| Communication always takes place in a certain cultural context and the success of communication depends on the participants' Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC), which includes cultural knowledge and cultural awareness. The study of Intercultural Communication began in the 1980's. Based on the other experts' theories, this thesis makes a tentative study on the relation between cultural context and ICC.The body of the thesis can be divided into four chapters:Chapter one is about what constitutes context. Anthropologists and sociolinguists have long been trying to find the answer to such question as "What is context?" Viewing the problem from different angles, the scholars both at home and abroad have presented various theories of context. Generally, there are three theories: Monolism, context is discourse; Dualism, context is discourse and situation in which the communication takes place; Pluralism, context includes social life (political culture and social communicative culture), social norms and customs (dominant spirit of the age) and national psychology (religious belief), as well as discourse and situation. These theories have laid a foundation for our further research.The second chapter illustrates the relation between cultural context and ICC. The author gives explanation of cultural context. On the one hand, cultural context refers to the cultural background to which a speech event or a written discourse is related, which embraces such factors as literature, social conventions, religion and values, with the intention of communication as the center. Cultural context has three functions: absolute function, the pervasive influence of cultural context determines its absolute function; restrictive function, cultural context has entire restriction on all linguistic activities; interpretative function, which means that it helps to interpret and illustrate meaning. On the other hand, ICC includes linguistic competence;paralinguistic competence, the competence to use and interpret both subjective factors as the meaning conveyed in the voices, expression, gestures and the relations between the participants and objective factors such as presupposition and Cooperation Principle; cultural competence, which includes cultural knowledge and cultural awareness.The close relation between cultural context and ICC comes from the influence that cultural context factors exert on ICC: first, literature (novels, poetry and drama, etc.) gives students insight into the social relation and personal life; literature is a source of idioms, which can be better understood through literature. Second, social conventions, such as festivals and holidays, play an important role in cultural context. Inadequate knowledge of social conventions will lead to misunderstanding in communication. Third, religion has influenced beliefs and values for centuries. It has also been a source of literature and idioms. Value is the core of cultural context. Many communicative failures are caused by conflicts between different values. So, cultural context is vital to intercultural communication. Negligence of cultural context will hinder the increase of ICC.Chapter three is a survey on Chinese students' cultural knowledge and the source of the knowledge. The content covers the four key factors of cultural context: literature, social conventions, religion and value. The result indicates that culture learning is on the increase in current foreign language education. Yet, the average level of cultural knowledge is moderate. There are three problems related to cultural learning: first, teachers pay more attention to transmission of knowledge while neglect students' interaction. Second, teachers need systematic training in cultural knowledge and approaches of culture learning. Third, the content of cultural learning is restricted in English and American background, such as geography, politics and history, etc.Chapter four is a tentative study on the principles and approaches of the cultivation of ICC. With "Globalization", ICC has...
|
PDF Full Text Request