Cultural Awareness in English Teaching

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, 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 Awareness 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 aims 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 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, that is word—phrase—sentence 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 crucially 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 culture

To start with the discussion of culture teaching, two conceptions are indispensable to be mentioned, namely language and culture. Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication①. Language is a social phenomenon, and each stands for one culture. Broadly speaking, communication refers to the communication between any of two persons of 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 characterize the life of the human community. In a narrow sense, culture can be mostly found in folk culture, enterprise culture or food culture②. 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. Conversely, neither people’s 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 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 culture. 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 diverse. 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 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. Reflecting 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 comprehensible 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 sentence and present the hypothetical relation of the two clauses.

2.2. Importance Of Culture Teaching

In 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 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. 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 common 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 communication. 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 in 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 teaching. 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,

but the people and the nation in which the language is used. Increasing learners’ sensibility to cultural factor, educators can make use of their curiosity and motive to achieve the goal of language teaching.

Thirdly, the learning of a new language involves in not only meaning between words, sentences and text but also an interaction between knowledge and experience and new things. From this point of view, language learning, including culture learning provides a good opportunity to widen students’ horizon of knowledge.

III. Aspects of the teaching of culture

3.1. Daily conversation

To whatever kind of successful communication, being polite in conversation is the basic principle; otherwise, efficient communication is impossible. In different social context, the ways of conveying politeness are distinct. Without sufficient knowledge of the target country’s customs, people of different cultures will probably understand politeness in a converse way. The following are some illustrations of cultural differences in language use, which we may often come across in our daily life.

3.1.1. Greeting

When Chinese people meet, they often greet each other with―你吃了吗‖or―上哪去啊‖, which shows one’s concern about the other one. While the westerners always talk about the weather, e.g. ―It is a nice day, isn’t it?‖ If we start a conversation with them with ―have you eaten yet‖, which is directly translated from the Chinese, they will feel very confused, because according to western culture, such a sentence suggest an invitation to meal. As western people highly respect for privacy, it is impolite to ask them ―where are you going‖. In most circumstances, they must be angry, because ―it is none of your business‖. These phenomenons often happen among the students with less knowledge of western culture. In this case, culture differs from nation to nation because of geographic location and other social reality. As we know that, England is an island nation with frequency of rain so that people may even encounter four seasons in a single day. It is a country of rain and moisture. So weather becomes an instant topic among the people, while China is an agricultural country with great population working on. Adding times of starvation in history, diet is greatly concerned about by the Chinese. According to the English native speakers, they are accustomed to greet others with ―hello‖, ‖how are you‖, ―good morning/ afternoon/evening ‖.

3.1.2 Farewell

Cultural differences in farewell are evident. In western countries, when guest is about to leave, he will indicate their leave in 15-20 minutes in advance. On this accessions, people are used to say ―I should go now‖ or ―I’d better be going now‖, rather than ―I’ll go first‖ or ―I’ll go back‖, because the latter sounds like ―it’s time for the guest to leave, I’ll go first and set an example, so the other people should follow me ‖. in order to thank the hospitality of the host, the guest often says ―thank you for a lovely afternoon/evening/meal‖. Similarly, the Chinese people convey their gratitude, but in a different way, they tend to use negative sentences, e.g. ―真不好意思, 打扰您那么长时间‖(I’m so sorry to have interrupted you such a long time), or ―给您添麻烦了‖ (sorry for troubling you). Except for ―再见‖ (good-bye), as the westerners utter when parting, the Chinese host most likely accompany the guest to the door way or yard and say ―好走‖ or ―慢走‖. As there is no equivalent in English, if these sentences are literally translated into ―stay here‖, ―go slowly‖ and ―walk slowly‖, it will be inapprehensible to westerners. Understanding the differences, we can simply smile and say, ― good-bye‖ or ―bye-bye‖. As it shows that unlike western custom, which is in a straight way, that of the Chinese may appear to be more circuitous.

3.1.3. Compliment

When hearing the compliment, such as ―Your English is very good―, some English learners become somewhat reserved. In China when people receive a compliment, we are used to response with ―过奖过奖‖ (You are flattering me), ―惭愧惭愧‖ (I’m so ashamed ), or ―哪里哪里‖ (It’s not deserved you to say so). Literally, it looks like a rejection but in fact it is a kind of euphemistic acceptation. These kinds of sayings show our modesty, which is considered as a great virtue of a noble man. In contrast, the westerners accept a compliment in a frank and sincere way. So in responding to ―your dress is so beautiful‖, the Chinese may answer, ―no, no, it is just an ordinary dress‖, while westerners will say ―thank you, I think so‖. Usually, to westerners, a negative ―no‖ brings along a feeling that the speaker has a poor judgment, which may probably displease them.

As we discussed above, evidence of cultural differences between China and western countries can be obviously perceived in the most commonly-happened daily conversation. O account of these differences, the Chinese enthusiasm may turn to be intrusive to some extent; hospitable to be overlaborate; humility to be pretended modesty. Such subtle misinterpretation may easily lead to embarrassment even breakdown of communication. Thus, rite of different culture should be given priority in culture teaching.

3.2. Vocabulary

Vocabulary is the fundamental element of a language. Apart from the pattern of expression, the differences between languages lie in the vocabulary people use. For a same concept, people will