A Study On College Students' Competence In Conveying Chinese Culture In English

As an international communication tool, English is no longer a special language for any one native English-speaking nation only but belongs to all nations in the world. Consequently, the main purpose of Chinese English learners is to introduce our national thoughts and culture to other nations. Using English to tell and explain Chinese culture to people in other countries has become an important way through which China will join the world and the world can also get to know China better and deeper. However, after several years'learning and college English teaching, the author found that our China's college English teaching (CET) has always laid its emphasis on the culture of target language and overlooked the culture of our mother tongue. In other words, the spread of Chinese culture and its expression in English have almost been neglected. As to the situation of our university students' incompetence in conveying Chinese culture in English, although some researches were conducted by some scholars, they were only focused on English majors or several prestigious universities. On the basis of the achievements, the author conducts a further study among some non-English majors and their teachers from an ordinary university in the hope of providing some implications for language and culture teaching in the future CET.Under such background the author of the thesis decides to use both quantitative and qualitative research methodology and chooses 117 students of non-English majors and 30 English teachers from Qingdao Technological University as researching subjects. Questionnaires are distributed to investigate college students'competence in conveying the information of Chinese culture in English, the present situation of CET and their attitudes towards the permeation of Chinese culture in CET. Then data are analyzed to find out the reasons for students" incompetence in conveying Chinese culture in English. Furthermore, the solutions are provided. The aim of all these is to arouse the awareness of foreign language circle for potential perils to Chinese culture, to emphasize the important function of Chinese culture in CET and intercultural communication, and to call for enhancing the education of Chinese culture. The thesis consists of five parts which include introduction and conclusion.Chapter one is a general introduction which tells the background, purpose, researching questions and significance of the study. Meanwhile, the basic frame of the thesis is presented.Chapter two generalizes all achievements that have been made, including the researching situation abroad and at home, the researching procedure of cultural teaching in CET, which thus sets the theoretical basis for the study.Chapter three presents the researching objects, researching methods, questionnaire design and data collection.Chapter four is the main part of this study. In this chapter, the data obtained are analyzed in qualitative and quantitative ways, and then findings are discussed in detail to find out the possible reasons for students'incompetence in conveying the information of Chinese culture in English, together with some suggestions for future CET from the aspects of policy, outline, textbook, course design, examination and evaluation.Chapter five is the conclusion. Firstly it offers a conclusion. Then the limitations of the thesis are pointed out and possible researching directions are also included.