Cultural Background Knowledge and English Teaching

主要讲文化背景对英语学习的影响,值得我们学习这一方面的知识

Cultural Background Knowledge and English Teaching

Once an American was visiting home of a Chinese. As the visitor saw the host‘s

wife, he said,― Your wife is very beautiful.‖ The host smiled and said:― Where?‖—wh

ich caused the American‘s surprise, but still he answered: ― Eyes, hair, nose…‖—an a

nswer that the host found a bit puzzling. The surprising was caused by different cultur

es. ―Where? Where?‖ meaning ―in Chinese is a kind of humble saying. But the Ameri

can understood it as ―Which parts of the body are beautiful?‖ So, the reason for both s

ides‘ misunderstandings was differences in customs and habits. Each was expressing a

nd understanding what the other said according to his or her culture.

Events like these are fairly common when people of different languages and cult

ures communicate. Because of cultural differences, misunderstandings may arise, alth

ough the language used in communication may be faultless. The same words or expre

ssions may not mean the same thing to different peoples. Because of cultural differenc

es, a serious question may cause amusement or laughtera harmless statement may cau

se displeasure or anger. Because of cultural differences, jokes by a foreign speaker ma

ybe received with blank faces and stony silence. Yet the same stories in the speaker‘s

own country would leave audiences holding their sides with laughter.

Language is a part of culture and plays a very important role in it. On the one han

d, without language, culture would not be possible. On the other hand, language is infl

uenced and shaped by culture; it reflects culture. In the broadest sense, language is the

symbolic representation of a people, and it comprises their historical and cultural bac

kgrounds as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. Langu

age and culture interact and understanding of one requires understanding of the other. Cultures differ from one another. Each culture is unique. Learning a foreign language

well means more than merely mastering the pronunciation, grammar, words and idio

ms. It means learning also to see the world as native speakers of that language see it, l

earning the ways in which their language reflects the ideas, customs, and behavior of t

heir society, learning to understand their ―language of the mind‖. Learning a language

, in fact, is inseparable from learning its culture.

However, it has been given not enough care to in our teaching for a long time. Althou

gh many students have acquired four skills—listening, speaking, reading and writing

according to the demand of our traditional syllabus, they often make mistakes in appli

cation of language to real life, because our teaching and teaching materials attach imp

ortance to language forms but ignore the social meanings of language forms and langu

age application in reality. We can see the following dialogues in many textbooks:

1. A: What‘s your name?

B: My name is Li Hong.

A: How old are you?

B: I‘m twenty.

A: Where do you come from?

主要讲文化背景对英语学习的影响,值得我们学习这一方面的知识

B: I come from Nanjing.

2. A: Where are you going?

B: I‘m going to the library.

3. A: Are you writing a letter to your parents?

B: Yes, I am.

A: How often do you write to your parents?

B: About once a week.

All the above dialogues are roughly the combination of Chinese thinking and English form. Although such forms are correct, they are not appropriate. Except for hospitals, immigration offices and such places, it‘s unimaginable for someone to ask a string of questions like: ― What‘s your name?‖ ― How old are you?‖ ― Where do you come from?‖ The natural reaction of English-speaking people to the greetings like: ― Where are you going?‖ would mostly likely be ―Why do you ask?‖ or ―It‘s none of your business.‖ Questions like ― Are you writing to your parents?‖ would be though to intrude on one‘s privacy. Our teaching material seldom pays attention to differences between cultures, so our students are usually ignorant of the factor of culture and they can only mechanically copy what they have learned.

So in language teaching, we should not only pass on knowledge of language and train learners‘ competence of utilizing language, but also enhance teaching of relative cultural background knowledge.

In teaching of aural comprehension, we find many students complain that much time has been used in listening, but little achievement has been acquired. In order to improve competence of listening comprehension, some students specially buy tape recorders for listening and spend quite a few hours every day on it, but once they meet new materials, still, they fail to understand. What is the reason? On the one hand, maybe some students‘ English is very poor and they haven‘t grasped enough vocabularies, clear grammar or correct pronunciation, or maybe the material is rather difficult, etc. On the other hand, an important reason is that they are unfamiliar with cultural background of the USA and England. Aural comprehension, which is closely related to the knowledge of American and British culture, politics and economy, in fact, is an examination of one‘s comprehensive competence which includes one‘s English level, range of knowledge, competence of analysis and imaginative power.

Maybe we have this experience: when we are listening to something familiar to us, no matter what is concerned, usually we are easy to understand. Even if there are some new words in the material, we are able to guess their meanings according to its context. However, when we encounter some unfami …… 此处隐藏：6197字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……