A Study on Crosscultural Barriers in Reading of English.docx

1、A Study on Crosscultural Barriers in Reading of EnglishA Study on Cross-cultural Barriers in Reading of EnglishProfessor Wang Lin English Department of Foshan UniversityFoshan, Guangdong, China. IntroductionDecoding and comprehension are the two main tasks for reading: In English learning, the eleme

2、nts, which influence the reading are linguistic knowledge, cultural background knowledge, language skills, and intelligent elements (the abilities of thought such as motivation, purpose, emotion and control). Mastering linguistic knowledge of phonetics, vocabulary and grammar is helpful to decode th

3、e word symbols. However, in the process of reading, many Chinese students already possess the above knowledge, but they still cannot comprehend the texts completely, so understanding the cultural content of what one reads is a crucial factor in reading comprehension. Because language is the carrier

4、of culture, peoples words and deeds reflect certain cultural connotation consciously or unconsciously. Every social communication possesses its own certain thought pattern, value, custom, and way of life. For “The influence of background to comprehension is larger than language knowledge.” (Ma, 1995

5、). Many studies indicate that without sufficient background knowledge of social culture, the readers cannot comprehend the deep meaning of texts. This paper will examine the cross-cultural difficulties in the process of English reading in three aspects: what the main difficulties are in reading, why

6、 these difficulties exist and how to reduce and eliminate them to achieve the exact comprehension.The paper, from the perspective of cross-cultural communication, tries to analyze the role of cultural knowledge in reading comprehension, generalizes the comprehension barriers Chinese students meet in

7、 the comprehension process of English reading and explains the relationship between the barriers and language. The paper then analyzes the internal causes of the barriers. And lastly, it brings forth approaches and methods for eliminating the barriers. The Role of Cultural Knowledge in Reading Compr

8、ehensionAlong with the development of Applied Linguistics and Psycholinguistics, the American scholar, Goodman (1982) negated the traditional reading theory and posed a “psycholinguistic reading model”, which considers that reading is not the process of passive decoding and reading literally any mor

9、e. Rather it is the process of active “guessing confirming” and interaction between the readers and the reading contents. Reading comprehension is a complex process of the interaction between the writers language and the readers prior background knowledge or memory schemata. “Every stage of comprehe

10、nsion involves readers background knowledge of culture (Anderson, 1997, 14:369).” Phillips (1984) pointed out: “a successful reading of any passage, depends upon a combination of linguistic knowledge, cognitive skill and general experience and knowledge of the world, whether acquired by experience o

11、r by learning, influence greatly the reading comprehension process, for the more the reader brings to the text, the more is taken away”. Indeed, in the reading comprehension process, readers linguistic element is very important, but sometimes we cannot read behind the lines except by the help of bac

12、kground knowledge of culture, because the meanings of words are acquired in a certain circumstance of culture. Therefore, if a Chinese student does not know about the English culture, such as histories, values, mode of thinking, customs, religion and life style, he may fail to understand the exact m

13、eaning of the texts. The Cultural Background Knowledge of and the Reading Comprehension of English.For a long time, in China, English teaching has just focused on the language forms (such as phonetics, vocabulary and grammar) and ignored the effect of background knowledge of culture. As the carrier

14、of culture, the cultural background of language is rather extensive. Lacking of the necessary cultural background may hinder people from comprehending language. For instance, when the President Reagan took up his post, an American told a Chinese teacher: “the United States has gone from peanuts to p

15、opcorn.” The syntax of this sentence is very simple. However, the Chinese teacher did not understand the sentence at that time until her friend explained to her that former president Jimmy Carter owned a big peanut farm while the present president Reagan is an actor and people eat popcorn while they

16、 watch TV. She suddenly realized the real humorous meaning of this sentence. From this case, we can see that to comprehend the language, not only depends on the comprehension of vocabulary and grammatical structures, but also depends on the comprehension of relevant background knowledge of culture.

17、The differences of cross-cultural background in reading comprehension of English can be classified as the following aspects.3.1 Historical Culture Historical culture refers to the culture that is formed by the developing process of certain history and social heritage which varies between nations at

18、often times. In the process of cross-cultural reading, we often meet the comprehension barriers that are caused by such differences of historical cultures. For example: At a science museum you can feel your hair stand on end as harmless electricity passes through your body. The phrase ones hair stan

19、ds on end is an idiom, from a criminals expression. In 1825, an Englishman named Probert was sentenced to death by hanging for stealing horses. While waiting for his execution at the gallows, Probert was extremely scared, the result of which made his hair stand straight up. Therefore, in English, on

20、es hair stands on end means fear. The writer uses this idiom to emphasize that the museum is very weird and strange. However, if Chinese students do not know this idiom, they may fail to understand its idiomatic meaning over and above the direct meaning.3.2 Regional Culture Regional culture, here, r

21、efers to the culture that can be shaped by natural conditions and geographical environment of an area. These effects on culture may lend themselves to creating comprehension barriers to Chinese students of English reading. For example, (1) Shall I compare thee to a summers day? Thou art lovelier and

22、 more temperate. This poem is a part of Shakespeares sonnet 18. He compared the lover to a summers day, which is difficult for Chinese students to understand. Only knowing some relevant geographical knowledge, can they get real understanding of this sonnet. As Britain is a high latitude country, the

23、 average summer temperature is about 20 degrees and the daytime is very long, from about 4 oclock in the morning to about 10 oclock at night. Therefore, the summer in Britain is pleasantly cool and delightful. It is obviously different from the hot summer of most regions in China, especially, in sou

24、th China, where the hot summer is very hard to endure and causes people to feel unhappy. (2) British poet Shelleys poem “Ode to the West Wind” compares the west wind to the warm and delightful wind that brings forth spring. However, to Chinese people, the west wind not only means cold but also means

25、 declining and depressed.3.3 Social CultureLanguage is an important component of culture, the existence and development of language are influenced by society, and the social phenomenon and vocabulary of a certain historical periods reflect the objective history of society. Such vocabulary may confus

26、e foreign readers. For instance, when American President Nixon was in his second term of office, Watergate became a well-established and common term. It stands for a political scandal in the Nixon era associated with burglarizing an office of the Democrat Party located at the Watergate Hotel. in Was

27、hington. Elements within the Nixon administration created a large number of euphemisms to hide the scandal. For example, intelligence gathering replaces eavesdropping, plumber for eavesdropper. Chinese students may have difficulty in understanding these words.3.4 Religious CultureReligious culture i

28、s an important component in the lives of many human beings. It refers to the culture that is formed by religious belief of nation and can be embodied in the cultural differences of taboo of different nations. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism are three main religions of China, which deeply influence

29、 Chinese people. On the contrary, many people living in European based and/or founded cultures believe in Christianity or have been seriously influenced by Christian values. They believe that a single God created and organized the world. Because of differences of religious culture, Chinese students

30、can misunderstand English reading., at times. For example, a sentence in the article “Why Measure Life in Heartbeats” is that I believe, because of my religious faith, that I shall “return to father” in an after life that is beyond description. Many Chinese readers comprehend an after life in the se

31、ntences as the next life. The reason of this misunderstanding is the differences of the two religious cultures. The next life is the term of oriental Buddhism, which refers to the samsara. On the contrary, Christianity does not have this concept, considering that after the death of human being, his

32、soul will stay in Heaven or Hell and will not disappear. Therefore, they do not have the saying of the next life. So according to its religious background, an after life refers to the time after peoples death.Again, there is a need to emphasize cultural differences as being potentially extensive and

33、 complex. In the process of English reading, at times, we should focus on the understanding of cultural background to get a deeper understanding of the whole text. Cultural Barriers in Relation to the language In English reading, cultural barriers and language cannot be separated. Language is a carrier, which not only c