| Culture is a complex system, language is the carrier of culture. Meanwhile, any languagecan not exist without culture. In recent years, with the frequent communication betweencountries in the world, more and more people realized that English study is not only the studyof vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure ect., but also is to know much about the culture ofthe target language. Therefore, culture input is very important in English teaching and learning.Although, there exists a number of researches related to culture teaching at home and abroad,subjects of most researchers are focused on students of public universities. And the research ofculture teaching for undergraduates in private universities has not been found. According to theauthor’s teaching experience and investigation in private universities, it is a fact thatundergraduates’ social culture knowledge level is relatively lower than those in publicuniversities. So it is necessary and practical for us to input culture knowledge to these students.The theory applied in this thesis is Sapir—Whorf hypothesis which includes LinguisticDeterminism and Linguistic Relativity. Linguistic Determinism states that the language we use,to some extent, determines the way in which we view and think about the world around us.Linguistic Relativity refers to the idea that people who speak different languages view and thinkabout the world quite differently. Sapir—Whorf hypothesis makes people deeply realize therelationship between language and thought as well as the relationship between language andculture. In addition, Sapir—Whorf hypothesis has far-reaching impact on anthropology,sociology, linguistics and language teaching. The purposes of conducting this study are:1. Tofind out the importance of culture input in English discourse teaching in private universities,2.To find out the effective approaches to cultural input in private universities,3. To improvestudents’ communicative competence.The thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One is a brief literature review ofcross-cultural education in foreign language teaching at home and abroad. Meanwhile, thelimitations of former scholars’ study for this topic are pointed out. And then, the necessity ofcultural input in English discourse teaching is illustrated. Chapter Two illustrates the definitionof language and culture, and the relationship between language and culture. Chapter Three introduces the research instruments of this study, which includes questionnaires, interviews, andtests. The questionnaire is designed on the basis of target requirements on cross-culturalawareness in “College English Curriculum Requirements (for Trial Implementation)”. Thequestionnaire aims to obtain the current situation of undergraduate students’ knowledge aboutthe Western culture and the cross-culture awareness, and the existing problems in ShandongYingcai University, which is beneficial for the author to explore how to input Western cultureknowledge into college English discourse teaching and how to cultivate students’ cross-culturalawareness. As for the questionnaire, one is designed for teachers; the other is for students. Tenquestions(see Appendix I) are questioned in the teachers’ questionnaire, and the questionnaire’scontent involves the importance of cultural input, the most important objectives of collegeEnglish teaching, the ways to introduce culture in English discourse teaching, English teachers’experiences of living abroad etc. Twelve questions (see Appendix II) are involved in thestudents’ questionnaire, including the present situation of students’ cross-culture knowledge,study materials about the culture, the evaluation on teachers’ cultural input etc. Participants inthis survey consist of200students and45college English teachers who teach theundergraduates in Shandong Yingcai University. To keep the feedback information moreadequate, the author designs an interview to6college English teachers and30undergraduatestudents. There are three questions for teachers. The first is about the content of cultural input;and the second is about the ways to input the Western culture in English discourse teaching;finally, the difficulties introducing culture in English discourse teaching is questioned. Thequestions for students include the objectives of learning Western culture knowledge anddifficulties in their Western culture study.From the analysis of the data obtained from the teachers’ and students’ questionnaires andinterviews, some conclusions are drawn as follows: Firstly, most students can realize theimportance of the cultural input in the English course, and they are interested in the Westernculture knowledge, however, they have known little about Western knowledge and interculturalknowledge. Thus, they don’t know how to deal with culture shock. Secondly, the knowledgeabout culture differences between the West and the East haven’t been well involved in thecollege English textbook in private universities. Thirdly, most English teachers in privateuniversities know the importance of cultural input in English discourse teaching, however, they do not introduce the Western culture knowledge frequently in their class, and they are not veryfamiliar with the effective approaches to the cultural input. Meanwhile, they haven’t consideredhow to introduce related culture knowledge systematically in their college English discourseteaching. At last, most teachers have never been abroad and have never received any systematictraining of the cultural input. In Chapter Four, some suggestions for college English teaching inprivate universities are put forward. Due to the limited time, the study cannot be exhaustive inanalyzing every aspect related to this topic.The study on undergraduates’ culture input in private universities has been of theoreticaland practical significance. Firstly, the major finding in the thesis can fill the gap of the study oncultural input in private universities. Secondly, this study can help us know the current situationof the English teaching in private universities, meanwhile, it’s quite necessary for Englishteachers to pay more attention to cultural input in English teaching, so that students’communicative competence can be improved and their interests in culture study can becultivated. |
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