中英文化对比及在文化教学中的应用

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中英文化对比及在文化教学中的应用

作者：张晓

来源：《校园英语·中旬》2014年第08期

【摘要】在外语教育中，对外国文化的重视是人们的共识。怎样教授文化是全世界的语言教育家所面临的问题。由于人们对国内外文化以及语言和文化的关系的理解不同，因此这个问题相当复杂。本文从多方面对中英文化进行了对比，并提出了一些教授文化的方法，指出国内的英语教师应该着眼于培养学生的文化创新。

【关键词】语言文化中英文化对比文化教学

【Abstract】In foreign language education， the importance foreign culture teaching has been widely recognized. How to teach foreign culture is faced by language educators all over the world. The question is not so easy since the answer relies on our understanding of the relation between the home culture and foreign culture， the relation between language and culture. This article sets forth the differences between Chinese and English culture in several aspects.

【Key Words】 Language Culture， English-Chinese comparison， Culture teaching

According to Sapir （1921），“language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas，emotions and desire by moans of voluntarily produced symbols.” The hypothesis of linguistic determinism was even put forward， which means that the way your language is organized will determine how you perceive the world being organized. Language and culture are so closely related that the correct understanding of their relationship is of great importance in cross-cultural communication.

Language attaches particular words and phrases to the most frequent and most important cultural meanings. Each culture attaches a great variety of associations to its lexical items， the meanings of which are beyond superficial conceptual meanings. Comparing the different associative meanings on the same words in English and in Chinese while teaching vocabulary will help students better understand the words and texts.

Idioms are combinations of words，the meaning of which can’t be determi ned from the meanings of the parts. Idioms are culture-specific expressions； they contain profound cultural connotations. Because of their close identification with a particular culture， idioms usually carry more impact than non-idiomatic expressions. They depend very much on a specific social or ecological setting. So they are just like a mirror which can obviously reflect the characteristics of a culture. Comparing different cultures of English and Chinese through idioms in teaching may prove to be quite valuable in promoting learners’ cultural awareness of history， geography， convention and cognition. Teachers may compare some other similar idioms like the following：