On Interlanguage Theory-with Reference To Developing Cultural Awareness In English Language Teaching

Language and culture are integrated and can never be separated from each other. Our language reflects our culture, and language can not exist without culture. Learning a language means to learn its culture at the same time. So in the process of second language learning, we should pay special attention to acquisition of the target language culture as well.Interlanguage, which is also called learners' language sometimes, is a kind of phenomenon in the process of second language learning. Interlanguage is unavoidable and has its own unique features as a continuum between the learners' mother tongue and the target language.There are many factors that contribute to the development of interlanguage as many famous linguists have studied, however, this thesis would like to divide factors that lead to interlanguage phenomena into roughly two categories: factors that are pure linguistic in nature and those that are related to culture.Interlanguage phenomena among the beginners and intermediate learners of a foreign language mainly result from errors in their pronunciation, their use of words, phrases and sentences as well as their partial understanding of the target language rules. However, when learners have acquired a fairly good command of pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, they proceed to more advanced levels, at which interlanguage results from insufficient acquisition of the culture in the target language.