbols associated with the target culture. The aim of working with cultural products is to help students to build up fluency by using authentic material form the target culture and to allow them by observing and describing the visual aids to compare these objects with others in their own culture. Fourthly, using good native English videotapes and films in teaching, and then organize discussions. Students should pay much attention to the scene of daily life.

5.Conclusion

It is known that language is a system of communication which consists of a set of sounds and written symbols that are used by the people of a particular country or a region for talking or writing. Language is the carrier of culture and is influenced and shaped by culture, they are inseparable. Culturally different patterns of communication are a main cause of causing misunderstanding. So it is important to teach culture in English education. Language and culture are of the same importance. The teacher should take different actions to raise the cultural awareness of students.

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