AnalysisofheCuluralConeninheReadingPassagesofHighSchoolEnglishTexbooks_开题报告

Owing to the close relation between language and culture, culture should never be neglected in language teaching. So many experts have realized this that cultural awareness was added to the “New English Curriculum Standard” (the Curriculum). In order to achieve the goals set up by the Curriculum, language learners should get enough cultural input. For English teaching in senior high school, textbooks are the most significant channel of language and culture input. So our attention is focused on senior English textbooks. 

Among all the textbooks, the set of textbooks "New Senior English for China (NSEC)", published by People's Education Press is the latest and most popular one, among which the first five book are compulsory and used by almost all the students. Thus we choose them as our study object. As reading passages are more suitable for culture input and easy to embody cultural content, we will focus on the reading passages of the books. Do the books contain target culture and native culture? How much cultural content is involved? Does the volume of the passages about these two kinds of culture reasonable? What should the teachers pay more attention to while using the reading passages? With these questions in mind, we would carry on with our research.

2. Literature review

2.1 Research status

In the domestic literature we have collected, most of the scholars have expressed their view on integrating culture teaching into reading. Duanmu Yiwang publishes the article of “Teaching Culture in the Course of Selected Readings from Foreign News Publications”, and states that you must understand the culture that it contains if you want to learn a foreign language well. In the paper of “Culture Introduction in Teaching of English Reading in High School under New Curriculum”, Zhao Zhibin says the importance of reading ability training. He is believed that culture teaching in language teaching conforms to the requirements of the internal relations between language and culture, also meets the requirements of the new curriculum standards as well as the college entrance examination for the actual reading. What’s more, in Wang Doue’s essay of “The Content and Principles of Cultural Teaching in Middle School under the New Curriculum Standards”, the importance of cross-cultural communication and cross-cultural understanding is expounded. She believes that cross-cultural awareness involves all levels language is important and cultural systems and values are equally important. According to the “Analysis of Culture in Teaching of English Reading through Intercultural Communication”, she points out cultural awareness should be fostered in the teaching of English reading and the cultural infiltration inside and outside the classroom should be strengthened. In the meanwhile, she considers that differences in values and worldview that influence cultural differences, it also have a substantial impact on reading which can lead to disorders both in higher levels of reading and communication.

Culture is so important for language that we can not leave it out when teaching language. Chomsky said that through teaching language we taught culture as well. Winston Brembeck, an expert of foreign language teaching in America, said that to know another’s language and not his culture is a good way to make a fluent fool of oneself (qtd. in Liu Danfeng 199). Owing to the relationships between language and culture and between language competence and culture competence, we can get to the point that cultural content is of great importance in learning and teaching English.

2.2 Importance of cultural content 

The importance of cultural content in teaching is self-evident. For one thing, the relationship between language and culture entitles that cultural content should never been left out in English teaching. Only with enough cultural knowledge could language learners get a good acquisition of the language. For another, it is the requirement written clearly in the Curriculum.

In order to make English teaching more effective, Ministry of National Education issued the Curriculum. Due to a deeper understanding of the importance of cultural competence by the experts, scholars, especially by the education departments, the newly edited Curriculum says that the basic aim of English teaching is to let learners get the linguistic application ability, which could be further divided into five subsystems: linguistic skills, linguistic knowledge, emotion and attitude, learning strategies and cultural awareness. Among these five subsystems, two of them, emotion and attitude and cultural awareness, require cultural content in English teaching. Language learners need the cultural content to shape their values, to get a deeper understanding about the English speaking countries as well as our own nation and to use the language better.

2.3 Cultural content required in English teaching

To get cultural awareness, language learners should be exposed to both the culture belongs to English speaking countries and our own culture. The Curriculum says that cultural content should contain almost all aspects: history, geography, local customs and practices, traditional customs, literature and art, behavior norms and values. In order to meet the needs, many further studies have been done by scholars in the view of knowing what specific cultural details should to be paid more attention to in English teaching. Duanmu Yiwan, a famous scholar, classified the cultural content into following categories: background information about different fields, related concepts and beliefs and cultural connotation about words (Duanmu Yiwan 29-30).

Despite the content listed, the Curriculum also set specific grades for learner to fit into and for teachers to consult while learning and teaching English, from which we can learn that the current cultural instruction in our country has two basic goals. One is getting a better understanding about both the culture at home and abroad, especially that of English speaking country. The other is enabling the learners to express these two kinds of culture in English (Wang Lingjuan 10). The cultural content, therefore, could be roughly divided into native culture and target culture. Western culture, especially the culture of English speaking country is the target culture, while Chinese culture becomes the native culture for Chinese English learners.

3. Outline

1. Introduction

2. Literature review

2.1 Research status

2.2 Importance of cultural content

2.3 Cultural content required in English teaching

3. Content analysis of cultures in NSEC(Module 1-5)

3.1 Categories of cultural content

3.1.1 Target culture and native culture

3.1.2 Mixed culture

3.2 Merits and demerits

4. Conclusion

Works Cited

[1] Byram Katra ＆Cliaire Kramsch. “Why Is It So Difficult to Teach Language as

Culture?” The German Quarterly 81.1(2008):20-34.

[2] Johann Le Roux. “Effective Educators are Culturally Competent Communicators.” 

Intercultural Education 13.1(2002):37-48.

[3] Chen Zhengxia. “The Evaluation to PEP New English Teaching Material in Senior 

Middle School.” MA thesis. Central China Normal University, 2006.

[4] Wang Lingjuan. “An Analysis of Cultural Orientation in Senior English for 

China.” MA thesis. Central China Normal University, 2008.

[5] 陈景燕，杨捷，“现行高中英语教材中的文化内容初探”，《昆明学院学报》

2010年第2期，第118-121页。

[Chen Jingyan＆Yang Jie. “A Research on the Cultural Contents in Current Senior 

English Textbooks.” Journal of Kunming University 2(2010):118-121.]

[6] 戴炜栋，何兆熊 主编，《新编简明英语语言学教程》，上海：上海外语教育

出版社，2002年。

[Dai Weidong＆He Zhaoxiong, ed. A New Concise Course on Linguistic for Students 

of English. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Education Press, 2001.]

[7] 端木义万，“谈谈外刊教学中的文化导入”，《外语与外语教学》2002年第6

期，第28-31页。

[Duanmu Yiwang. “Teaching Culture in the Course of Selected Readings from 

Foreign News Publications.” Foreign Languages and Their Teaching 6(2002):28-31.]

[8] 刘丹凤，“试论跨文化交际视角下英语阅读教学的文化指向”，《学理论》2009

年第9期，第199-200页。

[Liu Danfeng. “Analysis of Culture in Teaching of English Reading through 

Intercultural Communication.” Theory Research 9(2009):199-100.]

[9] 李彦，“有节奏地对比文化导入在第二语言/外语课堂中解决语言僵化现象价

值”，《中国英语教学》2004年第2期，第88-92页。

[Li Yan. “Significance of Phythmic Culture Input in Dealing with Fossilization in 

L2/FL Teaching.” Teaching English in China 2(2004):88-92.]

[10] 王豆娥，“论新课标下的中学英语文化教学的内容和原则”，《宿州教育学院

学报》2009年第4期，第100-101页。

[Wang Doue. “The Content and Principles of Cultural Teaching in Middle School 

Under the New Curriculum Standards.” Journal of Suzhou Education Institute 

4(2009):100-101.]

[11] 赵雪丽，“语言教学中的文化与语言”，《山西高等学校社会科学学报》2005

年第5期，第89-90页。

[Zhao Xueli. “Language and Culture in Language Teaching.” Social Sciences Journal 

of College of Shanxi 5(2005):89-90.]

[12 ] 赵志彬，“新课标下高中英语阅读教学的文化导入”，《教学与管理》2006

年第31期，第50-51页。

[Zhao Zhibin. “Culture Introduction in Teaching of English Reading in High School 

under New Curriculum.” Journal of Teaching and Management 31(2006”):50-51.]