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1、跨文化因素在英语教学中的作用The Role of Transcultural Factors in English Teaching ContentsI Introduction. 1II The Key Problems in English Teaching and Learning .2III The Significance of Culture Introduction, Background Knowledge andTranscultural Communicative Teaching. 33.1 Cultural Difference is a Carrier of Tra
2、nscultural Communication. . 53.2 Transcultural Teaching is a Crucial Factor in Successful Intercultural Communication5IV The Content of Culture Introduction .54.1 What is Culture?. .54.2 Knowledge Culture and Communication Culture.54.3 The Introduction of Knowledge Culture and Communication Culture6
3、V The Methods of Culture Introduction .85.1 Explanation Method. 85.2 Mixed Method.85.3 Practical Method.95.4 Comparison Method95.5 Specialized Explanation Method.95.6 Lecture Method95.7 Picture Method10VI The Methods of Cultivating the Students Communicative Competence106.1 Make the Students Know th
4、e Fundamental Patterns of Cultural Differences.106.2 Different Words in Different Situations 126.3 Know the Literal Meaning and Connotation of Both English and ChineseVocabularies .126.4 Intensive Reading.126.4.1 TrainiGuessing Strategies126.4.2 Facilitating Story-telling.136.4.3 Fostering Peer Inte
5、raction.146.5 Extensive Reading.146.5.1 Focus on Information .156.5.2 Raising Awareness of Discourse.156.6 Listening.166.6.1 Training Basic Listening Skills. 166.6.2 Setting Roughly-tuned Input. 166.7 Extracurricular Activities.16VII Conclusion.17References. 18The Role of Transcultural Factors in En
6、glish Teaching摘要: 不同的民族有着不同的社会文化背景, 学习一种外语必须了解这种语言所承载的文化. 本文从语言和文化的关系入手, 说明外语教学中文化导入的必要性.同时语言和文化密不可分的关系决定了当前的英语教学不仅是知识的传授, 而且更应包括文化知识的传播和对学生跨文化能力的培养. 因此本文将探讨怎样培养学生的文化意识和跨文化交际能力.关键词: 文化导入; 文化导入的方法和内容;文化教学; 文化意识; 跨文化交际能力;交际策略Abstract: Different nations have different social culture backgrounds. When l
7、earning a foreign language, we must learn the culture that this language carries. Therefore, this paper is designed to deal with the relationship between language and culture, and express the necessity of culture introduction in foreign language teaching. At the same time, the inseparable relationsh
8、ip between language and culture decides the present English teaching not only means the impartment of linguistic knowledge but also the transmission of cultural knowledge, and the cultivation of students communicative competence. So this paper is to discuss how to make students aware of cultural awa
9、reness and develop their intercultural communicative competence.Key words:culture introduction; the contents and approaches of culture introduction; culture teaching; culture awareness; intercultural communicative competence; communicative strategiesI Introduction Language is an inseparable part of
10、culture, and it is also a carrier of culture. Language can reflect the characteristics of one nation. It not only includes one nations history and cultural background, but also indicates the lifestyle and thinking pattern of people. So learning a foreign language requires that we should master the n
11、ecessary linguistic knowledge and skills. Beside that, we should also have a better understanding of the foreign culture that a language carries in order to overcome the difficulties in intercultural communication and successfully communicate with foreigners. As the American linguist Chomsky points
12、out “language teaching is equal to culture teaching.”(1963). Culture teaching is defined as the development of students intercultural communicative competence in teaching activities, which guides the students to obtain abundant intercultural knowledge and develop the students abilities in intercultu
13、ral communication, understanding, comparison and cooperation. The aim of culture teaching in English teaching is to accumulate the culture knowledge about English speaking countries and develop intercultural communicative awareness and competence. In foreign language teaching, cultural disturbance i
14、s widely considered to be one of the toughest problems, and some people even think it is much more horrible than misunderstanding (Wu Guohua, 1990). Generally speaking, the present teaching methods pay more attention to the form of language itself and less attention to the culture introduction and t
15、he development of intercultural awareness. The present English teaching mainly adopts the approaches “listening and speaking, grammar and translation.” The students repeatedly practice a certain linguistic structure to achieve the goal of mastering language under that learning formula. So teachers e
16、mphasize more on language phenomenon and ignore the importance of culture knowledge and the carrier function of language. That is why the modern English pays special attention to the development of students communicative competence, and it is also required that teachers properly introduce some relev
17、ant knowledge in their teaching process. II The Key Problems in English Teaching and Learning The mistakes the students make in communication are always caused by the lack of culture awareness. The process of learning a language is the process of realizing one culture. Brown (1987) thinks that there
18、 are many reasons for language learners who fail to learn English well, but the main reason is that they cannot integrate culture learning with language learning properly. Here are three aspects for this situation in general.Firstly, the social cultural factors are not taken seriously in the field o
19、f foreign language teaching all the time. The reason is that the development of foreign language teaching is restricted by the development of theoretical linguistics. No matter what traditional linguistics and structural linguistics are, both of them think the object of language study is language it
20、self (Hu Chundong, 1996). Consequently, teachers do not always put the importance of linguistic knowledge and culture knowledge into an equal position in their teaching process. Secondly, the students are over dependent on their teachers, they get used to accepting the formula of passive learning. T
21、he present teaching-centered examination pattern gives students less time to read books about the culture knowledge of English and American countries. On the contrary, much more time goes to reciting new words and doing more exercises.Thirdly, the English textbooks have been influenced by the home a
22、nd abroad climate, most of the textbooks are about small stories, dialogues and soon, sometimes including some prose and poetry. Although the subject matter is various, the content is single. The teaching materials the students touch are not diversified, and the textbooks mainly describe the hero am
23、ong the workers and farmers. The students are learning English, but their thinking patterns still belong to Chinese thinking pattern, and language and culture are separated by human themselves.III The Significance of Culture Introduction, Background Knowledge and Transcultural Communicative Teaching
24、 We all communicate with others all the time. No matter how well we think we understand each other, communication is hard. “Culture” is often at the root of communication challenges. Our culture influences how we approach problems, and how we participate in groups and in communities. When we partici
25、pate in groups we are often surprised at different patterns of behavior. As people from different cultural groups take on the exciting challenges of working together, cultural values sometimes conflict. We can misunderstand each other, and react in ways that can hinder what are otherwise promising p
26、artnerships. Oftentimes, we arent aware that culture is acting upon us. Sometimes, we are not even aware that we have cultural values or assumptions that are different from others! So the importance of culture introduction and background knowledge is highlighted. We should make aware of culture awar
27、eness. “ We can not learn English well if we only pay attention to the form of a language not to its connotation.” (Hu Wenzhong, 1998). Language itself is a kind of phenomenon, it is a carrier of culture as well as an important part of culture, and so language and culture are closely related. As Ame
28、rican linguist Spair has put it in his language “ Language has an environment, it can not exist without culture and tradition that the society has inherited.” The inseparable relationship between language and culture becomes obvious when people from different cultures communicate with each other. Th
29、e mastery of one language can be obtained only under the circumstance of knowing the special background behind the language. Chinese people and people from English speaking countries live in different backgrounds, and they have different attitudes toward the following aspects, such as customs, relig
30、ious beliefs, thinking patterns and moral concepts and so on. Language reflects the objective world, so the difference between Chinese culture connotation and western culture connotation must cause the difference of semantics, sentence meaning, associative meaning and so on. Take the idioms of cultu
31、re for example, the meaning of idiom always comes from the native history allusion, and it is widely accepted by the whole society. If we want to describe someone as a person who is stubborn and not easy to change his mind, we use the expression “犟得象斗牛” in Chinese, whereas “ as stubborn as a mule” i
32、n English. “ Meet ones waterloo” means fail completely (waterloo is a city in the middle of Belgium, where Napoleons troop was defeated in 1815). If you have no knowledge about this, you will have no idea about what this idiom is talking about, because there is a historical story behind “Meet ones w
33、aterloo”. Therefore, we will inevitably meet the culture barrier and even cause culture shock. So it is very necessary for the teachers to introduce the essential background information behind the text, because the background knowledge can deeply explain its language. If the teachers could successfu
34、lly guide the students to master the background knowledge, there would be no difficulties for students in intercultural communication, and the students can be excellent in learning a foreign language under the circumstances of training the proper culture awareness. That is why teachers stress on the
35、 importance of culture introduction and background knowledge step by step in their teaching practice. Language is inseparable from culture while culture is dependent on language. English teaching is language teaching; of course, it is closely related to culture teaching. That is why the importance o
36、f transcultural communicative teaching is emphasized on teaching culture. 3.1 Cultural Difference is a Carrier of Transcultural CommunicationThe course of modernization quickens the circulation of spiritual and material products, which brings each nation into a common village. Transcultural communic
37、ation has become a necessary part of every nation in the world. However, cultural difference is barrier of transcultural communication, so overcoming the difficulties in communication has become a common problem that the whole world is facing.3.2 Transcultural Teaching is a Crucial Factor in Success
38、ful Intercultural Communication Developing communicative competence is a final goal of English teaching. Language competence is the base of communication competence, but the possession of language competence does not mean the possession of communication competence. More and more people have achieved
39、 a consensus on this point. Communication competence should contain the following five aspects, listening, speaking, reading, writing and social ability (the ability to communicate with people from different backgrounds). However, teachers always pay more attention to the outside form and grammatica
40、l structure of English in the teaching process, and ignore the social environment of English, especially the culture differences. That is why the students fail to know what to say in different discourses. So it is necessary to introduce transcultural communicative teaching. IV The Content of Culture
41、 Introduction 4.1 What is Culture?Culture can be defined as a special lifestyle, which has special meanings and value in the daily life (Chen Shen, 1996). The teacher should make the exact definition of culture clear to the students so that they have a better understanding of what culture is, which
42、can be very helpful to both learning and teaching.4.2 Knowledge Culture and Communication CultureThe Chinese linguist Zhang Zhanyi (1983) divides culture background knowledge into two kinds: knowledge culture and communication culture. Knowledge culture refers to the knowledge of politics, economics
43、, education, religion, law and so on. Communication culture refers to these languages and non-linguistic factors that affect the proper circulation of information when people from two culture backgrounds are communicating. For instance, if you have no idea about the specific meaning of “ 爱人”, it can
44、 be interpreted as lover ( which is equal to mistress) when communicating with English speakers. Take “ lost dog” for another example, it can be translated as a dog that has lost its master, and this kind of translation obviously indicates a derogatory sense, because the dog is an animal which is de
45、spised by human beings in China. But the dog is a faithful animal of humankind and is a symbol of loyalty in westerners eyes; it is a complimentary sense when the dog is compared to a human being. For example, “You lucky dog” means you are a really lucky guy. The comments of words can cause great de
46、viation to the understanding and communication, so it is required that when the teachers explain the usage of words, they should illustrate the different culture connotation of words. Meanwhile, the students are not only required to know the literal meaning of the words, but also their derogatory sense and complimentary sense. That is the meaning of combining the rich connotation of culture.4.3 The Introduction of Knowledge Culture and Communication CultureSince culture can be divided as knowl
