The Acculturation and Foreign Language Teaching

The Acculturation and Foreign Language Teaching

胡爽

南宁师范大学，广西南宁， 530000

Abstract

Foreign language teaching plays an important role in the process of language teaching, it also have an effect on the students' interests in English and teachers’ teaching quality. Language is a carrier of culture. English learning is connected with culture teaching. Culture teaching is substaintial in the process of foreign language teaching. At the same time, teachers are required to teach the basic language information to students, they also need to introduce the foreign culture to students or compare it with the native culture in the class. Students will have a knowledge on the foreign culture and the difference between these cultures, which will deeper their impression and arose their interests on English.

The innovation of this paper: based on the theories and practice in English teaching, we will pay more attention on the influence and necessary of the acculturation in foreign language teaching.

Key words: Acculturation; Foreign Language Teaching

Introduction

Acculturation is firstly introduced by Schumann in 1978, which is adapted to the second language acquisition. Schumann thinks that the most important elements in the process of the second language acquisition are social and affective elements. He makes a hypothesis that the level of acculturation determines the success or failure of the second language acquisition (Schumann,1978: 28). From1980s, the Chinese academia began to observe the cultural factors in foreign language teaching. The research between language and culture has come into being in our country. Zhao Xianzhou proposes the concept of acculturation in his book; Xu Guozhang discusses the vocabulary in cultural meaning on English teaching; Chen Guanglei makes a definition of acculturation. The acculturation is that the teacher teaches the structure and rules of language to students. Meanwhile, students can know and acquire the cultural meaning and convention that have to obey of the language. Furthermore, students can obtain the ability to transfer the learning into communication and inter-personal ability and take part in the language activities in some extent

(Chen,1992:20). These papers make investigations on the acculturation in foreign language teaching from the theory to practice. At the same time, the contents concern all kinds of cultural fields, which reflects people’s awakening consciousness on the relationship between language and culture. The thesis consists of introduction, main part and conclusion. The main part mainly talks about the aims, principles necessity of acculturation in foreign language teaching. Conclusion is the results of the study.

1. The Aims of Acculturation in Foreign Language Teaching

With the introduction of linguistic ability, communicative competence and cross-cultural communicative competence, foreign language teaching scholars focus on the cultural factors. Training the cross-cultural communicative competence becomes the goal of acculturation in foreign language teaching. Students need to possess the communicative competence and the cross-cultural communicative competence. The cross-cultural communicative competence consists four parts that are the grammatical ability, the sociolinguistic ability, the discourse ability and the strategic ability (Canale& Swain,1980: 36).This chapter will talk about these parts in detail.

1. 1. The Grammatical Ability and The Discourse Ability

The grammatical ability is that students can grasp the language and use it fluently, which includes the vocabulary, the word-formation, the sentence-formation, the pronunciation and the spelling. Students can understand and express the meaning accurately. There is a fact that the extent of grammatical ability affected by many kinds of culture is not obvious than any other elements (Zhao,2011:42).

The discourse ability is that the students could organize the meaning and construct many kinds of genres, coherent oral and written discourses. It reflects the thinking modes and relative values of a certain cultural group. For example, the English discourse is the linear type. The Chinese discourse is the strew type. Linear type is that there is a topic sentence in the head paragraph and talk about the themes from the classification according to the line that the author has planned. The strew type is implicit, euphemistic, indirect and devious. There are close connections between these features and structure of our Chinese thoughts (Kaplan,1966:16). Students generally read the English book and understand it with a Chinese thinking that will affect their learning. Hence, teachers should recognize this tendency and correctly guild students to use linear type thoughts. And students can get over the interference of traditional thinking.

1.2 The Sociolinguistic Ability and The Strategic Ability

The sociolinguistic ability is that the students can use and understand the language that applied to different kinds of situations and environments. Obtaining the ability means that students acquire a kind of cultural competence. Teachers must guide the students’ cultural awareness and ability in class. Because the cultural mistakes are more serious than the grammar errors in communication.

The strategic ability is that the students can use all kinds of communication strategies to face and handle the communication hardships and questions Different from other abilities, the strategic ability is good for our students to make cross-cultural communications. There is a close relationship between culture and students that helps students to communicate and understand each other. Hence, teachers are responsible to help students obtain the strategic ability and communication strategies to deal with various situations.

2. The Principles of Acculturation in Foreign Language Teaching

There is a colorful content in the culture. For the foreign language teaching, the culture consists about the history, geography, customs, lifestyle, literature, arts, behavior and the value of the foreign countries. With the research in the cultural difference, the culture continues changing with the ages. As an English teacher, there are some aspects for the students to pay more attention to them, which are vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, expression and so on.

2.1 The Cultural Meaning in Vocabulary

The vocabulary is the base of the language. There are denotative and connotative meaning of the vocabulary. It is rare for the vocabulary to have the same denotative and connotative meaning in different language. Firstly, some words have the same denotative meaning but have connotative meaning in Chinese. Such as pine, the denotative meaning is a kind of tree, it confers the people who is persistence and lofty; Tiger, the denotative meaning is an animal, it also means intrepidity and bravery.

Secondly, some words have the same connotative meaning but have different denotative meaning. Such as red, it is related the revolution, advancement and marriage in China for the bride and bridegroom wear red clothes in wedding. However, in western country, red has the negative meaning--danger and angry, which might be related to the blood. Many American dislike the red color because it’s disgusting (Wang, 2007: 90). Thirdly, some words have the same connotation but have opposite denotation. Such as dog, it is means loyalty. We prize someone as a lucky dog that can be used to bitter someone. The difficulty is that students should remember the spelling and meanings and grasp the intensive meaning. Hence, teachers should teach the denotative meaning and the relative background of the words and compare the culture between West and China that students can make objective judgment on the words.

2.2 The Difference in Expression

The standard value system is the core of cultural awareness which will affect people’s thinking and intercourse rule (Wu,1995: 35). The natural condition and cultures affect thoughts, intercourse characters, convention and expressions. Firstly, the appellation system is different. The Cournand add job and kinship relationship are used frequently in China, such as Wang Shufu or Li Ayi (Wang,2007: 90). In the West, Dr, Prof and Captain are not to express the appellation but represent job, position and kinship relationship. Secondly, the greeting is unlike. Chinese often ask if they have lunch or not when they meet. In the West, they always say how do you do. Thirdly, the replying gratitude is distinct. Chinese are modest. After receiving appreciations, they reply them modestly and say no. While the west always accepts it frankly. Hence, teachers need to talk them with culture and convention. For it’s hard for students to grasp the essence of them accurately.

2.3 The Taboos and Custom

The taboo is a sensitive task in the cross-cultural communication. The taboo is various in the same nation because of the region and ages. And the difference is huge. The linguistic taboo is an important part of social taboos. There are various religions and believes in the West. Religious belief is a significant area in taboos. God’s name is the biggest taboo in the eye of Christians. Anytime they don’t say it even to abuse it. In fact, some religious words are only used in the serious circumstances. They don’t use for Christ’s sake but use for goodness sake or for crying sake (Wang,2007: 90). The discriminatory language is used frequently in linguistic taboo. The West discriminate against the colored in the past. The position of the black and other minority nationality have improved. Some discriminatory words are gradually become the new taboos. The West don’t call them nigger or niggruh but blacks or colored people. Avoiding a taboo is the premise of cross-cultural communication that teacher should pay more attention on it.

2.4 The uses of Euphemism

Euphemism is used to express an offensive person on or suggest something unpleasant (Webster’s Online Dictionary). Some euphemisms are used to amuse, while others use inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes to downplay. Euphemisms may be used to refer to taboo topic that are disability and sex in a polite way, or to mask profanity ( Etymonline.com, 2014). The toilet, the west try to use other words to replace it, such as bathroom, lavatory or W.C. The more euphemistic the words are, the deeper cultural meaning will be. It’s hard for students to understand. Hence, the teacher might help students to analyze them words in detail.

3. The Necessity of Acculturation in Foreign Language Teaching

Language and culture are intricately intertwined. Anytime you learn a language, you will learn the culture of the speakers and that language (Brown, 1994: 25). With the development of cross-cultural communication, the pure language teaching is unpopular today. Remembering words and using grammar aren’t needed but grasping the cultural background. Hence, it is necessary for students to grasp the acculturation in foreign language learning. The chapter will talk about the importance in students and teachers.

3.1 The Importance of Acculturation in Students

The purpose of acculturation is to nourish and enhance students’ intercultural communication competence and adaptive ability. Firstly, it can arise students’ interest and initiative in English and the teaching process will be more colorful. For example, integrating the color and animal in class is good for students to understand the text easily and intense their impression (Bi, 2018: 262). Secondly, it can improve students’ communicative competence, such as train their sensitivity on the difference between Chinese and Western culture, improve their sociolinguistic ability and communicative competence and avoid the mistake of Chinglish in the communication. Thirdly, it can improve students’ self-development, such as enlarge their horizon, thought, inner quality and self-cultivation. For example, fostering students’ independent consciousness is helpful to nourish their courage and improve their independent consciousness in daily lives and learning.

3.2 The Importance of Acculturation in Teachers

The connection between language and culture is the extent to which students will be affected by the process of acculturation, which will vary with the context and goals of learning. In many second language learning contexts such as ESL and USA, students face with the full-blown realities of adapting to life in a foreign country (Brown, 1994: 25). Students should remember and use the grammar and vocabulary, but also know and grasp the cultural background and knowledge. Knowing the cultural background and knowledge and improving the students’ cultural level, which is a huge demand for teachers. Here are some suggestions to the teachers: (1) Help students to be aware of acculturation ant its stages. (2) Stress the importance of the second language as a powerful tool for adjustment in the new culture. (3) Be especially sensitive to any students who appear to be depressed and do what you can to assist them (Brown, 1994:26).

Conclusion

From this paper, it’s a reality that the acculturation is a necessity in the foreign language teaching. It is not only good for students and teachers, but also it can nourish the all-round development talents for our country. The aim of foreign language teaching is to improve learners’ intercultural communication competence and adaptive ability. The acculturation is so popular in education that can develop students’ grammatical ability, sociolinguistic competence and strategic ability. In addition, there are some principles that teacher has to concern in foreign language teaching, such as the cultural meaning in vocabulary, the difference in expression, the taboos, custom and euphemism. However, what the limitations are that the paper only analyzes the benefits of acculturation and the principles that teacher has to concern in foreign language teaching. In fact, there are a lot of principles and methods in the foreign language teaching. The writer only illustrates a little part of the foreign language teaching.

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