Exploring English Language Teaching and Learning through Investigating the Interactive Relationships between Language and Culture

從語言與文化的互動關係談英語教學

陳建平

《復興崗學報》 57期 (1996/06) Pp. 1-15

並列摘要

This paper intends to stress the concept that there is an intimate relationship between language and culture, and that the linkage between the two in the process of knowledge acquisition, as well as in the context of the. whole development of English language teaching. and learning, cannot be overemphasized.
While there is no contention about this linkage, its nature, importance, and effectivenesses related to teaching and learning the English language still need to be further re-addressed. Exploring English language teaching and learning through investigating the interactive relationships between language and culture, this writer emphasizes that language is the primary instrument with which people express, socialize, transmit culture, maintain it, teach it, and learn it.
Communication is the common recognition of human beings. However, man's language is determined by culture, which conversely reflects and determines the language in a given culture. Thus, teaching and learning the English language should not be isolated, from its cultural references. Accordingly, English language teaching and learning must be perceived from this viewpoint to develop not just the student's linguistic, competence but their communicative competence. English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers should provide their students with a better learning environment in which the students can observe and comprehend cultural backgrounds of how English native speakers act and talk. It is the best way to get to the very heart of the English language and to get into the real comprehension of EFL learners.
With the growing emphasis on teaching and learning the cultural and social associations in today's curriculum, both EFL teachers and students need to know the meanings and connotations of a wide range of English words and phrases within the social, cultural, and linguistic contexts of the words and expressions. The major purpose of this sociolinguistic perspective of English language teaching and learning means that both non-native English teachers and students will never again be confused by many cultural references that native English speakers take for granted. This is, in fact, the most important goal and direction to which today we should pay great attention in the field of teaching and learning English as a foreign language.

並列關鍵字

Sociolinguistic Perspectives ； Cultural Inferences ； Linguistic Competence ； Communicative Competence ； English Language Teaching and Learning