| In the social context of the rapid economic globalization and the increase of intercultural communication, domestic and foreign researchers and teachers have reached a consensus on the significance of cultivating students’ intercultural communicative awareness and competence and made a lot of theoretical and empirical researches. Since the1960s, foreign linguists and educators such as Hymes (1967), Robinson (1985), Louise Damen (1987), Kramsch (1993) and Byram (1997) and so on put forward their viewpoints. American sociolinguist Dell Hymes (1967) first put forward the conception of "communicative competence"(CC), which means the ability of using language effectively and properly in social environment. American applied linguist Robinson (1985) proposed the concept of "cultural versatility". He considered that language and culture teaching would eventually cultivate students’ cultural versatility. Louise Damen (1987) called "culture teaching" the "fifth dimension" of language teaching, which has closed relationship with four language skills, including listening, speaking, reading and writing. According to Professor Claire Kramsch (1993), culture was an indispensable part of language learning and that in foreign language teaching, in addition to language knowledge, teachers should also introduce native and foreign cultures timely, properly and moderately. Culture should be permeated throughout the whole process of foreign language teaching. The concept of "communicative competence" has been developed into "intercultural communicative competence"(ICC) by Byram (1997) and his colleagues. Generally speaking, they all emphasize the importance of culture learning in language learning.Since the1980s, with further research on the cultivation of foreign language learners’ intercultural communicative competence, domestic scholars also began to realize the significance and necessity of culture teaching. Domestic research representatives are Liu Runqing (1989), Hu Wenzhong (1994), Gao Yihong (1997) and Chen Shen (1999) and so on. They all advocated importing culture teaching in foreign language teaching and made research on how to systematically import culture content in class teaching, including teaching principles, teaching methods, syllabus design, teaching material compiling and curriculum design and so on. Experts and researchers have made great achievements on the culture teaching research during the30years. However, many problems still exist in College English teaching. For one thing, College English teaching syllabus and teaching materials mainly attach importance to the introduction of target culture and students’learning and mastery of the target culture, but seldom cover the input of native culture. For another, teaching methods and testing means could not get rid of the shadow of exam-oriented education model. Although the test syllabuses of national College English tests (CET-4and CET-6) have attached great importance to the assessment of students’linguistic skills, including listening, reading, writing and translating, this still can’t play much positive wash back effect on the improvement of students’ability to express Chinese culture in English. Consequently, in intercultural communication, students don’t know how to express the information relevant to Chinese culture in English and can’t effectively express their views and opinions based on the Chinese culture values. What’s more, students cannot take the initiative to actively talk about Chinese culture with others, but only passively accept the information of western culture, which often makes intercultural communication a one-way communication, this is called "Chinese culture aphasia" phenomenon. Early in the1990s, domestic famous scholar Cao Shunqing (1996) proposed the phenomenon of "aphasia" in the field of literature. Professor Cong Cong (2000) first put forward the concept of "Chinese culture aphasia" in his article Chinese Culture Aphasia published in Guangming Daily on October19,2000. After that, a lot of domestic researchers such as Zhang Weimin, Zhu Hongmei (2002), Liu Shiwen (2003,2005), Zhang Wei(2009) and Xiao Longfu (2010) and so on also mentioned Chinese culture aphasia phenomenon among students of College English course. The College English teaching objects is large in number; the teaching effect has a great influence on national talents’cultivation. If we want to change the present situation of Chinese culture aphasia, we need to adopt series new initiatives in aspects of teaching syllabus, teaching materials, teaching methods and test means and so forth.Based on theories such as the relationship between language, culture and communication, between language teaching and culture teaching, intercultural communication, through the methods of test, questionnaire, interview, take eight teachers and270students of Guangxi University of Finance and Economics and64international students of Guangxi University as research subjects, a survey about the present situation of culture teaching and learning in College English course is carried out. The purpose is to solve three problems. What is the status quo of culture teaching and learning in College English course of local university? What are the causes of Chinese cultural aphasia phenomenon? What are the suggestions on how to solve Chinese culture aphasia among students of College English course?The results of the study show that Chinese and western cultures teaching and learning are unbalanced in College English course. On the one hand, more than60%of the students are very interested in learning about Chinese culture, but more than80%of students admit that their ability to express Chinese culture in English is weak. On the other hand, textbook compiling, curriculum design, test design and teaching methods and so on all focus on western culture but ignore Chinese culture; these factors may be the direct causes leading to the students’Chinese culture aphasia.Based on the results of this study, the author puts forward some suggestions.1. Add Chinese excellent culture to College English teaching syllabus;2. Optimize curriculum design, open English courses of Chinese culture;3. Add content related to Chinese culture to College English textbooks;4. Integrate Chinese and western cultures into all kinds of English tests;5. College English teachers also ought to improve their Chinese cultural accomplishment and intercultural communicative competence;6. Integrate Chinese and western culture in various kinds of activities inside and outside of the classroom, improve students’ ability to express Chinese culture in English and their intercultural communicative competence. |
PDF Full Text Request