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1、文化背景与英语教学文化背景与英语教学- -英语论文英语论文 IV. Conclusion: It is necessary for teachers to pass on cultural background knowledge to students. Once an American was visiting the home of a Chinese. As the visitor saw the hosts wife, he said,“ Your wife is very beautiful.” The host smiled and said:“ Where? Where?”wh
2、ich caused the Americans surprise, but still he answered: “ Eyes, hair, nose”an answer that the host found a bit puzzling. The surprising was caused by different cultures. “Where? Where?” meaning “哪里！ 哪里！”in Chinese is a kind of humble saying. But the American understood it as “Which parts of the bo
3、dy are beautiful?” So, the reason for both sides misunderstandings was differences in customs and habits. Each was expressing and understanding what the other said according to his or her culture. Events like these are fairly common when people of different languages and cultures communicate. Becaus
4、e of cultural differences, misunderstandings may arise, although the language used in communication may be faultless. The same words or expressions may not mean the same thing to different peoples. Because of cultural differences, a serious question may cause amusement or laughter；a harmless stateme
5、nt may cause displeasure or anger. Because of cultural differences, jokes by a foreign speaker maybe received with blank faces and stony silence. Yet the same stories in the speakers own country would leave audiences holding their sides with laughter. Language is a part of culture and plays a very i
6、mportant role in it. On the one hand, without language, culture would not be possible. On the other hand, language is influenced 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 back
7、grounds as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. Language 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
8、 pronunciation, grammar, words and idioms. It means learning also to see the world as native speakers of that language see it, learning the ways in which their language reflects the ideas, customs, and behavior of their society, learning to understand their “language of the mind”. Learning a languag
9、e, in fact, is inseparable from learning its culture. However, it has been given not enough care to in our teaching for a long time. Although many students have acquired four skillslistening, speaking, reading and writing according to the demand of our traditional syllabus, they often make mistakes
10、in application of language to real life, because our teaching and teaching materials attach importance to language forms but ignore the social meanings of language forms and language application in reality. We can see the following dialogues in many textbooks: 1. A: Whats your name? B: My name is Li
11、 Hong. A: How old are you? B: Im twenty. A: Where do you come from? B: I come from Nanjing. 2. A: Where are you going? B: Im 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 ar
12、e 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, its unimaginable for someone to ask a string of questions like: “ Whats your name?” “ How old are you?” “ Where do you
13、 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 “Its none of your business.” Questions like “ Are you writing to your parents?” would be though to intrude on ones privacy. Our teaching material se
14、ldom 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
15、, 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 spec
16、ially 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 havent 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 th
