大学本科英语专业综合英语教材中文化内容的分析——《新编英语教程》(1-4册)

大学本科英语专业综合英语教材中文化内容的分析——《新编英语教程》(1-4册) 华中科技大学 硕士学位论文 大学本科英语专业综合英语教材中文化内容的分析??《新编 英语教程》(1-4册) 姓名:汪杨擘 申请学位级别:硕士 专业:外国语言学及应用语言学 指导教师:樊葳葳 20090805 华中科技大学硕士学位论文 摘要 从上世纪八十年代以来,在中国的英语教育和教学领域,文化教学的问题引起 了很多的关注,并已经成为英语教育和教学的热点和目的之一。而英语教材作为英 语教育和教学中极为重要的一个组成部分,特别是英语课堂教学中的一个重要组成 部分,也受到了相当多的关注。因此,对于如何更好地将文化溶入英语课本编写这 个问题,有关学者和教育工作者们进行了一系列的研究工作,并且产生了许多有影 响力的研究成果。 本文选择了英语专业学生综合英语课堂上普遍使用的精读教材《新编英语教程》 (1-4 册),对书中所包含的文化内容进行了详细的分析,希望可以给使用这套教材 教师、学生以及相关的教材编写者一些参考。本文试图对《新编英语教程》(1-4 册)的对话、阅读部分所包含的文化内容进 行分析。本文采用了学者牛新生(2002)提出的文化五分法,在此基础上采用学者 刘雪(2006)的文化分类法对其进行了一点完善和修改,即文化分为物质文化、事 实文化、社会文化、行为文化和观念文化。本文首先将《新编英语教程》(1-4 册) 各册课本中课文所包含的文化内容进行识别和分类,得出各类文化内容分别在每册 课本中和全套书中的比例,并分析这五类文化内容所呈现的不同结果的不同含义。 然后,本文分析各类文化内容在整套书中所占比例和他们的所呈现出来的整体变化 趋势,并对这种变化趋势的含义作出解释。然后,本文应用 Cunningsworth 提出的 对该套书的课文里的文化内容进行评价。最后,本文对《新编英语教程》 (1-4 册)进行了整体的评价。研究结果明,各类文化内容在《新编英语教程》(1-4 册)中均有表现,但所 占分量在个册书中均不同,并且所包含的对文化教学和学习的意义有所不 同。总的 来说, 《新编英语教程》 (1-4册)文化内容和表现方式是值得肯定的。此 外,本文也 指出了它的不足之处,并提出了相应的改进建议和今后进一步研究的可能方 向。 关键词:《新编英语教程》文化内容评价 II华中科技大学硕士学位论文 Abstract Since1980s, the issue of culture teaching has been receiving much attention in the English language education area and English language teaching area and has become the hotspot in these areas. Course-books of English language have also been paid much attention to since they have long played a crucial role in English language education and teaching as well as in the classroom instruction. Efforts have been made by researchers in this field to better incorporate culture content into the design of course-books and their research work has produced many influential results This paper provides detailed analysis of the cultural content of a course-book series for the comprehensive English class --- A New English Course 1-4 now widely used by the English majors in China. It is hoped that the study will provide the teachers, students and researchers concerned with useful information about the course-book The purpose of the thesis is to report the situation of cultural content in A New English Course 1-4. Aiming at studying the input materials of the course-book, the study analyzed the texts in the Dialogue, Reading and Text sections. Based on the Niu’s 2002 theory, modified by the Liu’s theory, 2006 of culture classification, firstly all the targeted texts course-books are classified into five categories: the physical culture, the factual culture, the social culture, the behavioral culture and the conceptual culture. Then the collected data are summarized to find out the proportion of each culture category in each book as well as in the whole course-book. The trend of the variation of their proportions throughout the whole course-book is also presented. Finally, the topics, subject matters and the cultural values are examined thoroughly according to the Cunningsworth’s 1995 theories of evaluating the topic, subject matters and socio-cultural values in course-books The study shows that the different culture categories are presented differently in the course-book and they vary in each volume according to the different stages of learning. Its treatment of culture content is on the whole satisfying. The paper also discusses its weaknesses in the culture content and the treatment of culture contentKey words: A New English Course cultural content evaluation I 独创性 本人声明所呈交的学位论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得 的研 究成果。尽我所知,除文中已经标明引用的内容外,本论文不包含任何其他个人或 集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出贡献的个人和集体,均已在 文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到,本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名: 日期: 年月 日学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的,即:学校有权 保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版,允许论文被查阅和借阅。 本人授权华中科技大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检 索,可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密? ,在__ _年解密后适用本授权书。 本论文属于 不保密?。 (请在以上方框内打“?”) 学位论文作者签名: 指导教师签名: 日期: 年月日 日期: 年月 华中科技大学硕士学位论文 Introduction BackgroundImportance of culture teaching and learning Xiao Shuyun 2007 reports that since 1980s, works of inter-cultural communication, sociolinguistics, pragmatics and relevant disciplines were introduced into China. The foreign language education community came to realize the importance of incorporating cultural content into language teaching. The cultural teaching in China developed from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. One of the researching focuses of culture teaching at that time was on the course-books compiling, which resulting in a number of new English textbooks with rich cultural content aiming at improving the students intercultural communicative competence. From the late 1990s till nowadays, home culture received equal attention in the culture teaching practice. Meanwhile, researchers also stressed the importance of cultivating the students’ culture awareness which facilitate their culture understanding, because they came to realize that culture knowledge alone can not make successful communication Official requirements of culture learning for the English majorsApart from the reality mentioned above, the English major students are supposed to meet the requirements made by the national educational bodies so as to survive as qualified students firstAccording to the curriculum made by the Ministry of Education of China, the English majors are required to build a solid foundation of English language, equipped with broad cultural knowledge and use English expertly in translating, teaching, managing and researching. Besides the language learning, they are required to enlarge their culture knowledge, enhance their awareness of cultural awareness and improve their integrated communicative competence in English. According to the new 2000 Syllabus for English Majors in the Institutes of Higher Learning in China issued by the Ministry of Education, attention should be paid to the enhancement of English majors’ ability in their inter-cultural communication and emphasis should be put on the cultivation of their sensitivity, tolerability and flexibility when using the English language. In 2004, the Syllabus for 1华中科技大学硕士学位论文 TEM-8 was revised. The new syllabus is made to check the competence of listening, reading, writing and translating required in the curriculum and to check the of English majors students’ general knowledge of social and cultural knowledge, linguistics and literature in the English-speaking countries All these are strong evidences that further verify the importance of culture teaching. They also indicate that the relationship between language and the cultural message it carried has been recognized by the English education community in China Current situation of English majors on culture teaching and learning Despite the fact that English teaching for English majors, which used to base on the traditional segmentation of words, sentences and paragraphs, is moving to a stage of combing traditional approaches with cultural message Shi & Wang, 2001, problem of various kinds remain Proofs are found in considerable research papers in this area. Some articles stress the importance of culture teaching for English majors and some give concrete suggestions on addressing the issue. Just name a few of them: Surpassing and enhancing--- on cultivating the English majors’ IC Awareness Ding, 2007; A Survey Analysis of Friendship Concept of English major and non-English Major Postgraduates Zhong, 2003; Culture Awareness: ICC Competence of English Majors from Normal Colleges and Universities Shao, 2008. Some examine the relative problems through empirical or non-empirical studies. For examples, An Exploration into Basic English Teaching Ma, 2006; Some thoughts on the current situation and the future of English Major He, 2004; A Study on English Majors’ Ability of Expressing Chinese Culture in English Wang, 2007 Among them, the work of Xiao Shuyun 2005 is worthy of noticing. In her MA degree thesis, Xiao points out that in terms of culture learning English majors in local colleges suffer form the following problems: 1 unsystematic acquaintance with English culture with a Small c; 2 insufficient acquaintance with English culture with a Big C; 3 the lack of profound understanding of traditional Chinese culture; 4 the lack of right attitudes towards cultures and inadequate training of interaction between home culture and foreign culture; 5 insufficient exposure to authentic materials. The experimental result of her study favors what has been said above. It proves the necessity of a more suitable teaching content of culture for the English majors 2华中科技大学硕士学位论文 Significance of the present study Course-book is one of the essentials in language teaching and learning, which is more than a truth in China. Course-book is highly esteemed in the heart of Chinese people. That is why it is called in Chinese Ke ben, which means the root of learning Shu & Zhang, 2004. Meanwhile, it plays an equally important role in the area of English discipline development. At the foundation stage of English teaching, the intensive reading class is attached sufficient importance in terms of the teaching time allocated to it, the students’ time and efforts devoted to it, and the teachers’ attitudes towards it Wang, 2001Therefore, it is of some significance to study the course-book for the English majors, putting it against an ICC-heated backgroundA New English Course 1-4 is chosen as the target course-book for the evaluation in this thesis, because it is widely used for the English majors at the foundation stageBesides, it is strongly made and has endured for decades The study of the course-book on its cultural content is meaningful. The results revealed in this paper can be referred to in course-book compiling in terms of avoiding possible repetition of culture items and integrating the appropriate culture elements with certain language elementsIt contributes to the researches in textbooks development, culture teaching and in other related areas. It can also be shared as valid data for the relevant historical research An overview of the thesisThe thesis consists of six parts: introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion and conclusionPart one is an introduction to the present study. It describes the background in which the present study, the reasons to conduct the present study and its significancePart two surveys the relevant literatures from five aspects. The literatures about language, culture and their relation are reviewed to serves as the theoretical foundation of the paper. Next, based on the relevant review, the thesis defines the key word “culture” and provides accordingly a method of culture classification. The third part discusses the role of textbook in culture teaching and the criteria for textbook evaluation are decided onA brief introduction is given to the basic information of the target course-book afterwardsAt the end, previous studies on the target course-book are reviewed3华中科技大学硕士学位论 文 Part three provides the methodology of the research, including research questions, data collection, the criteria for the analysis and the specific analyzing proceduresPart four first displays the results of the analysis in tables and charts, coupled with literal descriptions. The result reports the classification and analysis of the culture elements in each volume of the course-book and the whole course-book. It proceeds to evaluate the course-book on its treatment of subject matters and social valuesPart five discusses in detail the research results. It also gives overall remarks on the course-book, providing suggestions for its improvement. Implications of the results for the English majors and culture teaching are touched uponPart six summarizes what has been obtained from the previous chapters. It also points out the limitation of the thesis and possible issues for the future research4华中科技大学硕士学位论文 1 Literature Review1.1 Language and culture1.1.1 Links between language and cultureIn his Cultural Anthropology and linguistics, H. Goodenough 1964 describes the relationship between language and culture as such: "the language of a society should be one aspect of the social culture, the relationship between language and culture is part and whole. As a specific aspect of culture, the unique point of language is that language is the main tool for human to learn culture. Human acquires the whole culture by studying and using language". The relationship between language and culture is so close that a foreign language learner can not truly understand or use appropriately the foreign language if he / she does not understand the culture of the target languageCulture is socially acquired knowledge and language is a very special component of culture. As a symbolic system of human communication, language is part of the conventional culture, playing a significant role in culture. Far from being a technique of communication, it is itself a way of directing the perceptions of its speakers and it provides for them habitual modes of analyzing experience into significant categories. And to the extent that languages differ markedly from each other, so should we expect to find significant and formidable barriers to cross-cultural communication and understanding Hoijer, 1976. Meanwhile, culture exerts a strong influence on language. Language is shaped by a particular culture and society in which it is used. It is proved that cultural differences may cause differences in language. The cultural features vary not only from speech community to speech community, but also within the same speech communityLanguage simultaneously influences culture, and is a means of learning and expressing culture. Common attitudes, beliefs and values are reflected in the way group members use language. Some scholars think that different people speak differently, because their languages make them view the "word" differently. Different languages convey different cultures, and can lead to different actions because languages cause people to think and act in a certain way 5华中科技大学硕士学位论文 1.1.2 Culture in language teachingAmerican educator Winston Blunmburg once said, “To learn a foreign language without learning its culture is a very good way to make yourself a language fluent fool. “ Regarding the issue of culture teaching, researchers from the fields of linguistics, anthropology and psychology have contributed a lot to the development of its theory baseThey show common concerns on the relation between language and culture, and the important role of culture teaching in EFL teaching and learning. Among the concerned linguists are Hlliday 1978, Eugene Nida 1993, Robert Lado 1957, Dell Hymes 1974, Brown D.H.1980, Hendon 1980,anthropology, Samovar and Porter 2000, Edward Hall 1959, Psychology, Geert Hofstede 1980, 1991 The discussion about the importance of culture teaching in language teaching has a long history among western scholars. Some influential works are: Guide to language testing Henning, 1987, Principles of language testing Davies, 1990, Context and culture in language teaching Claire, 1993 and A dictionary of language testing Davies, 2002 Relevant studies show that culture teaching in Chinese foreign language education falls into three phases: the 1980s, the 1990s and late 1990s till now. The 1980s is the start of culture teaching in China. In this period, language educators find that the student can not communicate smoothly with native speakers. In finding out the reason for it, many scholars come to realize the importance of teaching of culture and cultural background knowledge in language teaching, whilst plenty of theories about sociolinguistics and communicative pedagogy are introduced from western countries. So are some concepts of culture in foreign language education. In the second period of 1990s, researchers are engaged in exploring the theories for culture education in the field of foreign language education. From the late 1990s till now, foreign language education in china experiences a series of reforms and witnesses some improvements. Hu Wenzhong and Gao Yihong 1997 proposes that culture teaching should aim at helping students develop their cultural sensitivity and ability to cope with cultural variety to improve the whole nation’s cultural quality. Their theory is echoed by Chen Shen 1999, who proposes that“cultural creativity” is the objective of culture education. By cultural creativity, he refers to 6华中科技大学硕士学位论文 students’ creativity ability produced through the interaction between native culture and foreign culture in foreign language education. In sum, it has been widely accepted among Chinese foreign language teachers that cultural background teaching is an essential part of language teaching In order to avoid unsystematic teaching of culture, educators voice their opinions on the issue of setting up the objectives and goals of culture teaching. Among them, Nostrand's 1974 goal statements, Seelye's seven goals of instruction 1993 and Lafayette's revised work 1988 are frequently referred toNostrand 1970 believed that the culturally competent student should be able to: 1 react appropriately in a social situation; 2 describe or ascribe to the proper part of the population a pattern in the cultural or social behavior; 3 recognize a pattern when it is illustrated; 4 explain a pattern; 5 predict how a pattern is likely to apply to a given situation; 6 describe or manifest an attitude important for making one acceptable in the foreign society; 7 evaluate the form of a statement concerning a culture pattern; 8 describe or demonstrated defensible methods of analyzing a sociao-cultural whole; 9 identify basic human purposes that make significant the understanding that is being taughtSeelye 1993 modified Nostrand's goals and proposed seven goals which he defined as: I the sense, or functionality, of culturally conditioned behavior; 2 interaction of language and social variables; 3 conventional behavior in common situations; 4 cultural connotations of words ox phrases; 5 evaluating statements about socie