A Study Of Cultural Factors In Foreign Language Teaching

College English Curriculum Requirements demand that more attention should be paid to the development of students'intercultural communication competence (ICC). Culture teaching has been introduced into the foreign language teaching classroom as more and more teachers and scholars have realized that cultural competence should be the ultimate goal for foreign language teaching, though culture teaching is still in a subordinate position, and the application of the approach is far from being satisfactory.At the present stage, most of the study in culture teaching is greatly focused on target culture (C2). Traditional thought in foreign language teaching has limited the teaching of culture to the transmission of information about the people of the target country, and about their general attitudes and social values. For example, introductions to target culture are more plentiful than native culture in textbooks, so the phenomenon of aphasia of Chinese culture appears.Based on philosophy, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and intercultural communication, this study is developed with intercultural communication as a main framework, discussing cultural factors in foreign language teaching. With quantitative and qualitative approaches, a survey has been conducted among students who have the same level of English about target language culture and native culture understandings. This study attempts to emphasize the invisible relationship between language teaching and culture instruction, and to formulate a whole set of hypotheses including basic language teaching, culture teaching, and students'intercultural communication competence.The term"culture"is defined as a set of customs, attitudes, values, and beliefs shared by a group of human beings, which is transmitted from generation to generation by a learning process rather than biological inheritance. Language is a part of culture and as the carrier of culture. Language is an important part of communication so it is extremely important to human interaction. Some social scientists consider it the key stone of culture.Without language, they maintain 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 backgrounds as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. Conventions or norms for language use are far from universal. Different cultures have different sociolinguistic conventions or norms for the use of interaction and discourse conventions and the differences in values and conventions exist in great intensity and with a wide variety of language behavior. This is what is called sociolinguistic diversity. The intensity of pragmatic conventions or norms calls for great attention because of this lack of knowledge of the pragmatic diversity, people from different cultural backgrounds often misunderstand each other. They misinterpret and misunderstand the intent of the speakers because they tend to interpret and judge the behavior of people from a different cultural background with their own cultural standard and values.The study analyses the causes of language differences, and finds that cultural factors in foreign language teaching especially in reading class, writing class, and listening class. The study also finds that communicative failures, and the negative transfer of native culture in foreign language learning.Every nation has its own language that is the representation of its national culture and thinking mode. In the perspective of language we may see the multiple cultural values inevitably reflected by its language in different levels. Vocabulary is one of the most active factors, consisting of language and cultural differences that are manifested most prominently in the lexical level. If students can not understand the culture transformed by target language, lack the basic knowledge about the social cultural values carried in lexical form, only interpret the conception in target language by the conception in their source language and pay no attention to their differences in lexical connotation, the deeper level of comprehension will never be reached and the hindrance in intercultural communication will also be caused.Many of the assumptions, hypotheses, and claims about the interrelationship of language, culture, and thinking patterns have stemmed from the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, which suggests that different language affect cognition and thought in different ways. Language, culture, and thinking patterns are interwoven and there exist different means of expression and different patterns of discourse. Western discourse pattern follows a linear development while Chinese discourse pattern follows an indirect approach and come to the point only at the end. The preference for deductive or inductive strategies is a significant area of cultural difference between Chinese and western discourse. Syntactical aspect comprehension and analytical thinking mode are the key factors leading to these differences. Chinese writing are seen by western readers as distractions. To the western reader, Chinese rhetoric lacks argumentative coherence. Chinese writers seem to avoid free expression of personal views and tend to present ideas in a roundabout, suggestive, or indirect way. Meanings, intentions, and feelings are implicit, inferred, or implied. Chinese connection is decided by the rational collocation rather than its form. English is the language focused on the harmony between forms. Through the grammatical connection between the words, the sentences are shaped into a whole text whose structure is completed by the subject, predicate, and objective in direct linear order. Logical constitution is another distinctive of English text.The indirect style in Chinese culture and the direct style in American culture may differ in the extent to which communicators reveal their intention through the implicitness or explicitness of their content messages. The indirect style in Chinese culture may find expression in the implicit statement of the speaker's intention while the direct style in American culture may find expression in the explicit statement of the speaker's intention.Differences in the speech behavior of requests between Chinese and American culture lie in the semantic sequence or order of the components that make up a request or in the use of supportive moves, as well as in the way a request is stated. For example, the Chinese very often prefer to embed their requests in the supportive moves, such as lengthy explanations and justifications which are often placed at the beginning while Americans may place requests at the very beginning and if they do use supportive moves, such as reasons or justifications for their request, they are very likely to place them after the request.The implicit request is often used in Chinese culture while the explicit request is often used in American culture. Speakers adopting the implicit style are likely to avoid verbalizing their intention straightforwardly and hence the interpretation of the intention requires the listeners to discern the cues from the speaker. However, the Americans are inclined to lay more emphasis on verbal performance than Chinese, paying much attention to grammatical structure, lexical and phrasal selection, and the subjunctive mood and conditional moods.The differences between Western and Chinese thinking mode lie in the differences between the subject consciousness and object consciousness. Chinese people stress the harmony between man and nature, so consequently man has great consciousness of self-participation in everything. In perspective of language, such a connotation is reflected by the sentences whose subject is always"somebody". While the western people tend to think in logical and analytical way and stress the separation of the subject from the object, so the subject in English sentences can be"somebody"or"something"which depends on the context.Accurately understanding the language styles of mother tongue and target language will help the intercultural communication proceed smoothly. Foreign language teaching should break the limitation of language system and sentence structure, explore the social background and culture contents reflected by languages and organically combine language teaching and culture teaching, make students understand culture on the basis of understanding language, and vice verse.The study points out that culture teaching does not mean the mere introduction of English and American cultures and simply exert one culture on another. Instead, we should practice bilateral cultural education, building up equal values on language and culture, adopting comparative principles. Similarly understanding a foreign culture requires putting that culture in relation with one's own. In includes a reflection both on the target and on the native culture. The instruction of native culture in FLT can explicitly enhance students'interest in learning English and make them more confident because students hope that they are able to learn more English expressions to express their native culture. In addition, the use of native culture materials in English classroom stimulates the students learning enthusiasm and improves students'proficiency, especially in speaking and reading comprehension.Considering college students'poor knowledge of their native culture, it is not only necessary but also urgent that we should involve mother tongue culture in FLT.With the development of cognitive science and psychology, it is generally assumed that as acquired knowledge, mother tongue will serve the reference to learn a new foreign language and will definitely play an active role during the course of their target language learning. Mother tongue language transfer affects the acquisition of grammar if the learner with a well-organized neurolinguistic system. This means that the learning of target language is highly parasitic on the structure of the native language at the initial stage. i.e. the learner's target language system relies on the structures of their native language. Actually, the common features of languages make mother tongue and native culture the basis of foreign language learning. Using the experience they get from their mother tongue learning, target language learners can think with the help of their mother tongue, which will ease them in their understanding the principles of the target language and bring the positive transfer of the mother tongue into play.In order to avoid the growing"Aphasia of Chinese Culture"in international exchanges, the teaching of Chinese culture should be strengthened in foreign language teaching to make students acquire the appropriate English expressions of Chinese culture and enable English to be a good medium in transmitting and inhering excellent Chinese traditional culture. Although the topic-based teaching arrangement of existing textbooks is suitable for college students, improvements and revisions are still necessary. Accordingly more cultural contents about mother tongue and more articles written by westerners on evaluating the Chinese culture or those comparative ones involving comparisons between Chinese culture and foreign ones, or fragments from those excellent literary Chinese works should be added. Secondly, with regard to Chinese students unfamiliarity with Chinese culture and its correspondent English expression, we should add cultural tests by choosing some compositions involving topics about Chinese culture to improve the students'sensitivity and awareness of Chinese culture.In sum, culture teaching and language are intertwined and that culture teaching is an essential part of language education. We would maintain that foreign teaching involves a comparison between target language and students'mother tongue, and a comparison between target culture and their native culture. Comparison of the two cultures will enhance their understanding of cultural difference, and overcome the culture shock in intercultural communication, and make them become multicultural men. It is valuable to teach culture in foreign language teaching in order to develop students'culture awareness and culture tolerance as well.This study is relatively innovative. Guided by the theory of intercultural communication, the study attempts to set a whole assumption of foreign language teaching, that is the pattern of teaching of language( mother tongue and target language ), the pattern of teaching of culture( native culture and target culture ), and the pattern of teaching of intercultural communication competence ( a person with a multi-culture consciousness ). Directed by the norms of human mind, language and culture, foreign language teaching brings positive transfer of mother tongue into full play. Bilateral culture education in foreign language teaching and the combination of cultures from both mother tongue and target language will help develop the Chinese culture.