The Influence Of Culture On English Newspapers And Periodicals Teaching For English Majors

Culture is too inclusive to define. Simply speaking, culture refers to the entire way of life of a society. Language and culture are closely associated with each other. Language is a part of culture and is influenced and shaped by culture. The understanding of one requires the understanding of the other. In the communication between people of different cultures, the greatest barrier lies not only in the differences of languages, but also in those of cultures, which permeates all aspects of human life. Cultural mistakes are even more serious and irritating than linguistic ones. Therefore, learning a target language must learn the target culture. Because reading is one of the most important skills to master in language learning, more attention must be paid to the influence of cultural factor during the process of reading teaching and learning, which can help improve reading skill and language proficiency.For a long time in China, the teaching of English reading has been guided by the belief that language is only a set of grammatical rules. The teacher-centered and grammar-oriented perspective leads to the emphasis on grammatical competence, which results in the inefficiency of reading teaching. We can find that many teachers still pay much attention to linguistic factors such as vocabulary and grammar while neglect the influence of extra-linguistic factors on English reading. The teaching of English press reading for English majors also faces the same situation. There are many extra-linguistic factors which affect the effect of reading teaching. And among them, the cultural factor is one of the most important factors.In this thesis, the author aims to investigate the influence of culture on English newspapers and periodicals teaching for English majors by analyzing the schema theory, hoping that it will help improve the effectiveness of English teaching and learning for English-major and non-English major students.The dissertation consists of six chapters.Chapter one is an introduction, stating the current situation of English newspapers and periodicals teaching, the research questions, objectives and then presenting the hypotheses of the research.Chapter two mainly concentrates on the related theories of the research.Chapter three illustrates the subjects, materials, instruments and procedure of the experiment.Chapter four analyses the data of the questionnaires and tests in the experiment.Chapter five introduces the findings from the research and puts forward some suggestions for the teaching of English newspapers and periodicals.Chapter six concludes the whole research, analyses the validity and reliability of the research, points out the limitations of the present research and presents some suggestions for the further research.