最新CultureBackgroundKnowledgeTeachinginEnglishinMiddleSchools-试论中学英语中的文化背景教学

Background Knowledge Teaching in Englishin Middle SchoolsAbstract：As we all know, middle school phase is an important phase for the Chinese students tolearn English, so it has become very important to improve the English communicating ability of middleschool students. English, here, as a main course of students, plays a more and more important role in middle school in china. In recent years, the cultural background knowledge in English teaching has attracted great attention. The investigation shows that cultural knowledge learning is helpful for improving language level and competence. Also, successful cross-cultural communication requires students’acquaintance w ith the differences between the two cultures. Therefore, the teaching of cultural background knowledge in English class should occupy an important place in middle school. This paper first expounds the inseparability of language and culture to help readers know more about the relationship between them. Then, it analyses the goal and importance of cultural background knowledge in language teaching in middle school. Next，it introduces the approaches to the culture background. In fact, rich cultural knowledge is contained in language structure and vocabulary. To great extent, language comprehension relies on being familiar with cultural tradition, customs, history, thoughts and so on. Language learning and culture learning can not be separated. Language is just like the running water. It changesinevery moment, for culture background changes from time to time. If language is a flower, culture willbe the soil for this flower. As a teacher, we should give students the living language: bothflowers and soil. That is to say, we should teach them both the language and the culture background knowledge.Key words: background knowledge language English teaching论文摘要众所周知，中学阶段是学生学习英语的重要时期，因此，增强中学生的英语交际能力变得尤为重要。

英语，作为中国中学生的主要课程之一，变得越来越关键。

近些年来，英语教学中的文化背景知识教学引起了人们的注意。

研究表明，文化背景的学习能有效提高学生的语言水平和能力。

而且，成功的跨文化交际离不开学生丰富的文化背景知识。

因此，对文化背景知识的学习在中学英语课堂中变得越来越重要。

本文首先介绍了语言和文化的不可分割性来帮助读者进一步了解语言和文化的关系，然后分析了文化背景学习的目的和重要性。

最后给出了文化背景学习的方法和途径。

实际上，丰富的文化背景知识包涵了对语言结构和词汇的掌握，同时在很大程度上，语言的理解又依赖对文化传统，风俗习惯，历史思想等的掌握。

因此，语言学习和文化学习是不可分割的。

语言就像是流动的水，无时无刻不在变化，文化业如此。

如果语言是鲜花，那么文化则是培育鲜花的土壤。

作为老师，我们应该教授学生全面的知识，也就是说，我们既要教给他们语言，又要教授他们文化背景知识。

关键词：文化背景；语言；英语教学ContentsI. Introduction (1)A. The definition of language (1)B. The definition of culture (2)C. the relationship between language and culture (3)II. The goals of culture background knowledge (5)A. Getting familiar with different s ituation (6)B. Understanding social v ariables (6)C. Evaluating foreign culture (7)D. Developing cultural creativity (7)III. The importance of culture background knowledge in language teaching (8)A. necessity of background knowledge in listening and speaking (8)B. necessity of background knowledge in reading (9)C. necessity of background knowledge in writing and translating (10)IV. Approaches to culture background knowledge (11)A. Providing cultural background information in class……………………12 (13)B. Providing authentic materials…………………………………………C. culture lecture (15)D. Projected media (16)V. Conclusion (17)Notes (19)Bibliography (20)I. IntroductionLanguageandcultureareinseparable, learning a foreign language means learning aforeign civilization and culture. What's more, cultural awareness is the assurance of usinglanguage appropriately.Mistakes have frequently been made when we use English, owing to our lack of the culture background knowledge. The new English Course Standards (2002)f or middle schools has added cultural teaching as one of its main parts; much research hasbeen done about it. But what and how to teach it in middle schools still needs systematicstudy.A. The definition of languageLanguage is the social production and the symbolic system carried on from generation togeneration by People who live in this society. And in particular language speech may reflectthe social relations between the speaker and addressee, which manifest the interrelationshipbetween people. Language is a vehicle of transmitting thought and information, language distinguishes human from animals，and is very essential to mankind. A broad accepted and tentative definition of language is: language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used forcommunication. So language has features of duality, arbitrariness, productivity, displacementinter-changeability transmission,(Li Shiqiang, 2003).B. The definition of cultureCulture is an ambiguous and intriguing concept. There are many kindsofdefinitions. Richard E. Porter and Larry A. Samovar define culture as thedepositof knowledge, experiences, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies,religion, timing, rules, spatial relations, concepts of universe andmaterial objectsand expressions a cquired by a large group of people in thecourse of generationsthrough individual and group striving.1According to New EncyclopediaBritannica defines cultures as peculiar tomankind together with material objectsthat are part of this behavior andconsists of languages, ideas, beliefs, customs,codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of arts, rituals, ceremonies and so on.The concept ofculture was first defined in print by E.B. Taylor, who provided thefirstprofound scientific understanding of the nature of the term. According tohim,culture is “that c omplex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art,morals,law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man asmember ofsociety”2. For anthropologists, culture has long meant the way oflife of people,the sum of its learned behavior patterns, attitudes, and materialthe contemporary teaching of languages may bethings. “Culture”inunderstood in broad andnarrow senses. It may refer to the “intellectualre, the refinement” and artistic endeavor,or the appreciation of music, literatuart and so on.’this is in the sense of“high culture”, or culture in its omen referred to ns culture with a bigC. “Culture with a big C” foachievementand contribution: art, music,“the sum total of a people’sliterature, architecture, technology, scientificdiscoveries and philosophy”the other hand, culture may also refer towhatever to a person must know inorder to function in a particular. 'This is in thesame as in Goodenough’s definition of the term. It reads that a soci ety’s cultureconsists of whatever it isone has to know or to believe in order to operate in amanner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept forany one of themselves. Goodenough’s definition is culture in its narrow sense,oftenreferred to asculture with a small c. “Culture witha small c” includes “thebeha of thelife style of people: when and what they eat, how theymake a living, theway they organize their society, the attitudes they expresstowards friends and members of their families, how they act in differentsituations, which expressions they use to show approval and disapproval, thetraditions theymust observe, and so on”3.C. The relationship between language and cultureAt present, more and more scholars come to an agreement that cultureand language influence each other deeply and greatly. For example, thereligious culture that reigned human society for several thousands of yearshelp to develop different national consciousness, different cultural content anddifferent understanding to language. People with different cultural background express themselves in different ways.On the one hand, language, as a part of culture, largely influences theforming and developing of culture, and it is a mirror that reflects the cultureof a certain community. For example, in Britain, the number “13”is regardedas an unlucky symbol, which means unfortunate. So people in western countries always try to avoid holding any ceremonies, parties on 13th, or inviting 13 persons together.On the other hand, language is influenced and shaped by culture. People with different background express themselves in different ways. In western, acquaintances always greet each other with “How are you?” while in China; people say, “Have you eaten yet?” That is because in old China, lots of people suffered from hunger. Greeting with “Have you eaten?”could show their warm heart and deep concern to others.Each culture is unique. Learning a foreign language well means more than merely mastering the pronunciation, grammar, words and idioms. It also means seeing 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”. In a word, culture and language are inseparable. Some people describe their relationship with following formula: language (flesh) + culture (blood) = a living organism. It is vivid. Language plus culture equal a living organism: language is flesh and culture is blood, without culture, language would be dead; without language, culture would have no shape.II. The goals of culture background knowledgeSince the native speaker of any language has built into his language repertoire hisunique cultural assumptions and values, foreign culture acquisition shouldbe duly anddexterously incorporated into the English teaching. The above mentioned goals can beconsidered as references in teaching Chinese students. But we must especially take thefollowing into consideration (Hu Wenzhong, 1994).The first is the English language context, the Chinese context and the Englishspeaking cultural context. Furthermore, the unity of English acquisition and cultureacquisition is achieved in an ideal manner. There maybe some English teachers who arestill haunted with the fear that foreign culture acquisition might constitute a threat to theChinese national identity. This is an understandable fear, for it certainly would be atragedy if the learners should acquire bilingualism at the cost of losing their nationalidentity (Qin Xiubai, 1988).Does foreign acquisition pose a threat to our national identity? Will it jeopardize ourcultural norms and values? These questions cannot be answered with certainty because theanswer depends on how we handle the problem. We can find numerous people who arebilingual or even bicultural and, yet, who remain as devoted as ever to their native culture.The crux of the matter lies in the goals of foreign culture acquisition. In China, culturalgoals should at least encompass the following.A. Getting familiar with different situationForeign culture acquisition should aim at familiarizing students with the mundanesituations of the English-speaking countries--their customs andhabits, life-style,generally-accepted world outlook, etc. Culture is often viewed as "a way of life", or as `ablueprint that guides the behavior of peoplein a community and the most obvious culturaldifferences. It is believed, that Americans tend to be dominated by a "psychomotor" viewof time and space and they readily and sincerely accept such concepts as time is moneyand procrastination is the thief of time; Frenchmen's concept of time and space is more"cognitive" with a static, centralized and universalistic view. Americans think of distancein relatively broad categories and believe that 60 miles is butan easy jaunt; Frenchmenview distance in narrow categories and consider that 60 miles or 100 kilometers is aconsiderable travel distance. Here, national character studies carried out byanthropologists deserve our particular attention, for these studies often provide us withcultural stereotypes based on reasonably accurate descriptions and generalizations.Some cultural stereotypes can surely help students to understand some aspects of theEnglish culture even thought they are, of course, overgeneralizations. Students should bereminded frequently that foreign culture acquisition inherently involvesovergeneralization.B. Understanding social variablesForeign culture acquisition should aim at enabling students to understand theinteraction between language and such social variables as age, sex, race, social classes,and occupation, for these social variables affect the way people speak and behave. Englishprograms for English majors can adopt the。