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【Abstract】It is argued in this paper that it is difficult for a learner to have a good command of English in the context in China where learners are not immersed in the English language because of cultural differences which are explored under four categories. The four issues of cultural differences in language learning discussed are essential in the formation of schemata which are very important in communication and language learning.
【Key words】culture difference schema communication
【中图分类号】G424.1【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】1009-9646(2008)10(a)-0066-02
I met quite a few Chinese Ph. D. students studying at University of Minnesota who complained about the English teaching back in China, citing particularly the grammar exercises and the test-oriented way of teaching. In their opinion, the English they learned back in China is useless. However, their complaints only reflect part of the story. Without the English language training they received back in China, how could they have got to the United States at all? But the point is that although a lot of time and human resources were spent in helping them attain a good command of English, they themselves feel the effort was a waste of time when they got to the United States. The paper will explore the problems resulting from differences in cultures, which may serve as the possible reasons why the students mentioned complain about the English teaching back in China.
The Chinese and English languages are the products of quite different cultures. Native speakers of Chinese think differently from native speakers of English. Language reflects a way of living, customs and culture. Nobody can claim to have a good command of a language without having a deep understanding of its customs and culture. In discussing learners’ needs and wants. In terms of intercultural understanding, Arnde Witte and In the specific language environment in China where few native speakers are involved in the exchange of information, it is natural for students to find it difficult to follow conversations in a native speakers’ environment. What a person brought up in a Chinese culture experiences conditions him to have quite different schemata in many respects from those brought up in America. To illustrate the point, we’ll analyze some of the situations in which difficulties and misunderstandings may arise because of different cultural schemata under four categories.
1 Different ways of doing the same thing
A typical example of differences between English and Chinese cultures is the way one addresses someone in person. First of all, Chinese surnames seem to be more important than first names when addressing someone face to face, while in the United States, English first names seem to be used more in oral interaction than in China. In analyzing the difference between American and Chinese culture, Richard Gunde used a humorous analogy which goes, “American Children once fancied that if one digs straight down and keeps on digging, eventually one would emerge on the opposite side of the earth -- in China. However geographically inaccurate this may be, it neatly epitomized an unshakable belief that China is not merely different from the United States, or more generally from the Western world, but so completely different that it is in all respects the polar opposite.
heEnglish teaching in China. Secondly, Chinese surnames are mainly made up of one character with a few exceptions that consist of two characters. Thirdly, female native speakers of English change their surnames when they get married while there is no such a thing in Chinese in modern society. Finally come the different forms of address. On the whole, forms of address in English are much simpler than those in Chinese. It is natural for students who have been brought up in the Chinese culture to find it difficult to get used to forms of address used by Americans. Although they have been taught about the English usage of forms of address in China, the actual use of forms of address is by far informal and casual in America. In daily life in America, on the few occasions when “Mr.”, “Mrs.”, or “Miss” and professional titles are used, the feeling of surprise of Chinese students is by no means weak. Adaptation and getting accustomed to the use of American forms of address would certainly not be easy. Ojeda recollected in her account of the encounter she once experienced,“American children, I observe, are allowed to call older people by their first names. I recall two interesting incidents, amusing now but definitely bothersome then. The first incident took place in the university cafeteria. To foster collegiality among the faculty and graduate students, professors and students usually ate lunch together. During one of these occasions, I heard a student greet a teacher, “Hey Bob! That was a tough exam! You really gave us a hard time, buddy!” I was stunned. I couldn’t believe what I heard. All I could say to myself was, “My God! How bold and disrespectful!”” (Ojeda, 1993; p. 56). Americans may view such forms of address as cultivating equality, simplicity and efficiency, while the forms of address in Chinese emphasize deference and consideration of achievements.
2 The same means of getting different things done
Another major difference in value system is the use of the Internet. Although the Internet is becoming more and more important in China, its main use is limited to a few groups of people. The first major group consists of scientists, researchers, professors and other professionals and students with higher degrees who make use of it to extract and exchange information, including sending and receiving emails. The second major group of people is management personnel who take advantage of it in providing banking services, airline and railway information. The last group is chiefly made up of those who chat online and play games, something which has been considered to have caused negative side-effects. Compared with the use of the Internet in America, China has a long way to go to take full advantage of it. In America, you can almost get anything done online if you wish and sometimes it is a preference and a necessity.
3 Different cultural backgrounds
Five years ago, an American who was teaching English and at the same time learning Chinese in Shanghai overheard a taxi-driver commenting,“Meiguoren bujiangmianzi”, which we suppose might mean,“Americans are frank or unpretentious.”However, she understood it as,“Americans don’t have face.” This kind of misunderstanding might cause serious consequences. The American might have thought the Chinese taxi-driver was hostile to Americans while the latter meant something good in his schema.If we explore the meaning of the taxi-driver’s utterance, we would find that his concept resulted from a misunderstanding of American culture. He thought Americans are always frank, but this is not the case. They truly are unpretentious in cases where Chinese would be pretentious.
4 Different associations of the same word
Many words, especially those small and frequently used ones, have dozens of dictionary meanings and in actual use have many more different associations, particularly in spoken English. Generally speaking, in the Chinese milieu, learners of English and even teachers of English encounter them at the early stage of their English learning and never trouble to look them up in the dictionary. They are more familiar with the meanings of formal usages and less familiar with the meanings of informal usages. As a result, they only know some or a few of the meanings of those multiple-meaning words. When they are immersed in a natural English-speaking environment, difficulties and misunderstandings are bound to arise.
Here is an episode that should be avoided in communication. A female Chinese, whose English is good, worked as a receptionist in a company in America and was on good terms with the native people working in the same office. One day the company got a new coffee machine and she went to fetch coffee from it and finished trying the coffee. One of the staff working in the same office asked her,“What do you think of it?”She replied without hesitation,“It’s good except I’m feeling a bit hot.” All of a sudden, all the people in the office burst into laughter. She was at a loss and totally confused, not knowing what was wrong with her reply. Sometime later, she asked one of the staff present about what went wrong with her words. The latter explained that the word ‘hot’ has the association of sexual impulse or excitement and they knew she didn’t mean it and wouldn’t have said it if she had known it. In fact, the definition mentioned above is mentioned in almost every big English dictionary. But as luck would have it, she had learned her English back in China and had never come across such a meaning of the word ‘hot’.
What we have discussed above are just a few examples of numerous cases in which different ways of life, different cultures and customs condition to form different schemata in language communication. However, in synthesizing the essence of a culture, we need to discard the one-sided views or regional phenomenon as something true of an entire culture. The kind of information provided by Ramos in discussing cultural differences should be taken as questionable, which goes, “Whereas some differences amaze and delight us, others are true shocks. One difference is the idea of one’s sharing a bedroom with an American woman, without being involved in sex. Indeed, it is normal and current among university students, participants at conferences, and friends to share a bedroom and a bed only for practical reasons. We can imagine how a Portuguese (or a Spaniard or an Italian) would conceive of such partition without generating conflict with his engraved honor as a Latin macho. Something that an American woman does, with the greatest naturalness, will be more than reason for a Latin man not to sleep a wink all night, if it should happen that he shares the same room only with the intent of having a good sleep and reducing expenses. The Latin caught in this trap will necessarily have his night replete with dreams, his imagination well fed, and a prolonged insomnia …” (Ramos, 1993; p. 6). His account of observation of different sexes sharing a bedroom in America without being involved in sex is at least certainly not true in many parts of America, let alone it is normal and current among many people. It is misleading and leaves a false impression of American society on non-native speakers of English.
All these examples converge at the point that different languages reflect different cultures and customs. To have a good grasp of a foreign language and understand the language being learnt, you must understand and know its culture and customs.
REFERECES
[1] Gunde, Richard. 2002: Culture and Customs of China. Greenwood Press.
[2] Ojeda, Amparo B. “Growing Up American: Doing the Right Thing.” In Philip R. Devita & James D. Armstrong (eds.) Distant Mirrors: America as a Foreign Culture. WadsworthPublishing Company, 1993, pp. 54—59.
[3] Ramos, Francisco Martins. “My American Glasses.” In Philip R. Devita & James D. Armstrong (eds.) Distant Mirrors: America as a Foreign Culture. WadsworthPublishing Company, 1993, pp. 1—10.
[4] Rivers, Wilga M & Melvin, Bernice J. “Language Learners as Individuals: Discovering Their Needs, Wants, and Learning Styles.” In James E. Alatis, Howard B. Altman & Penelope M. Alatis (eds.) The Second Language Classroom: Directions for the 1980’s. New YorkOxfordOxford University Press, 1981, pp. 79-93.
[5] Witte, Arnde & Harden, Theo. “Introduction.” In Harden, Theo & Witte, Arnde(eds.) The Notions ofIntercultural Understanding in the Context of German as a Foreign Language. Peter Lang AG, European Academic Publishers, Bern 2000, pp 7-22.
[6] Yule, George (1998 fourth impression): Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.
【Key words】culture difference schema communication
【中图分类号】G424.1【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】1009-9646(2008)10(a)-0066-02
I met quite a few Chinese Ph. D. students studying at University of Minnesota who complained about the English teaching back in China, citing particularly the grammar exercises and the test-oriented way of teaching. In their opinion, the English they learned back in China is useless. However, their complaints only reflect part of the story. Without the English language training they received back in China, how could they have got to the United States at all? But the point is that although a lot of time and human resources were spent in helping them attain a good command of English, they themselves feel the effort was a waste of time when they got to the United States. The paper will explore the problems resulting from differences in cultures, which may serve as the possible reasons why the students mentioned complain about the English teaching back in China.
The Chinese and English languages are the products of quite different cultures. Native speakers of Chinese think differently from native speakers of English. Language reflects a way of living, customs and culture. Nobody can claim to have a good command of a language without having a deep understanding of its customs and culture. In discussing learners’ needs and wants. In terms of intercultural understanding, Arnde Witte and In the specific language environment in China where few native speakers are involved in the exchange of information, it is natural for students to find it difficult to follow conversations in a native speakers’ environment. What a person brought up in a Chinese culture experiences conditions him to have quite different schemata in many respects from those brought up in America. To illustrate the point, we’ll analyze some of the situations in which difficulties and misunderstandings may arise because of different cultural schemata under four categories.
1 Different ways of doing the same thing
A typical example of differences between English and Chinese cultures is the way one addresses someone in person. First of all, Chinese surnames seem to be more important than first names when addressing someone face to face, while in the United States, English first names seem to be used more in oral interaction than in China. In analyzing the difference between American and Chinese culture, Richard Gunde used a humorous analogy which goes, “American Children once fancied that if one digs straight down and keeps on digging, eventually one would emerge on the opposite side of the earth -- in China. However geographically inaccurate this may be, it neatly epitomized an unshakable belief that China is not merely different from the United States, or more generally from the Western world, but so completely different that it is in all respects the polar opposite.
heEnglish teaching in China. Secondly, Chinese surnames are mainly made up of one character with a few exceptions that consist of two characters. Thirdly, female native speakers of English change their surnames when they get married while there is no such a thing in Chinese in modern society. Finally come the different forms of address. On the whole, forms of address in English are much simpler than those in Chinese. It is natural for students who have been brought up in the Chinese culture to find it difficult to get used to forms of address used by Americans. Although they have been taught about the English usage of forms of address in China, the actual use of forms of address is by far informal and casual in America. In daily life in America, on the few occasions when “Mr.”, “Mrs.”, or “Miss” and professional titles are used, the feeling of surprise of Chinese students is by no means weak. Adaptation and getting accustomed to the use of American forms of address would certainly not be easy. Ojeda recollected in her account of the encounter she once experienced,“American children, I observe, are allowed to call older people by their first names. I recall two interesting incidents, amusing now but definitely bothersome then. The first incident took place in the university cafeteria. To foster collegiality among the faculty and graduate students, professors and students usually ate lunch together. During one of these occasions, I heard a student greet a teacher, “Hey Bob! That was a tough exam! You really gave us a hard time, buddy!” I was stunned. I couldn’t believe what I heard. All I could say to myself was, “My God! How bold and disrespectful!”” (Ojeda, 1993; p. 56). Americans may view such forms of address as cultivating equality, simplicity and efficiency, while the forms of address in Chinese emphasize deference and consideration of achievements.
2 The same means of getting different things done
Another major difference in value system is the use of the Internet. Although the Internet is becoming more and more important in China, its main use is limited to a few groups of people. The first major group consists of scientists, researchers, professors and other professionals and students with higher degrees who make use of it to extract and exchange information, including sending and receiving emails. The second major group of people is management personnel who take advantage of it in providing banking services, airline and railway information. The last group is chiefly made up of those who chat online and play games, something which has been considered to have caused negative side-effects. Compared with the use of the Internet in America, China has a long way to go to take full advantage of it. In America, you can almost get anything done online if you wish and sometimes it is a preference and a necessity.
3 Different cultural backgrounds
Five years ago, an American who was teaching English and at the same time learning Chinese in Shanghai overheard a taxi-driver commenting,“Meiguoren bujiangmianzi”, which we suppose might mean,“Americans are frank or unpretentious.”However, she understood it as,“Americans don’t have face.” This kind of misunderstanding might cause serious consequences. The American might have thought the Chinese taxi-driver was hostile to Americans while the latter meant something good in his schema.If we explore the meaning of the taxi-driver’s utterance, we would find that his concept resulted from a misunderstanding of American culture. He thought Americans are always frank, but this is not the case. They truly are unpretentious in cases where Chinese would be pretentious.
4 Different associations of the same word
Many words, especially those small and frequently used ones, have dozens of dictionary meanings and in actual use have many more different associations, particularly in spoken English. Generally speaking, in the Chinese milieu, learners of English and even teachers of English encounter them at the early stage of their English learning and never trouble to look them up in the dictionary. They are more familiar with the meanings of formal usages and less familiar with the meanings of informal usages. As a result, they only know some or a few of the meanings of those multiple-meaning words. When they are immersed in a natural English-speaking environment, difficulties and misunderstandings are bound to arise.
Here is an episode that should be avoided in communication. A female Chinese, whose English is good, worked as a receptionist in a company in America and was on good terms with the native people working in the same office. One day the company got a new coffee machine and she went to fetch coffee from it and finished trying the coffee. One of the staff working in the same office asked her,“What do you think of it?”She replied without hesitation,“It’s good except I’m feeling a bit hot.” All of a sudden, all the people in the office burst into laughter. She was at a loss and totally confused, not knowing what was wrong with her reply. Sometime later, she asked one of the staff present about what went wrong with her words. The latter explained that the word ‘hot’ has the association of sexual impulse or excitement and they knew she didn’t mean it and wouldn’t have said it if she had known it. In fact, the definition mentioned above is mentioned in almost every big English dictionary. But as luck would have it, she had learned her English back in China and had never come across such a meaning of the word ‘hot’.
What we have discussed above are just a few examples of numerous cases in which different ways of life, different cultures and customs condition to form different schemata in language communication. However, in synthesizing the essence of a culture, we need to discard the one-sided views or regional phenomenon as something true of an entire culture. The kind of information provided by Ramos in discussing cultural differences should be taken as questionable, which goes, “Whereas some differences amaze and delight us, others are true shocks. One difference is the idea of one’s sharing a bedroom with an American woman, without being involved in sex. Indeed, it is normal and current among university students, participants at conferences, and friends to share a bedroom and a bed only for practical reasons. We can imagine how a Portuguese (or a Spaniard or an Italian) would conceive of such partition without generating conflict with his engraved honor as a Latin macho. Something that an American woman does, with the greatest naturalness, will be more than reason for a Latin man not to sleep a wink all night, if it should happen that he shares the same room only with the intent of having a good sleep and reducing expenses. The Latin caught in this trap will necessarily have his night replete with dreams, his imagination well fed, and a prolonged insomnia …” (Ramos, 1993; p. 6). His account of observation of different sexes sharing a bedroom in America without being involved in sex is at least certainly not true in many parts of America, let alone it is normal and current among many people. It is misleading and leaves a false impression of American society on non-native speakers of English.
All these examples converge at the point that different languages reflect different cultures and customs. To have a good grasp of a foreign language and understand the language being learnt, you must understand and know its culture and customs.
REFERECES
[1] Gunde, Richard. 2002: Culture and Customs of China. Greenwood Press.
[2] Ojeda, Amparo B. “Growing Up American: Doing the Right Thing.” In Philip R. Devita & James D. Armstrong (eds.) Distant Mirrors: America as a Foreign Culture. WadsworthPublishing Company, 1993, pp. 54—59.
[3] Ramos, Francisco Martins. “My American Glasses.” In Philip R. Devita & James D. Armstrong (eds.) Distant Mirrors: America as a Foreign Culture. WadsworthPublishing Company, 1993, pp. 1—10.
[4] Rivers, Wilga M & Melvin, Bernice J. “Language Learners as Individuals: Discovering Their Needs, Wants, and Learning Styles.” In James E. Alatis, Howard B. Altman & Penelope M. Alatis (eds.) The Second Language Classroom: Directions for the 1980’s. New YorkOxfordOxford University Press, 1981, pp. 79-93.
[5] Witte, Arnde & Harden, Theo. “Introduction.” In Harden, Theo & Witte, Arnde(eds.) The Notions ofIntercultural Understanding in the Context of German as a Foreign Language. Peter Lang AG, European Academic Publishers, Bern 2000, pp 7-22.
[6] Yule, George (1998 fourth impression): Pragmatics. Oxford University Press.