文化导入

Culture Lead-in and English Teaching1.1The Relation between Culture and LanguageGenerally speaking, the relation between culture and language is like that of content and form. Language, as a form of the culture, reflects a certain culture. In order to master a language, one must master the culture of this language. The language cannot exist without the culture. The culture and the language are interdependent and interactive (Sun, 7).Firstly, language is a component of the culture, it is the carrier of the culture, and it reflects the culture and serves the culture. In different languages, words, which share the same meaning, may have the different culture meanings. For example, the word “dragon” is equal to the word “龙” in Chinese. However, English and Chin ese have put different cultural meanings on it. In English, the dragon is an evil animal. It is often used to say those “fierce person”. But in China, it is a symbol of power and greatness. We often call ourselves “the descendant of dragon” proudly.Secondly, culture is an integral part of language. Culture plays an important part in language understanding. The deep understanding to the culture, which this language depends on, is vital to understand the language. As Byram has argued that only when the cultural context is understood, can the language rooted in the context be thoroughly comprehensible (Byram, 11).1.2 Culture Constrains English TeachingWhen learning English, one must understand the relevant cultural traditions and the culture itself. For instance, the American English has hundreds of words referring to car, representing the importance of car in the American society, where has a “car culture”. In English, the phrase “fair play” refers not only to fair competition, but also to a code of human. As the difference of the nation’s history, geography, social structure, values, code of conduct, language have corresponding structure reflected. So if we don’t understand the culture, we can not learn the language well.“Language is the carrier and transferring tools of the culture, so the learning and using of language have been constrained by the culture.” (Zhang, 324).1.2.1 Culture Constrains the Way of ThinkingThe difference of Sino-British cultures and different ways of thinking often reflect in language teaching material. This often impacts the cognitive channels and cognitive effects of English learners. For example, Chinese are accustomed to considering the conditions in the first place, then doing anything under the conditions. But American firstly consider what they will do, and then see whether the conditions are possible. 1.2.2 Culture Constrains the Observation and Judgment CriteriaStudents often use their own national culture and judgment criteria to predict and understand foreign cultures, which often cause errors. For example, it’s quite common for a male English speaker to compliment women on their good looks, but this is considered indecent by many people in China.1.2.3 Culture Constrains the Motivation of the LearnersCulture constrains the motivation of the learners. For example, Chinese culture advocates reading books. Most Chinese think if a man has higher education, he is a useful man. So Chinese often take these fuzzy goals as the motivation of learning, while American culture focuses on being practical, their motivation of learning is to achieve a specific goal.1.3 The Necessity of Culture Lead-in in English TeachingThe language is the constituent and carrier of the culture, which decides that language can not be separated from the culture. As early as in the 1920s, American linguist Sapir pointed out in the book Language, “The language has an environment, it cannot be separated from the culture to exist, cannot be separated from the tradition and the faith, which the socie ty inherits down.” (Sapir, 221). The language and the culture are interdependent and interactive, which appears more obvious when peoplefrom different cultural background communicate with each other. To truly master a language, we must understand the specific social background, on which this language operating, otherwise we will not really comprehend the language (Sun, 2).Chinese and English-speaking countries’people live in different cultural background. The customs, religious beliefs, ways of thinking, moral values, ethics and values, have considerable difference. Language is the reflection of the objective world. The difference between Westernculture and Eastern culture will inevitably lead to the difference of word meaning, sentence meaning, associative meaning, figurative meaning, etc. (Xu, 80). For example, some color has different associative meanings in English and Chinese. In Chinese, “Red” makes people think of“revolution”, “happy”, “successful”, such as “marriage”, “red political power”. But English andAmerican are accust omed to using “red” to express “indignation”and “crimes”, such as “see red”(angry), “red-handed”(crime). For anoth er example, one American said, “I am a materialist.” He was not what we call the “materialist”, but a “pragmatic people”. Therefore, if we do not know about the culture, the communication process will inevitably encounter cultural barriers. So culture lead-in is necessary in English teaching.1.4The Significance of Culture Lead-in in English TeachingThe task of English teaching is to train the students to be able to communicate with people speaking English, who have different cultures. There is a common phenomenon. As a result of having little cultural awareness, students know little cultural background of English and use English with the awareness of their own culture. So they don’t underst and some usage of words and don’t know how to use what they have acquainted. They can’t communicate with foreigners. For example, when teaching the saying “meet one’s Waterloo”, teachers should tell the students the culture about Waterloo. In 1815, Napoleon’s army was defeated at the battle ofWaterloo. That is the origin of this phrase. In language teaching, teachers also have duty to teach the involved culture. Language teaching should also be the teaching of the culture.In brief, culture lead-in is very significant in English teaching. Teachers should realize the significance of culture lead-in in English teaching and put it into practice.。