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中学英语教学与跨文化交际能力培养(1)

2013-11-03 01:01 [Abstract] In traditional English teaching, much attention is paid to language knowledge such as vocabulary, phrases, grammatical rules and so on, whereas the cultural background of the language is ignored. As a result, students who have learned English for many years have no sense of the differences between the two languages in their cultural backgrounds and the customs of the people who speak the language. The ignorance has caused lots of disagreements, misunderstandings, and even laughingstocks in their communicating with the native speakers.
As we know, with the rapid development of technology and society, the globalization is the main-stream of world development. Because of the frequent communication and close connection between the people all over the world, and especially after China entered the WTO, foreign languages are used more and more widely. During the cross-cultural communication, if one is ignorant of the culture and customs of the other, he or she is surely unable to have a good understanding of the other and can’t carry on the communication further. As English is the most widely used language, it’s quite necessary for us to know the culture and customs of the people of the English-speaking countries. That’s the reason why we need not only to improve the language skills, but also to cultivate the studentes’ abilities of the cross-cultural communication.
This paper mainly deals with the relationship between the language and culture, the necessity of cultural education, the principles and content of cultural teaching and how to build the students’ cross-cultural abilities in middle school English teaching.
[Key Words] intercultural communication; English teaching; cultural introduction; cultural knowledge

[摘　要] 在传统的英语教学中，诸如词汇、短语、语法等英语知识内容受到了广泛的关注，而英语作为一个民族语言的文化背景却被大大地忽略了。结果，学生学了几年英语，对英语和母语之间的文化差异，以及说英语民族的风俗习惯仍一无所知。从而，在与外国朋友的交际中，出现过许多偏差，误解，甚至笑话。

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众所周知，随着科技的飞速进步和社会的迅猛发展，世界正向全球化和一体化发展。世界各国人民日益频繁的交往和更加紧密的联系，特别是中国加入世贸之后与外界交往的加强，使外语的使用也变得越来越频繁和广泛。不同文化背景的人们在相互交际中回避不了文化差异问题。在交际的过程中，人们如果不了解对方的文化和风俗习惯，就不可能进行有效的交际。英语是世界上使用最广的语言，中国人要学会用英语进行交际，就必须了解英语国家的文化，特别是交际文化。因此，英语教学不仅要提高学生的语言能力，还要提高学生的跨文化交际能力。
本文分为五个部分：第一部分简单介绍了语言和文化的关系；第二部分阐明了在中学英语教学中进行文化教育的必要性。第三部分讲述了实施文化教学的过程中所应遵守的原则。第四部分分析了进行跨文化交际能力培养所应导入的文化内容。第五部分说明了在中学英语教学过程中怎样实施跨文化教育的途径和具体方法。
[关键词] 跨文化交际; 英语教学;文化导入;文化知识

1. Introduction
Language is just like a mirror that reflects its national culture. Sociologists and anthropologists believe that culture comprises all products of human activity, including fields of literature, art, music, architecture, philosophy, scientific and technical achievements as well as aspects of customs, life-style, code of conduct, worldly wisdom and social organization, etc. Languages are generally accepted words and rules drawn from speech. Language is the carrier of culture and culture is the content of language. There is no language without culture content. Therefore learning culture knowledge has become a major part of teaching English to Chinese students. International communication is communication between people whose culture perception and symbol systems are distinct enough to alter the communication event.

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Worldwide interest in intercultural communication grows out of two assumptions. First, we live in an age when changes in technology, travel, economy, and political systems, immigration patterns, especially the emergence of Internet, have created a world in which we increasingly interact with people from different cultures. And whether we like it or not, these interactions will continue to grow in both frequently and intensely. Second, people now know that the influence of culture affects communication in a subtle way. Our culture perceptions and experiences help determine how the world looks and how we interact in the world.
However, as we look back to see the situation in China’s schools. We see that, for several decades, language teachers have not been able to pay attention to the role of culture knowledge in language learning. Nowadays, in English teaching, especially in middle school, teachers pay much attention to vocabulary and grammar.
As Chinese culture is not the same as that of English-speaking countries, the rules for using Chinese are, in some respects, different from those using English. There is especially good evidence that Chinese students may transfer their mother tongue references of language used to their English performance and fail to communicate effectively. Misunderstanding caused by cross-cultural communication should break down and much attention should be paid to them in English language teaching.
So in middle school English teaching, teachers must not only train and improve students’ language level, but also pay attention to cultivating students’ abilities of intercultural communication.

2. Significance of cultivating the abilities of cross-cultural communication
2.1 The request of the development of Internationalization
Lin Dajin in the "cross-cultural communication study," pointed out that culture can be defined as " the integrated feature that a nation is distinct from another nation." Cultural differences are the barriers of cross-cultural communication. The modernization process accelerated the circulation of spiritual and material products, and brought all nationalities into a common "global village", [1] cross-cultural communication became an integral part of national life. If people do not understand the cultural convention in the USA or Britain, and use the way of China to treat foreigners, then it will create a lot of jokes, and even hurt each other's feelings, self-esteem and cause misunderstanding. Thus, to overcome the cultural differences caused by communication barriers has become a common problem faced by the entire world.

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2.2 It is imperative to understand the cultural background knowledge
Understanding cultural knowledge is the key to language learning. “One can not really learn the language, and teach language well unless one knows the patterns and norms of culture and cultural background (Song Fei, 1998)." [2] Without a specific cultural background, language is non-existent. If we don’t know the culture of target language, we would find it is difficult to understand the meaning of certain words. For example, “Thanksgiving", "Sandwich" has been brought about in a specific social and historical circumstance, it is not enough merely to know the meaning of the surface of these words. Another example is: “You are, indeed, a lucky dog", the literal translation is "you are a lucky dog." This is a satiric sentence in China, because, in Chinese views, "dog" is an expression when people used to refer generally to dislike someone. While in English, it can mean, "You are a lucky man." In Western society, "dog" is a family member, and they are harmonious coexisting with people "Dog" here refers to people instead of satirizing others, but a very intimate expression. [3]
2.3 Cultural knowledge teaching is the objective of language teaching.
The main objective of language teaching is to train and develop students’ interpersonal skills. And cultural knowledge teaching can increase the ability of cross-cultural communication, which is the important content to achieve goals of language teaching. For example, in American society, praise and compliments language that flatter mainly a personal appearance, new things, personal property, and individuals in a certain area are commonly used as the introduction to a conversation. This is different from Chinese. Thus, different nations have different cultural environments, different living habits and different languages behavior expressions. And as a language learner, if not ideologically “physically entering their social linguistic environment” will be difficult to achieve the goal of language learning，not to say that language teaching objectives will be accomplished.[4]

3. Principles of culture teaching. （科教论文网 Lw.nsEAc.com编辑整理）
The foreign language teaching in middle school is the foundation of our country’s foreign language teaching. As an English teacher, one should provide the most useful cross-culture knowledge in the limited teaching life.
Just as what we mentioned above, we have been aware of the importance of learning some cultural knowledge about the target language. It seems impossible and unnecessary for us to have a systematic study of target culture, which covers almost everything, in one’s whole lifetime. The difficulty shows that culture is ubiquitous, multidimensional and complex. A good solution to this problem might be to learn selectively those cultural factors that have great influence on intercultural communication, and that are closely related to the language. So on culture teaching we should follow these principles :( 1) Interrelated [5]. that is culture teaching must be interrelated with the content of the text. (2) Appropriate, that is culture teaching must be subjected to language teaching. (3) Practical, that is culture teaching must try to be “useful” for students in their communication. (4) Scientific, that is culture knowledge must be taught correctly, completely and objectively. (5) Flexible [6] ,that is culture teaching must be flexible according to the change of the world.
We must obey these five principles if we want to cultivate students’ abilities of cross-cultural communication. What we should teach in ELT classes is simply a foreign way of life related to the target language and teachers should avoid bringing their own cultural prejudice into class. The world is changing, so are the traditions and customs. The constant changes require us to improve our skills of intercultural communication by doing two things: understanding the cultural differences, especially the differences in the deep structure of different cultures, and becoming flexible in intercultural communication. There is a great tendency that one culture adopts the elements from another that are compatible with its own values and beliefs or that can be changed without causing major disruption.

4. Content of culture introduction （科教范文网http://fw.NSEAC.com编辑发布）
English teaching in middle school is the foundation of foreign language teaching in our country, so English teachers should provide the most useful knowledge of cross-cultural communication in their limited teaching period. 
4.1 The content of intercultural communication
Generally, teaching content is based on certain syllabus, but now because culture introduction is a new issue, so we have neither specifical teaching materials nor specialized classes. What we can do is to mention it when it appeared, so it is very arbitrary and relatively loose. Professor Hu Wenzhong integrated the existing achievement of language and culture studies, and divided the teaching of cultural content into five aspects: language communication, non-verbal communication, communication customs and etiquette, social structure and human relationships and values. Secondary English teachers can base on these five aspects in listening, speaking, reading and writing to teach and guide students.
4.2 Content of intercultural communication in listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
4.2.1 Listening
Broadly speaking, listening is a process that listeners hear the voice and decipher them to semantic meanings. It needs to have not only the relative knowledge of words, tone, grammar, and so on, but also knowledge of the socio-cultural knowledge. Whether listeners have the knowledge is the key to achieve the listening comprehension. Such knowledge is common knowledge, beliefs and experiences of each communicator. If one neglects these existing cultural differences, he or she will have some obstacles to listen, because English listening is understood by the hearing stimulated the cranial nerve, and the impression left as the sole basis for reflection. [7]
We cannot understand the meaning of listening material by English words, phrases or groups of semantic rank order. What we should do is to lessen the gap of mentality difference in order to adapt to the English sentence structure rapidly and accurately while we are listening, and understand the English language habits. Whether students understand the intent of the speaker or writer depends on their level of language, and also depends on if students master the words involved in the social and cultural knowledge. [8]

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The purpose of listening is to understand the speaker’s real meaning in words and exchange information successfully. Sometimes the learner only catches the denotation of the words, but fail to consider the most important part, which is the contextual meaning of words and sentences. For instance, the sentence “ I am not sure I’d like to do that” is seemingly like considering a matter, but in fact, it is a polite expression of refusal.
Since we are teaching our students English not only to help them pass exams, but also to prepare them to use English in real life, it is important to think about the situation they will listen to English in real life and to think about the listening exercises we do in class. So we must tell them about some culture knowledge for them to use in real life and know more about foreign life. [9]
4.2.2 Speaking
The ultimate goal of foreign language teaching is using language to communicate and exchange information, so when we communicate with the people from English-speaking countries, we must pay special attention to some interference factors in cultural exchanges. For example, social norms which people must obey when they communicate with each other, including some rules and customs, such as the terms of the title, greetings, inquirements, apologia, thanks, telephone, parting; Social knowledge refers to the relationships between the family members, colleagues, friends, higher and lower levels; Values, including the relationship between people and nature, religious values, ethics and outlook on life, their world view, such as Western society emphasizes the individual struggle, independence, privacy, etc.; The characteristics of thinking , which means the differences of the characteristics of thinking between westerners and easterners. When they express time and place, one is from small to large, the other is from large to small. [10]
English speakers attached great importance to privacy when there are dealing with contact process, particularly between the less familiar people. It is necessary to avoid asking others affair, and sometimes even in the eyes of Chinese people for kind, caring, but for the people from the English-speaking countries, maybe it is impolite, sometimes it will cause displeasure, embarrassment and dissatisfaction. Here are three questions: (1) What’s your name? (2) How old are you? (3) Are you married? [11] Any one who knows little English can ask these questions in English. But if a student asks a young lady from a western country the above questions, he has made a serious mistake in terms of appropriacy. To avoid such silly mistakes, the teacher should help students realize that it isn’t polite to ask westerners questions concerning the age, income, marital status, and other private things, such as religious belief, political inclination, etc. （科教论文网 Lw.nsEAc.com编辑整理）
Some of the daily English expressions are deliberately vague. For example, a person in the gathering may say, “I’d better be going now. I've got a little headache.” He might want to depart or not want to stay here any more. By this time, you would not have the habit of Chinese people to ask him how he feels. If he really feels uncomfortable he will say straightly.

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