| Many of the difficulties the foreign language learners face are imposed by cultural difference. It is assumed that where there are differences between native culture and target culture, the learner's native cultural knowledge would interferewith target language learning and communication--negative transfer; and wherethe native culture and the target culture are similar, the native cultural knowledgewould be conducive to target language learning and communication--positivetransfer. There are many different dimensions of cultural transfer. As far as FLL and communication are concerned, primary consideration should be devoted to such dimensions as lexis, pragmatics (speech acts) and discourse.Lexical culture can be grouped under word, idiom, proverbs or saying. Many of them carry rich social and historical connotation with values, moral norms and thought of a people. Such cultural transfer can often be felt in intercultural communication.Transfer of speech act rules from one language to another can immediately lead to communication breakdown or communication conflict. Cultural transfer should be responsible for some pragmatic failures resulting from such speech acts as addressing, greetings, conversation topics, compliments, using telephone.Intercultural communication is submitted not only to the use of lexis and pragmatic rules, but also to rhetoric style (discourse strategy). Discourse transfer can usually be seen in different expectations about coherence.Those differences may lead members of a speech community to consider the speech or writing of non-native speakers incoherent.There is evidence indicating that many Asian speakers like to use inductive order of presentation while Westerners tend to expect a discourse strategy of coming to the point at the very beginning--a deductive strategy.If lexis, pragmatic rules and discourse are viewed as cultural phenomena, values and thought patterns may be viewed as cultural essence, which is the essential cause of cultural transfer in many cases in intercultural communication.The value orientations often employed to analyze cultural patterns are human nature, relationship of humankind to nature, and social relationships.Western traditional culture holds that humans are basically evil. In China, as in other Asian societies that have accepted the teachings of Confucius, humans are believed to be basically good. Chinese traditional belief holds that humankind and nature are oneness. According to Western cultures the universe is made up of two separate components: men and nature. Both of them are independent from and opposite to each other. As to social relationship, harmony is greatly emphasized in Chinese society. However, the harmony is usually based on hierarchy. In contrast, equality is greatly emphasized in West. Another dimension of values is individualism-collectivism. Most Asian cultures value collectivism while most Western cultures value individualism.Thought patterns are bridges connecting language with culture. Holistic pattern of thought, which is closely related to the Chinese concept about the relationship of humans to nature, is obvious in Chinese culture. Humans and nature,individual and group are a mutually dependent and inseperable whole. Western cultures tend to divide every thing into one or more contradictory classes or mutually exclusive pairs. Chinese traditional thought pattern attaches importance to the meaning of thing itself rather than logic analyses, and is good at vividly expressing abstract ideas in image language. Western thought is mainly characterized by logic: rational, analytical, positive, accurate and systematic.It can be inferred from many facts of cultural transfer in communication that a second or foreign language can hardly be really mastered without addressing the culture of the society in which it is used. It should be the chief target for FLT to develop students' intercultural communicative competence. Some suggestions are made for this in the last section of this thesis.
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