诸神之岛 破禁果:Developing Cross-culture Awareness in English...111

Abstract: With the development of globalization, cross-cultural communication is claiming a more and more important position. Researches reveal that foreign language learning is also a process of cross-cultural communication, and successful cross-cultural communication includes not only linguistic competence, which is conventionally taken as of capital importance in communicating with native speakers, but also other important components. The instances are not unfamiliar to us when an English learner, having a good command of English phonetics, grammar and vocabulary though, fails to achieve the expected communicative goal when communicating with a native English speaker. Language is influenced and shaped by culture; it reflects culture. We cannot be competent in the language if we do not also understand the culture that has shaped and informed it. We cannot learn a second language if we do not have an awareness of that culture, and how that culture relates to our own first language and first culture. It is not only therefore essential to have cultural awareness, but also cross-cultural awareness. This is the initial incentive to the writing of this thesis. This paper is trying to find out how to develop students’ cross-culture awareness in English teaching at a vocational college and discuss about the difficulties in developing students’ cross-culture awareness in the Chinese socio-cultural context.  

Key words:  cross-cultural awareness    culture   Chinese socio-cultural context  

            culture teaching

Introduction:

There will have been points in most teachers' careers when we have stopped to wonder "What am I actually doing?". Sometimes, filling our students up with all the requisite grammar and vocabulary, and polishing their pronunciation and training their communicative skills doesn't actually seem to be helping them to achieve the wider goal of being able to genuinely communicate with and understand the real world outside the classroom at all.

For too long, we have been concentrating on structures and forms and producing materials that may help our students to have perfect diphthongs or a flawless command of the third conditional while leaving out anything approaching real, valid, meaningful content. If our students are to have any hope of using their language skills to genuinely comprehend and communicate in the global village, cross-cultural awareness is crucial.

Being an English teacher in Dalian Vocational Technology College, I kept asking myself: if it is necessary to develop students’ cross-culture awareness in English teaching in my college, how could I do that in my teaching; and what are the difficulties in developing students’ cross-awareness in English teaching in Chinese socio-cultural context? Here is a paper that will partially supply answers to the above problems.

Main Part:

I. 1. What is culture? What about the relationship between culture and language?

Culture, in a broad sense, is an integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thoughts, communications, languages, practices, beliefs, values, customs, courtesies, rituals, manners of interacting and roles, relationships and expected behaviors of a racial, ethnic, religious or social group. As a culture is so inclusive, it permeates virtually every aspect of human life and influences predominantly people’s behavior, including linguistic behavior.

This means that language is not only part of how we define culture, but it also reflects culture. Language and culture intrinsically depend on each other, they have evolved through the history. Their mutual interdependence can find proof in the rise of civilization, the development of writing and human communication.

Language is a vehicle of cultural transmission. Different languages may reflect different cultures; different cultures entail different language expressions. Idioms, proverbs and metaphors in different languages derived from different origins, also demonstrate cultural differences. Different languages may have different idioms owing to different living environments, social conventions and literature tradition, etc. Thus, language learners cannot truly master the language until they have also mastered the cultural contexts in which the language occurs.

2. What is cross-cultural learning?

The process of becoming more aware of and better understanding one's own culture and other cultures around the world. The aim of cross-cultural learning is to increase international and cross-cultural tolerance and understanding. This can take lots of forms - cross-cultural learning is by no means only a part of EFL, but has exponents in all fields of education.

3. Cross-cultural awareness

Cross-cultural awareness in language learning is often talked about as though it were a 'fifth skill' - the ability to be aware of cultural relativity following reading, writing, listening and speaking. There is something to be said for this as an initial attempt to understand or define something that may seem a difficult concept but, as Claire Kramsch points out ...

"If...language is seen as social practice, culture becomes the very core of language teaching. Cultural awareness must then be viewed as enabling language proficiency ... Culture in language teaching is not an expendable fifth skill, tacked on, so to speak, to the teaching of speaking, listening, reading and writing" (in Context and Culture in Language Teaching OUP,1993).

4. Cross-cultural communicative competence

Following on from what Kramsch says above, cross-cultural awareness is not really therefore a skill, but a collection of skills and attitudes better thought of as a competence.

Cross-cultural communicative competence is an attempt to raise students' awareness of their own culture, and in so doing, help them to interpret and understand other cultures. It is not just a body of knowledge, but a set of practices requiring knowledge, skills and attitudes.

5. Cross-cultural awareness skills

What are these attitudes and skills that make up the competence? Among them are:

- observing, identifying and recognizing

- comparing and contrasting

- negotiating meaning

- dealing with or tolerating ambiguity

- effectively interpreting messages

- limiting the possibility of misinterpretation

- defending one's own point of view while acknowledging the legitimacy of others

- accepting difference

These are very similar to many of the skills we teach normally. So what makes cross-cultural learning different?

Raised awareness of what we do and of the vital importance of these skills already makes cross-cultural communicative competence a more attainable goal. Moreover - and despite the fact that the competence is more than just a body of knowledge - cross-cultural awareness skills can be developed by designing materials which have cultural and cross-cultural themes as their content, a kind of loop input, if you like.

6. How does this affect the role of the teacher?

What are teachers? Activities managers? Language facilitation units? Babysitters? Intercultural learning gives the teacher a role not only as one or more of these, but also as an educator. This makes many teachers feel uncomfortable, above all with the idea that we may be influencing our students in some way. Are we responsible for transmitting some kind of ideology to our students?

No, we are helping them to become more aware of the world around them, and to better interact with that world. These are the crucial roles of the teacher.

7. When should we introduce this?

Previously, "cultural awareness" has often only been seen as something for advanced learners. This is partly due to the assumption that students with a low level of English also have a low intellect generally, or that it is impossible to explain intellectual concepts in low level English. Intercultural awareness, as a fundamental feature of language and an integral part of language learning, is important at all levels.

II. Difficulties in developing students’ cross-cultural awareness

We Chinese study English in Chinese socio-cultural context. So Chinese have many different problems in language using, we call this problems “cultural mistakes”. “Cultural mistakes” refers to language and behavior that is inappropriate or unacceptable to most native English speakers. They are different from linguistic mistakes in that the boundary line in the former is not always a firm and unalterable one.

1. Words---Cultural Distinctions and Connotations.

In some languages, there may be only a single word, for a certain object, creature or concept, whereas in another language, there may be several words, even quite a large number. When we learn a new word we tend to look for its meaning in the word itself. Yet in addition, to its dictionary meanings, the same word may stir up different associations in people.

In Chinese-English cross-cultural communication, kinship terms often present problems because satisfactory equivalents are not always available. The statement Linda’s brother married Jane’s sister is not easy to be translated into Chinese without further information about whether the brother is older or younger than Linda and whether the sister is Jane’s elder or younger sister. The reason is that in Chinese there are many more terms to refer to specific relationships.

Connotation of a word is different from its denotation---its explicit meaning. For students of a foreign language, it is essential that they know not only the denotation of words but also the connotations. For example, the word to describe physical appearance can be taken differently. In China “skinny” is in most case a compliment as many Chinese especially young people, are obsessed by their weights. But this word would slightly hurt some foreigners, because the word has a negative connotation in America. All of these are because some words have different connotations form culture to culture.

2. Cultural Differences in Everyday Conversation.

①. Greeting

Chinese usually greet each other with “吃了吗？”(Have you had your dinner? ) But it would have sounded rather unusual to people from English speaking countries.. To Americans the greeting might mean this “I haven’t either. Come on, let’s go together and get something to eat. ” Or “If you haven’t, I was just going to invite you to my place.” In other words, it could indicate an invitation to a meal. They usually greet each other with the topics on the weather, health, traffic, sports and hobbies.

②. Ways of Address

Teacher should help students understand social appropriate communication, such as making requests that show respect; for example, hey you come here? May be a linguistically correct request, but it is not a culturally appropriate way for a student to address a teacher. Student will master a language only when they learn both its linguistic and cultural norms. The use of “Where are you going?” or “Are you going to…” as a form of greeting is also common a mistake among beginning students.

In recent years, the trend of many English-speaking people has been to address others by using the first name(Tom, Michael, Linda, Jane etc.)rather than calling the person Mr. Summers, Mrs. Howard or Miss Jones. This is especially common among Americans, even when people meet for the first time; this applies not only to people of roughly the same age, but also of different age. It is not a sign of disrespect. It is not at all uncommon to hear a child call a much old people---Joe, Ben, May etc. This may even include the child’s parents or grandparents. This, of course is quite counter to Chinese custom. One can imagine the reaction of adults if a child were to call a grandparent by his or her first name or a student to do the same in calling a teacher. A quick reprimand and possibly even a spanking for the child would be sure to follow.

③. Compliments and Praise

There are many differences between Americans and Chinese in replying to compliments. Americans tend to accept the compliment while Chinese generally murmur some reply about not being worthy of the praise.

To English-speaking people, praise is to be accepted, generally with a remark like “Thank you.” It is assumed that the compliment is sincere. Therefore, there should be no show of false humility, no pretended modesty. To Chinese, however, the customary reply to a compliment would be to claim that one is not worthy of the praise, that what one has done is hardly enough, or that success was more a matter of luck or some other circumstances. Acceptance of a compliment would imply conceit or lack of manners.

④. Privacy

And there are also many conflicts of different value systems: Several native English speakers have complained about the invasion of their privacy by Chinese students (and sometimes Chinese teachers). The concept of “privacy” is one that is hard for Chinese students to grasp because what is regard as “privacy” in the West is often not thought as such in China. They are innocently unaware that looking through an English teacher’s photo album without permission or reading his comments on other students’ written work is invade his privacy. Questions about a person’s age, salary or the price of an item are perfectly acceptable in Chinese culture, but they are not in Western culture. We Chinese seem to pay less attention to the concept of privacy while native English speakers value their privacy very much. Sometimes Chinese like to inquire into the privacy of other people to show friendship and intimacy.

3. Idioms, Proverbs and Sayings.

Idioms, proverbs and sayings are an important part of the language and culture of a society. They are often hard to understand, especially idioms, and harder to use correctly. However, their proper use in a language is often a mark of a person’s command of the language. Because the sayings are so pithy, they have universal appeal. Student love to pick up proverbs and the use of one or two in the original language is often a minor triumph for beginning foreign language learners.

With English idioms, even the same words may have different meanings. Proverbs and saying carry cultural connotation and meanings, too. One Chinese proverb goes “silence is gold” meaning that silence is better or useful than eloquence. On the other hand, English proverb says “squeaking wheel get oil” which means if you are quiet, you cannot receive anything. As we have seen earlier, silence has different connotation in the U.S. and China.

So many culture differences influenced students to study English. An analysis shows that some are obvious errors which can be put right fairly easily while those that have to do with values, beliefs and concepts require a great deal of work over a period of time. Whatever the case may be, the students’ feedback has confirmed my belief that mistakes from culture differences are often worse than linguistic ones and tend to create ill feeling between native speakers and Chinese speakers of English. Wolfson (1983:62) points out, “In interacting with foreigners, native speakers tend to be rather tolerant of errors in pronunciation or syntax. In contrast, violations of rules of speaking are often interpreted as bad manners since the native speaker is unlikely to be aware of sociolinguistic relativity.

III. Characteristics of students in my college

My college is called Dalian vocational technology college. Its mission is to provide competency based education and training services to students who will be engaged in front line of management, production and services. Students at my college are from different provinces and cities in China. To some extent, students at vocational colleges are quite different from students in universities. On one hand, most of the students here didn’t have a very good foundation of their study before they went to college. And since their study at college will mostly focus on the practical skills concerning their different majors, they will have shorter period of time in classroom study than students in the universities. But on the other hand, my students are more capable of solving practical problems. They are much more curious, and willing to show themselves off. Their focus is much more on the practical things. Therefore, when they are learning English, they care for the communicative competence rather than the linguistic competence.

But as their English teacher, most of the time in the past I failed to satisfy their needs for communicative competence. I remember some of my students were majoring in tourism. They often asked me some questions about how to behave and speak properly when they worked as tourist guide in their field practice. I realized it was because of my fault as their college English teacher that they had so many problems in their work. In the past years of my teaching, I did little to raise the cross-cultural awareness in my students. What I did was just concentrating on structures and forms and helping students to become perfect in their grammar. But in the end ,they failed to achieve the expected communicative goal when communicating with a native English speaker. This made me strongly believe that it is necessary to develop my students’ cross-cultural awareness in my English teaching. 

IV.  Develop students’ cross-cultural awareness through culture teaching--- a good way to help students to study English.

We cannot truly master the language until we have also mastered the cultural contexts. That is to say, we should let students truly master the English culture when they are learning English.

1. To make students aware of the cultural features reflected in the language, teachers can make those cultural features in the language. Teachers can make those cultural features an explicit topic of discussion in relation to the linguistic forms being studied. For example, when I was teaching a word that might be a cooking utensil, I would tell students that the object is somehow used for cooking, and then I would ask them do some research to find about how the utensil is used. This could lead into related discussion about foods eaten in the target culture, the geography, growing seasons, and so forth. The student is acting as anthropologists, exploring and understanding the target culture in relation to their own. In this manner, students achieve a level of empathy, appreciating that the way people do things in their culture has its own coherence. It is also important to help students understand that cultures are quite different from one to another. Another example, when teaching idioms and proverbs in English, I could help students understand when in English it is appropriate to use an informal form of address rather than a formal form of address distinction that Chinese does not have.

2. Using authentic source from the native speech community helps to engage students in authentic cultural experiences. Source can include films, news broadcasts, television shows, web sites, photographs, magazines, restaurant menus, and other printed materials. Teachers can adapt their use of authentic materials to suit the age and language proficiency level of the students. For example, even low level English students can watch and listen to video tapes in English.

What is deserved to be mentioned is that, film and television segments offer students an opportunity to witness behaviors that are not obvious in texts. Film also connects students with language and cultural issues simultaneously (Stephen, 2001), such as depicting conversational timing or turn-taking in conversation. At least one study showed that students achieved significant gains in overall cultural knowledge after watching videos from the target culture in the classroom.

3. Language and culture are inseparable.

Learning a foreign language makes a language learners appreciate one’s own language more, as well as cultures from other countries. Nowadays, people around the world need to be able to use English fluently to get others to understand or appreciate their culture. Therefore, learning to use English to present or describe one’s own culture is a very important skill. A good way to develop this ability is to have students explore specific Chinese culture in depth and introduce it to people from different countries. In my teaching, I may divide the class into groups, with each group choosing one specific type of culture that students are interested in and then explore it and present it in a small play. It should be interesting and students get the chance to learn vocabulary of different fields and use communicative functions in a motivating way.

4. Four levels of cross-cultural awareness

According to Hanvey (1979:53) there are four levels of cross-cultural awareness. Level 1 is awareness of superficial cultural traits often interpreted as exotic of bizarre. Levels2 is awareness of significant and subtle cultural traits that contrast markedly with one’s own and are interpreted as unbelievable and irrational. Level 3 is similar to Level 2, but the cultural traits are recognized as believable through intellectual analysis. Level 4 is awareness of how another culture feels from the standpoint of the insider.

To help students approach cross-cultural awareness of Level 3and 4, we recommend the following:

Providing cultural information:

Students will receive a lot of information through various activities. Include more information in English textbooks on customs, habits and behavior patterns of native English speakers. Beginning textbooks may provide cultural notes on greeting, addressing people, hand shaking, leave-taking etc. when students progress in their language study, anthropologically and sociologically-oriented texts can be introduced.

Encourage students to learn courses in history, anthropology and sociology in which students learn not only some factual knowledge, but also the basic concepts and principles involved. In a sense concepts and guiding principles are more important because they enable students to adopt a more flexible attitude and learn to respect differences. This will help reduce their cultural bias. Through the study of anthropology, for instance, students recognize the diversity of cultures and will learn not to look upon anything different as inferior.

Conclusion:

Language is a part of culture and plays a very important role in it. As cultures are diverse, so languages are diverse. It is only natural than that with difference in cultures and difference in languages, difficulties often arise in communicating between cultures and across cultures. Understanding is not always easy. Learning a language, in fact, is inseparable from learning its culture. In this global world, the distance between people is shortening because of the international language?English, but how can we truly master English? A good way to develop our English is to explore specific English culture in depth. There are some of the main cultural differences between Chinese and Americans in language use. Based on these differences, we can find many good ways to develop our English, such as building up cross-culture awareness. It is not further to speak English as a native speaker

Reference:

Chen, ZF. (1997) 《迎接时代的挑战，更新教育思想和观念》， 《教学与教材研究》3 ：25

Luo, CHP. (1950) Language and Culture . Beijing University Press

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