Literature Review
What is the Connection Between Language, Culture, and Teaching?
What is the Connection Between Language, Culture, and Teaching?
Raising cultural awareness is one of the most significant things while learning or teaching a foreign language. From time to time the connection between language, culture, and teaching is not clear. To trace this relation, first of all, the terms should be analyzed separately, and only then in interaction.
According to the traditional definition, language is a structured system of signs and means of storing and forming ideas as reflections of reality and exchanging them in the process of human communication. It performs three basic functions. The first is a cognitive function which allows a person to record the results of thinking and use them in communication. The second function called social; it implies that language is an instrument of communication. The last is an accumulative function which indicates that language is a means of storing, forming, and transmitting knowledge.
All above-mentioned functions assist with the establishment of the relation between language and culture. However, the meaning of culture should be specified. There are hundreds (if not thousands) definitions of this phenomenon given by specialists in various fields. Edward Hall, a cross-cultural researcher, determines culture as a special term which concerns methods of producing, storing, and transmitting knowledge. Another interpretation is given by Clifford Geertz, an American anthropologist. He denotes culture as an example of historical transmission of symbolic meanings which are used by humans for communication and the development of their life awareness. I have chosen these definitions in order to show a direct connection between culture and language. Thus, language is a method of expressing ideas, i.e. language is a means of social interaction. According to the aforementioned definitions, culture is a system of competence (knowledge, beliefs, attitudes) shared by human society through communication and serves for organizing life. It has a profound effect on language because every new cultural phenomenon needs its linguistic equivalent. On the other hand, language boundaries determine culture-specific features, i.e. certain concepts cannot exist in a culture if restricted by a language.
The relation between language and culture is evident. The last item is teaching and its connection with the enumerated phenomena. In order to have a feel for the cultural difference, a teacher needs some grasp of the student's first language. The knowledge of existence or absence of certain things in one language may help the process of sequencing and focus on distinctions in the other. Moreover, the understanding of culture specifics may be useful not only in learning a language but also in teaching it. If a teacher is aware of some cultural peculiarities, it will be easier to explain cardinally new realities on the basis of that culture. In the article “Chinese Legal Texts – Quantitative Description” written by Lubos Gajdos, such connection can be observed. For example, the Chinese language-specific measure words. Nouns in Chinese need certain indicators, which depend on the substance of the objects that they designate. For the teaching purposes, measure words can be explained through the comparison with the determiners. Some linguists consider them to be redundant; however, they serve more of a cognitive purpose than a practical one: in other words, they provide a linguistic way for speakers to organize or categorize real objects. It makes them culture-specific.
To sum up, culture is the ideas, customs, and expression of a belief as a way of life of a community in a society that develops as a distinct art and taste. Language, in its turn, is a means of social interaction that provides the cultural originality. Having understood both of these phenomena, a person will be able to teach something (precisely languages) more naturally.
Sources:
Sources:
1. Взаимосвязь языка и культуры как основной объект лингвокультурологии, Д. Ш. Исрафилова. ВЕСТНИК ТГГПУ. 2010. №2(20) https://rib.li/IRuL
3. Developing cultural awareness in foreign language teaching, Ismail Cakir. Kirikkale University. https://rib.li/Kr42
4. Edward Hall, Beyond Culture. New York: Doubleday, 1976.
5. Клиффорд Гирц. Интерпретация культур. М.: РОССПЭН, 2004.
thanks for sharing your LR with your peers and me. Your review gives a good idea about the essence of your research; it is logical and clear, with enough details and support. You have also managed to synthesise the materials rather well. What you could improve is the depth of your conclusions
ReplyDeleteIntroduction 4
Article review 5
Conclusions 5
Language 5
References 5
Total 4.8
Sorry, I'm afraid I gave you 5 points for your conclusion, though this is the part of your work I advised you to revise to make your conclusions deeper. So the corrected score for this work is 4.6. Your final grade for this course will remain as it is, though.
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