College English: Linking American and British Culture (Bilingual Edition)

Author: Jiang Zhiwei, Luo Dexi, Li Xiao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: With the development of the global trend in the world today and the requirements of China's social development after joining the WTO, college English teaching in China is bound to reach a new level. The symbol of this new level is to make "communication" the ultimate goal of our English teaching. As is well known, the foundation of communication is language, and the guarantee of correct communication is culture. To a large extent, merely mastering some linguistic phenomena and grammatical content can only help pass exams but not communicate confidently. This is because modern language is constantly given different meanings by a changing society, which differ from the original meanings of the words. Moreover, since our cultural identity differs greatly from the West, some words convey information that cannot be understood or accepted according to the cultural concepts of Chinese people. For example, the word "cuckoo" () is seen by Westerners as similar to the concept of "owl" () in Chinese culture—a symbol of death. However, in the eyes of Chinese people, the call of the cuckoo during the spring planting and autumn harvest seasons is a symbol of beauty. Another example is that Chinese people often say "beat the dog that is already in the water" (), which makes Westerners feel sympathetic, because in their minds, dogs are the most loyal friends of humans. Such cases are countless. If we follow our traditional pure language teaching model and ask a foreigner, "Where are you going?" upon meeting them, the foreigner might be puzzled or even angry: "What does where I'm going have to do with you?" Because Westerners highly value their rights, especially privacy. If our students are unaware of these cultural differences, they may make similar communication mistakes when interacting with foreigners in the future, thus affecting normal exchanges. In light of this, these Western cultural elements, especially those that differ from Chinese culture, should be integrated into the regular college English teaching process. For this purpose, after thoroughly studying various college English textbooks and the "College English Teaching Syllabus," we have fully considered the comparison between Chinese and Western cultures, as well as the acceptance capacity and characteristics of Chinese college students, and organized the writing of this book.