论文总字数：32369字

摘 要

语言与文化密切相关，外语学习实际上是一种文化学习，要学好外语就必须了解目的语文化，尤其要熟悉本族语与目的语之间的差异。本文结合文化教学的必要性，进而阐述了在中学外语教学中，句子结构的灌输与记忆已远远不能适应当前学生的需要，还必须传授与语言知识密切相关的文化因素。另外本文结合文化教学原则，提出了一些教学方法，以帮助学生养成良好的语言学习习惯，解决交际中的实际问题，从而提高跨文化交际能力。

关键词：英语教学；跨文化意识；文化教学

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 An Overview of Culture and Language Teaching Abroad 1

2.2 An Overview of Culture and Language Teaching at Home 2

3. Necessity of Developing Cross-cultural Awareness 3

3.1 Definition of Cross-cultural Awareness 3

3.2 The Importance of Cultivating Cross-cultural Awareness 3

4. Cultivation of Cross-cultural Awareness in ELT 4

4.1 Goals of Cross-cultural Teaching 4

4.2 Principles of Cross-cultural Awareness Teaching 4

4.3 Methods of Culture Teaching in ELT Classrooms in Middle Schools 6

5. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

The history of culture is as long as the history of mankind. Thousands of years ago, man began to consider the problems of language teaching and cultural communication. Records show that the course of “Foreign Studies” was set in some schools of Zhou Dynasty in China and that in the Ming Dynasty a foreign institution called “Si-Yi Guan” was set up in Beijing in 1862 for teaching foreign languages. The cultural teaching concerning modern linguistics and language teaching can be traced back to the beginning of the 20^th century. In the 1920s, China published some English textbooks specially for introducing foreign cultures.

The cultural teaching of modern language began in the 1950s, but the theory of cultural teaching was not formed until the 1960s-1970s. Nelson Brooks, a well- known language teaching theorist, advocated in 1960s that cultural elements should be incorporated into second language teaching. In 1977, J. Allen and many scholars put forward some proposals about dealing cultural problems in classroom teaching, which were soon responded and supported by many experts and scholars. They firmly believed that cultural teaching is not only valuable but also practical.

Since the 1980s, it has been clear that foreign language education should include cross-cultural education. But not until July, 2001 did the concept of “cross-cultural” begin to appear in The English Course Standard, which stipulates that English education should include the goal of cultural knowledge, cultural understanding and awareness and ability in cross-cultural communication. According to it, the goal of cross-cultural education in English course should result in students’ interest in foreign cultures and realization of cultural differences existing in language communication. It also requires students to pay attention to cultural differences in their daily communication, sense the cultural connotation and background so as to cultivate the attitude of respect and tolerance to exotic cultures and a relatively strong sense of the world as a whole.

2. Literature Review

2.1 An Overview of Culture and Language Teaching Abroad

Ever since 1960s, a great many scholars have concerned themselves with the significance of the cultural aspects in foreign language learning. In 1970s, an emphasis on sociolinguistics led to great emphasis on the situational context of the foreign language. Savignon’s study on communicative competence, suggested the “value of training in communicative skill from the very beginning of the foreign language program”.

Later, it is only in the 1980s that educators began to dig into the dynamics of culture and its vital contribution to “successful” language learning. Harmmerly, Seelye and Damen are among those who have considered ways of incorporating culture into language teaching.

Furthermore, between the 1980s and 1990s, advances in pragmatics and sociolinguistics laying bare the very essence of language, which is no longer thought of as merely describing or communication, but, rather as persuading, deceiving, or publishing and controlling, have rendered people’s frames of reference and cultural schemata tentative, and led to attempts at “bridging the cultural gap in language teaching” (Valdes 1986: 112).

According to Kramsch (1993:227), the purpose of learning a foreign language is “a way of making cultural statements” as well as “learning a new way of making communication”. She insists that culture must be taught in each language class, and believes culture should be taught as an interpersonal process and rather than presenting cultural facts. Teachers should assist language learners in grasping the “other cultures”.

2.2 An Overview of Culture and Language Teaching at Home

In China, many scholars have been working on cultural studies in EFL classrooms since early 1980s. Since the publication of Xu Guozhang’s thesis of Cultural Connotations of Words and Expressions and English Teaching, some heated discussions on cross-cultural communication have prevailed, which have resulted in the publications of a series of research papers on the relation between language and culture. Among them are He Daokuan’s An Introduction to Cross-cultural Communication, and Li Wei’s A Brief Discussion on Cultural Comparison between Chinese and English in Middle School English Teaching. The late 1980s saw the publication of some very useful influential works in this field such as Cross-cultural Communication and English Learning, a collection of essays compiled by Hu Wenzhong, and Language and Culture- A linguistic and cultural Comparison between Chinese and English written by Deng Yanchang and Liu Runqing. Guan Shijie’s Cross-cultural Communication, Hu Wenzhong and Gao Yihong’s Foreign Language Teaching and Culture. They are the main reflections of the achievement of cross-cultural communication researches since 1980s.

3. Necessity of Developing Cross-cultural Awareness

3.1 Definition of Cross-cultural Awareness

Cross-cultural awareness may be one of the most difficult dimensions to attain. It is the term used to describe sensitivity to the impact of culturally induced behavior on language use and communication.

First, let’s see what awareness is. According to Freeman (1989:33), “awareness is the capacity to recognize and monitor the attention one is giving or has given to something. Thus, one acts on or responds to the aspects of a situation of which one is aware”. Awareness consists initially in realizing something, of becoming cognizant. That means something previously unknown to oneself becomes known. In this sense, awareness involves both a moment (the act of becoming aware) and a state (being aware).

Culture awareness refers to the understanding the conventions of the host culture that affects people’s thought and behavior. Each culture shows different thing patterns. We encounter troubles frequently in intercultural communication when we misunderstand thinking patterns. To be effective in intercultural interaction, we should first learn the preferences of the target culture. Understanding a target culture enables us to modify our communication patterns to be congruent with the cases of unfamiliar interactions.

3.2 The Importance of Cultivating Cross-cultural Awareness

Learners’ cultural awareness is mainly achieved in the process of learning the target culture. To achieve this purpose, EFL teachers should sharpen their observation, encourage critical thinking about the target culture, and develop tolerance.

The reason why many foreign language learners often made pragmatic failures is that they lack the understanding of the differences between their own culture and the target culture. While paying attention to the similarities, they often neglect the difference, when they communicate with foreigners in their target language, very often pragmatic failure occur, for they are used to considering according to their own train of thoughts replacing the target cultural pattern. There is a good example that can illustrate the importance of raising cultural awareness: as a manager, Tiffany is responsible for interviewing applicants for some of the positions of her company. During one interview, she noticed that the candidate never made direct eye contact. She was puzzled and somewhat disappointed because she liked the individual, but the fact that he never looked at her in the eye said “untrustworthy”, so she decided to offer the job to her second choice. “It was not until I attend diversity shop that I realized the person we passed over was a perfect person”, Tiffany confessed. What she had not known at the interview was that the candidate’s “different” behavior was simply a cultural misunderstanding. He was an Asia-American.

Tiffany’s misjudgment about the candidate stemmed from cultural ignorance. Fortunately she has realized her mistakes and the experience will be helpful to her work. From the above, we may draw a conclusion that cultural awareness makes us know that we cannot only focus on our native culture, but also should pay our attention to the misconstrued perceptions in interaction with people from other cultures.

With the globalization of the economy and the development of the society, we have more opportunities to participate in various cross-cultural activities. Thus, intercultural communication is more and more important. It is not easy to communicate with persons who belong to the same culture as we do, not to say to communicate with persons who belong to different cultures. Just like the German Proverb states, “Everyone thinks that all the bells echo his own thoughts”.

4. Cultivation of Cross-cultural awareness in ELT

4.1 Goals of Cross-cultural Teaching

Although the concept of culture is rather obscure, the goal of culture teaching is quite concrete, which can be perceived from the goals of foreign language teaching. As we know, the aim of English teaching is to foster the students’ comprehensive ability to use the language. So it is important for teachers to cultivate students’ sensitivity and tolerance to cultural difference and their flexibility to deal with cultural difference. The sensitivity is the correct understanding of the cultural difference, the tolerance is the correct attitude towards foreign culture and the flexibility is reflected in the correct treatment of communicative obstacles caused by cultural differences. From the cross-cultural angle, the goal of cultural teaching is to enhance cross-cultural awareness, which is the sensitivity and appraising ability of the cultural difference and cross-cultural awareness teaching.

4.2 Principles of Cross-cultural Awareness Teaching

In the process of foreign language teaching, due to the limitation of time and input from the learning environment itself, it is impossible to cover everything about the target culture. Then how to conduct culture teaching? What principles should we follow? In order to make students acquire cultural competence, pedagogical principles are inevitably needed. Therefore, three principles in culture teaching are suggested in this paper, they are cognitive principle, comparative principle and assimilative principle.

4.2.1 Cognitive Principle

In intercultural communication, people from different cultures have different communication styles and ways of perceptions, thus resulting in misunderstanding and communication breakdowns. In order to minimize the misunderstanding and avoid miscommunication, we should be aware of the cultural differences firstly.

Cognitive principle in culture teaching is that the students are required to understand the target culture. In terms of the cognitive principle, emphasis is placed on knowing and understanding, rather than behaving. As we all know, the cognitive principle is based on dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge, which suits the actual conditions in culture teaching. Since the great majority of foreign language learners have few opportunities to study abroad or live in the target culture community, they can only learn the target culture in classrooms, from books or through mass media. What’s more, the principle tallies with the goal of cultivating students. In culture teaching, different students have different requirements. Only those who are involved in foreign affairs are necessary to experience the target culture directly. Most learners are only required to learn the general knowledge of the target culture.

4.2.2 Comparative Principle

Despite cultural differences exist in various aspects between any two societies, they do have a greater or lesser degree of cultural similarities. Comparative principle is an attempt to make a comparison between learners’ own culture and the target culture so as to find out their similarities and differences, which enables us to get a deeper understanding of the target culture, and help us explain different cultural behavior, thus preventing us from accepting the target culture uncritically. The reason why learners often make pragmatic errors is that we fail to handle correctly the relationship between language and culture. While paying attention to the similarities, we often neglect the differences. When communicating with foreigners, we often meet up with failure, for we are used to making judgments according to the train of thought, replacing the target cultural pattern with our own.

Since different culture has different ways of life value, ways of thinking and social norm, cultural shock or cultural clash are inevitable. If we pay close attention to the differences between different cultures, we can deepen each other’s understanding and clear up each other’s misunderstanding. Only in this way can cultural shock and violence be reduced or even avoided.

4.2.3 Assimilative Principle

Creativity, the soul of a nation, is the asset necessary for any nation to survive the global world. Creativity is in some way cultural creativity, which means learning from other cultures to perfect one’s own.

There are too many differences between the English culture and our own. On one hand, these differences make it quite difficult for English learners to communicate with native speakers, on the other hand, the more different the two cultures are, and the more we have to learn from each other. In culture teaching class, it is not enough to help the students to understand the target culture, the most important lies in making the useful part of the target culture serve us. This is assimilative principle.

Why we should act on assimilative principle in culture teaching? First of all, each culture is national and bears its own national characteristics. Every culture links up with other cultures in such a way that they can absorb something from each other and forms a new world culture. Secondly, to nourish its own culture, every culture needs to assimilate a good deal of foreign progressive culture. In essence, assimilation is for the sake of better developing and better enriching one’s own culture. Thirdly, every culture has its strong and weak points. To make its own culture prosper, every culture must overcome its own weak points by learning from each other’s strong points. Finally, with the development of the information revolution, the intercultural exchange is getting more and more frequent. Therefore, cultures are developing in the direction of diversity. Once culture dissociates itself from the development tide of the world culture, it is bound to be eliminated.

4.3 Methods of Culture Teaching in ELT Classrooms in Middle Schools

Professor Dong Yafeng points out: “Each national tongue is important, in the language materials, writings, sentences and even words all contain national cultural information.” At present, the teacher can make full use of the materials in the text book, which can be used not only in language teaching, but also in English-speaker’s cultural acquainting. If the teacher keeps conception of cultural acquainting persistently, the aim not only to impart the language knowledge, but also cultural conscious and the intercultural communication can be realized. Therefore, for the teacher, to master some approaches that help the students acquaint cultural knowledge become necessary and important in the teaching. According to the characters of middle school English teaching, the materials and the students, the teacher can take the following methods to acquaint the cultural knowledge.

4.3.1 Providing Cultural Information in Class

Teachers can inform the language class of some cultural facts in compact, interesting and readily accessible ways without too much time away from the “regular” language business. For example, teachers can make good use of the beginning several minutes to introduce some relevant cultural information to students. When teaching texts involving manners, teachers can explain the differences of manners between Chinese and Western people. With this kind of accumulation over a long period, students will have more enthusiasm and less pragmatic failure in English learning.

4.3.1.1 Acquainting Cultural Knowledge through Vocabulary

After thousands of years, English words also accumulated rich cultural information. Therefore, learning vocabulary means more than grasping the pronunciation, spelling and equivalent meaning in home language. The vocabulary of a language tells a great deal about the nature and values of different cultures. As English and Chinese languages belong to two language systems, words or terms of the two have little similarity to each other. We can divide these differences into three kinds: semantic differences, connotative differences and associative meaning differences.

1) Semantic differences

Foreign language learners usually assume that bilingual dictionary definitions give exact equivalents in meaning or that different languages have words or terms to express the same thing. But that’s not the case. Usually, semantic differences may fall into three types as the following:

First, a term in one language does not have a counterpart in another language, which is called vocabulary vacancy. For example, there is no Chinese equivalent for cowboy, because there is much romance and legend associated with cowboy of the early American western region, but 牧童 or 牛仔don’t carry this meaning.

Second, words or terms in both languages appear to refer to the same object or concept on the surface, but actually refer to quite different things. For example, rest room is not “休息室”. Many English learners in China often make the mistakes to take a rest room as “休息室”. In fact, a rest room is a polite term for bathroom or toilet. The English equivalent for the Chinese term”休息室” is lounge or lobby.

Third, things and concepts are represented by one or two term in one language but distinctions exist in the other language. In this case, the most common example is the kinship terms. English word “uncle” stands for several terms in Chinese as “叔叔”, “伯伯”, “舅舅”, “姑父”, “姨父”; parents in-law refer to both husband’s and wife’s parents.

From the above we can conclude that because of the semantic difference between the English and Chinese terms, we can not only just memorize the equivalents of each other in learning.

2) Connotative differences

Connotation is defined as the implication of a word, apart from its primary meaning. When English learners contact with native English speakers, it is important that he should know not only the denotation of a word, but also its connotation. The ignorance of it may cause serious blunders or ill-feeling, leading people laugh in their sleeves, because the connotation of a word is always culturally bounded, even if the denotation is the same. Most of the words in one language can find their corresponding ones in another language, but “corresponding” is not “equal”. So comparing and understanding the differences in connotation of Chinese and English is the necessary step to increase learners’ cultural awareness.

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