On The Cultural Insecurity In Foreign Language Education

In the era of globalization, the intercultural communication has assumed increasing attention throughout the world. Foreign language education opens up the bridge between the gap of different nations and cultures. The introduction of the western technology also requires us to have the good command of the foreign language competence which also leads to the exposure to its culture as a natural result. Thus, the wide spread of foreign language accompanied with the foreign cultural influence will cause the hazards to the cultural security and the cultural diversity in China.The thesis aims at answering the following questions like:How can China modify its language policy as well as foreign language policy to maintain the appropriate balance between the Chinese and foreign language in education? How will China react and respond to the widespread foreign language education and foreign cultural influence? What method will the foreign language teachers adopt to successfully conduct the language education without causing the hazards to the cultural security? What solution will there be concerning the prevention and precaution against the possible foreign language invasions?The thesis contends to reveal the significance of the urgency and severity of the cultural insecurity. If left untended, Chinese cultural individuality and cultural diversity will be eventually replaced or at least leads to detriments by the dominant cultural forms from the west world. At that moment, China will sacrifice the self-esteem of cultural identity and lose the control of the cultural development and harmonious environment for the cultural development and cultural autonomy.This thesis probes into the cultural insecurity from the perspective of foreign language education, attempting to explore the interrelationship between the foreign language educational theories, curricula, practices, feedback and evaluation system against the background of the foreign language invasion or foreign language influence on the college students.In Chapter 1, the introduction part, the thesis explains the reason for the selection of the theme of the study. This chapter gives an overview on the researches and studies on "Cultural Security" in the East and the West. This chapter further explains the infrastructure of the thesis and the investigation approaches for the study. Lastly, this chapter ends with introduction of the social and theoretical significance of the study.In Chapter 2, the thesis has conducted a literature review concerning the related researches on the cultural insecurity from the west and from the east. This thesis lays its research foundation on the previous researches in the past by other scholars. But it has a new study route, that is, from the foreign language educational perspective.In Chapter 3, the thesis firstly defines the related notions like "culture" and "cultural security" After the demonstration of the definitions, the thesis continues to reveal to the readers the theoretical principles that are applied in the research.In Chapter 4, the thesis aims at the exploration of the nature, the conception and the historical development of cultural insecurity in Foreign language domains. With three major functions of cultural elements in the foreign language education, that includes:communicative function, cultural innovative function and the cultural cultivational function, etc. Then the thesis dates back to the cultural insecurity phenomena and historical reasons for this. The thesis ends this chapter by putting forward the related theoretical basis from the perspectives of General Education, Citizenship Education and Education for International Understanding.In Chapter 5, the thesis presents the empirical study of the identification of the phenomena of cultural insecurity in foreign language education. Firstly, the thesis reveals the diachronical analysis of the development of the curricula for foreign language education in history. Then the thesis conducts a qualitative and quantity investigation in the one collection of the coursebooks for college foreign language education.Chapter 6 aims at putting forward the feasible solutions to the cultural insecurity in the foreign language education in China. The thesis borrows lessons from other nations in the world concerning how to maintain the multiculturalism or how to maintain the cultural diversity in the face of English invasion in the educational reign. Then the thesis lands its arguments on the ground of possible educational policy that Chinese government could adopt and the possible solutions that the educators could adopt.Chapter 7 is the conclusion part of the whole thesis. It concludes that there are cultural insecurity phenomena in the foreign language education, theoretically or practically. It is urgent for the proper measures to be taken to prevent such hazards happen in the future educational practice. With proper measures, the cultural security will be maintained and the cultural diversity will be re-assumed.This thesis takes the quest for the solution to the cultural insecurity in the foreign language education as its research objective. It is has political significance in regaining the power of social and national cohesiveness in China. The theoretical significance of the research lies in the combination of the multi-disciplinary studies of Communication, Culture study and Language Education studies. The practical significance lies in the contribution that the cultural security will help to revive the Chinese culture and Chinese cultural charms in the world. The ultimate significance of the research lies in the fact that the thesis caters for the contemporary social development and educational reformations in China.