A Survey Of The Phenomenon Of "Chinese Culture Aphasia" In College English Teaching

In recent years,the whole world has felt the surging power of China's development.Encouraging “going out” and welcoming “coming in” is one of the defining themes of our time.To go global,the essence of Chinese culture needs to be expressed in another language in a parallel way without any bias,while the world's excellent culture into our country also needs accurate language to help cross-cultural understanding.Therefore,it is very important for college students to cultivate intercultural communication competence.Unfortunately,there is no specific implementation standard and guidance for the mother tongue culture in college English teaching in China.The level of Chinese cultural expression is shallow and it is common that both teachers and students face the difficulty to express Chinese culture in English in the process of cross-cultural communication.In this way,it is not conducive to “going out” of national culture and “coming in” of foreign culture.The phenomenon of incapability to express Chinese culture in English is called “Chinese cultural aphasia”,put forward by Professor Cong in 2000.After carefully reviewing previous studies on the phenomenon of “Chinese cultural aphasia” in different perspectives,the researcher conducted questionnaire to 30 English teachers and 100 students who have overseas experience from College of Information,Shanxi Agriculture University,and had a semi-structured interview to 8 teachers and 20 students randomly selected from the questionnaire subjects.Then,based on the data findings,status of “Chinese Culture Aphasia” in college English teaching is analyzed and discussed in detail.At the end of research,the researcher summed up several subjective and objective reasons and proposed corresponding measures.The main findings of the study are: firstly,there does exist the phenomenon of Chinese cultural aphasia among college teachers and students.For the entire group of teachers,their English expressiveness of Chinese culture is limited.And for college students,their cultural aphasia manifests not only deficiency in Chinese culture knowledge,but also incapability of introducing native culture in English to foreigners accurately and clearly.Secondly,the reasons of Chinese cultural aphasia in college English teaching lie in teaching philosophy and the teaching factors under its influence,which is summarized as follows.In general,the importance of learning and dissemination of national culture can be recognized by college English teachers and students,and to a certain extent,they have realized the necessity of Chinese culture integration in college English teaching.However,based on the influence of some factors in reality,such as less appearance in kinds of examinations,little chance to go abroad,the incomplete understanding of the meaning of the mother tongue culture in successful foreign exchanges,etc.,both teachers and students have not paid much attention to the study of Chinese cultural English expression in teaching and learning practice.Even if there has involved some Chinese culture in English teaching,they have adopted improper methods,such as simple memorization and translation.This contradiction between understanding and practice is the biggest obstacle to effectively improve the expressiveness of mother-tongue culture in college English teaching.Moreover,as one of the teaching subjects,the teacher,in addition to being a “patient” of Chinese cultural aphasia,ignores the penetration of Chinese culture in English teaching in both perception and action.Then according to the reasons,researcher lists some practical suggestions,from several aspects,like the correct culture view and awareness cultivation,improvement of teachers' cultural level,curriculum design,teaching methods,and other teaching factors,in order to make little contribution to getting rid of the phenomenon of “Chinese Culture Aphasia” in college English teaching.At the same time,it is hoped that all parties should take these aspects considered seriously,actively study and find coping strategies in time to eliminate the problem of Chinese cultural aphasia.