A Study On Contrastive Culturology And Culture Teaching

Contrastive Culturology is a new branch of science, which developed in the United States of America and other Western countries in the 1950s. It is both a new comprehensive frontier science and an applied science with strong sense of practical value. Owing to the policy of reformation and opening, we increasingly interact with people from different cultures, thus frantic enthusiasm for learning foreign languages appears at home; the same case for learning Chinese happens abroad. Such a situation has greatly improved the foreign language teaching in our country and forcefully pushed forward the study on Contrastive Linguistics and Contrastive Culturology in China.In the process of foreign language teaching, people constantly find that the cultural problems have penetrated into various parts of everyday work and life, academic researches and thought probes, etc. Under such an influence, great changes have taken place in foreign language teaching. Cultural factors have gradually drawn a wide attention and cultural aspects have been added up to the syllabus. The traditional methods such as the grammar-translation method, the audiolingual method, used to prevail in foreign language teaching, were teacher-centered, grammar- oriented and explanation-stressed, yet took no notice of cultural elements. As a great deal of Chinese teachers of English have pursued their study abroad and many foreign teachers have come to teach in China, we have been awakened with new thoughts in the exchange of ideas with foreign teachers about teaching techniques and we feel more and more dissatisfied with the long time used "pattern-drill" method which separates language forms from the context. Thus we begin to show wide interest in the communicative approach which is characterized by "Learning for Communication and Learning in Communication". This means in intercultural communication we are bound to contact with the cultures of target language countries, andwe cannot have a successful communication if we fail to understand their culture. Therefore, it can be seen that it is not only a social fashion to attach great importance to cultural factors in foreign language teaching but also a sufficient demonstration of the characteristics of language itself.The dissertation states culture studies and culture teaching have a very wide social environment, a profound theoretical foundation, an inevitable historical tendency and an urgent practical demand. The majority of teachers and students have become aware that foreign language learners not only need to grasp the phonology of the foreign language, its grammar and vocabulary but also need to understand its culture. In the foreign language teaching circle, there is an agreement on "Teaching Language as well as Teaching Culture". However, the study on contrastive culturology in our country is just at the beginning stage and it remains weak at the aspect of research with unaccomplished systematic framework of theory and teaching practice. This study may be divided into two categories: one is about the study of contrastive culturology, and the other is about its teaching. The former includes the theoretical formation of contrastive culturology, its research domain, content and methodology; and the latter includes the content and framework of culture teaching, how to teach, how to understand the relationship between culture of native language and culture of target language, between culture teaching and enhancing the awareness of intercultural communication, etc.The dissertation, based on modern linguistic theories both at home and abroad, attempts to explore contrastive culturology focusing on above questions. Contrastive analysis is carried on through the two branches: micro-aspects (internal language such aslexis, semantics, syntax and discourse) and macro-aspects (external language such as dominant cultural patterns, rituals and customs, nonverbal communicatiqn) in order to demonstrate the different features, connotations and expressions both in languages and cultures between Chi...