There is a young interpreter whose pronunciation is standardized and natural. The first time he was appointed to accompany a foreign guest, he tried to do everything he could to show he was enthusiastic, kind, considerate and competent. He tried to be attentive as possible by saying “You come this way.” “You sit here.” “Don’t go too fast.” “Follow me.” “Don’t be late.” But the next day, it came to him as a shocked surprise that the foreigner didn’t want to go with him, because the foreigner thought the young interpreter was not polite. In the foreigner’s eyes, the interpreter is not helping him, but scolding him. There is no problem in the interpreter’s English, but the lack of the cultural background knowledge makes him incompetent for this job.
The story is simple, but it reflects something important. In the course of oral communication, speakers should pay much attention to the context, i.e. what you are saying, to whom you are saying it, when and where you are saying it, etc.
2. 2. 4 Influence on reading
Having some knowledge on English is the basic requirement for English reading. However, such knowledge is not the only standard in judging one’s reading ability, as the cultural background knowledge plays an important role in it. Reading is a process in which the knowledge of language, the cultural background knowledge, and other specialized knowledge are altogether in effect. And it is also a course of prediction and revision on the basis of language materials, cultural background knowledge, and logical conclusion. Generally speaking, when learning Chinese, we seldom meet cultural obstructions, but in terms of reading English, the cultural differences are always bringing us troubles of one sort or the other.
One of Churchill’s speeches is a typical example of this case. In his speech, he used his private secretary’s words to express himself: “After dinner, when I was thinking on the croquet lawn with Mr. Churchill, he reverted to this theme, and I asked whether for him, the arch anti-Communist, this was not bowing down in the house of Rimmon. Mr. Churchill replied: Not at all. I have only one purpose, the destruction of Hitler, and any life is much simplified thereby. If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” [4]
In the above paragraph, Churchill quoted three religious allusions: the first one is “bow down in the house of Rimmon” coming from the “Bible”, which means “doing things against one’s willingness”; the second one is “Hell”; and the third one is “the devil”. If we don’t know these three allusions, we cannot fully understand that Churchill likened Communist USSR to the “Hell” and the Soviet Communist to the “devil”. In the use of the religious allusions in this paragraph, Mr. Churchill not only shows his anti-Communist stand, but also avoids annoying the Soviet Union Communist directly. So the real meaning of this paragraph is that his support to the USSR is for the salvation of the human beings, and it does not mean that he has changed his anti-Communist stand.
Therefore, we can see that the knowledge of language itself cannot solve all the problems in reading. People’s works are always related with the culture of their nations, especially related allusions or usage, which we are not familiar with. It reminds us that we should pay attention to the cultural influence in reading.
2. 2. 5 Influence on translation
It is widely believed that translation is deeply influenced by culture. In translating, we should have enough knowledge on both the source language and the target one. The difficulty in translation mainly lies in the understanding of cultural background knowledge.
The cultural background knowledge includes many aspects like art, geography, history, science, philosophy, etc. For example: I was not Pygmalion, I was Frankenstein.
There are two points which may puzzle us: one is “Pygmalion”, and the other is “Frankenstein”. We can see that they are two persons’ names. However, who are they? In fact, Pygmalion is the King of Cyprus in Greek fairy tales. Once he carved a statue of a very beautiful young lady, and then he fell in love with “her”. Because of his pious love, Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love gave the statue life, and at last, Pygmalion got married with her. Frankenstein was a character in M. W. Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, who was a young medical college student. Once he invented a monster, but that monster ate him. From the above background knowledge, we can see that “Pygmalion” means, “to enjoy one’s own creation”, while “Frankenstein” means “to suffer from one’s own actions”. So the success in translating this sentence does not solely depend on understanding its structure but is determined by the knowledge of the cultural load the two terms carry respectively [5].
3 Culture teaching and English language teaching
English language teaching is to teach students voice, vocabulary, grammar and other basic language knowledge and focus on training the students’ capability of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translation. And culture teaching is to teach students the cultural knowledge of the native speaking country, such as the ethnic or national customs, cultural practices, historical background, etc. Language teaching must contain culture teaching, and the culture teaching can not be independent of the language teaching. So The English language teaching is inseparable from culture teaching.转贴于 酷文网-论文下载中心 http://www.coolwen.net
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