汉语文化迁移对中学生英语阅读理解的影响.docx

学段: 初中学科: 英语Effects of Chinese Cultural Transfer on English Reading Comprehension of Middle School Students摘 要随着全球化进程的加快，不同国家、地区和民族的人们之间交往日益频繁，来自不同文化背景的人们跨文化交际日益增多。增强学生对文化差异的名感性，培养文化适应能力和发展跨文化交际能力已成为外语教学中的重要内容。在跨文化交际和外语学习的过程中普遍存在着迁移现象。在中学生英语阅读理解过程中，文化迁移的影响是不可忽视的。本文介绍了迁移理论的研究历程，分析了中学生及中学生英语课程的特点，并试图从文化迁移到角度阐述中学生英语阅读理解中的迁移现象，通过分析这些现象，找到有效的方法来处理文化迁移，从而提高中学生的阅读理解能力。 关键词：文化迁移、阅读理解、外语教学AbstractThe inter-cultural communication between the people from different cultural backgrounds is becoming more and more frequent with economic globalization. Thus, raising students cultural awareness, and developing their cultural adaption and inter-cultural communication ability become important in foreign language teaching. Cultural transfer occurs in all processes of inter-cultural communication and in foreign language learning as well. It can not be neglected that the effects of cultural transfer on English reading comprehension is significant. This essay analyses the phenomena of Chinese cultural transfer in English reading. On the basis of analysis, this thesis tries to find some effective ways to deal with Chinese cultural transfer. Key words: cultural transfer; reading comprehension; foreign language teaching IntroductionPhenomena of cultural transfer are common in inter-cultural communication and foreign language learning. There are two reasons for this study. Firstly, studying the cultural transfer in the process of English learning can help learners to improve their comprehensive ability. Secondly, from the aspect of reality, many English teachers and students pay little attention to cultural background information, and middle school students are badly lack in the cultural knowledge. In 2001, cultural awareness was first put into the new National English Curriculum as a independent part, and becomes an important part of integrated language application. English reading, one of the four basic language skills just as important as speaking, listening and writing, is an inalienable part in middle school English teaching and learning. Because of the lacking of English cultural background knowledge, Chinese cultural transfer, therefore, becomes the main factor which affects middle school students reading comprehension. Generally speaking, studying the phenomena of cultural transfer in middle school students reading process benefits students a lot in middle school.1 Chinese cultural transfer in middle school students English reading Culture is a complexity thing which includes knowledge, religion, art, morality, customs and other competence or habits acquired in society. To English learners, native culture becomes an important factor of English reading. On one hand, native cultural transfer often causes misunderstanding; on the other hand, native culture, to some extend, accelerates the understanding of the passage. Therefore, analyzing the phenomena of Chinese cultural transfer becomes significant.1.1 Phenomena of Chinese cultural transfer in English reading The phenomena of Chinese cultural transfer exist in the whole process when a middle school student is doing English reading. To observe carefully, it is not difficult to find the positive or negative cultural transfer during a students reading. Here is an example happened to the middle school students. In an English examination, there is an idiom which is “cats have nine lives” in a reading material. Because there is a similar Chinese idiom named “猫有九命”, almost all the students get the deep meaning of the idiom which refers to one who is not easy to die. This is a case of the cultural transfer. During the process, the native culture of Chinese students has been working; it helps learners comprehend the material. That is, the positive cultural transfer occurs. Usually, the phenomena of Chinese cultural transfer are presented in three aspects. The first aspect is the words. Because of the difference of culture background, different learners may hold different views on the same thing. If the English learners transfer their Chinese culture knowledge into English learning directly, there will be understanding problems. For example, “rest room” in English refers to “盥洗室” in Chinese. But most students tend to regard it as “休息室” in Chinese because of a lack of background knowledge of the word. Just as the case that the students think about that “high school” in American English means a school like college or university if the do not know the education system of America. Actually, it refers to “中学” in Chinese. The cases listed above show that a lack of word cultural background of the target language is certain to cause misunderstand, or negative cultural transfer. The second aspect is phrases and expressions. Idiom is the production of culture after hundreds or even thousands of years development. It reflects the customs and values of a nation. The Chinese cultural transfer occurs when the values and customs of a students native culture affects them during their English reading. Take the idiom “as light as a feather” for example. When Chinese students encounter it, the native culture in their mind will do positive cultural transfer if they know the Chinese idiom “轻如鸿毛” before. Another one is the idiom “to carry coal to New Castle”, if the learners do not know that New Castle is a place where much coal is produced, the negative Chinese cultural transfer will occur. In fact, this phrase means spending too much time doing an unnecessary thing. As Yu Liming stated:“There are differences in simile and imagination of two kinds of culture.”If learners simply transfer from native language to target language, they will make mistakes.The third aspect is the discourse. English and Chinese have different ways of thinking, therefore, the structure and contents are different presented in writings. In other words, the development of a paragraph reflects the differences between Chinese and English. A Chinese paragraph tends to follow a circular line of development, which is base on inductive thought patterns. Suspense is usually built all the way to the end of the paragraph. An English paragraph follows a more direct line of development. It often begins with a statement of its central idea, something known as a topic sentence, which is followed by a series of subdivisions of the central idea. These subdivisions develop the idea of the topic sentence and prepare for the addition of other ideas in later paragraphs. In other words, the central idea of a paragraph is usually clear at the very beginning and is gradually developed in a deductive thought pattern. Besides, there are usually some signals (transitional words) to guide the reader. The following paragraph can serve as an example.(1) Being the only man in a household with my wife and three daughters is quite an experience. (2) First, I can forget about using any of the bathrooms, for someone is always showering, blow-drying her hair, putting a makeup, or doing whatever women do behind locked doors. (3) My only hope is to get up at about 5:30 a.m. and beat them all to the bathroom. (4) Then there is the continuous woman talk about clothes, boys, dances, and hair appointments, and the telephone is forever tied up. (5) I am simply an outsider. (6) Next, there is the ganging up on the one make with four-to-one odds. (7) You cant win, and they constantly remind you of your weird clothes, big stomach and long toenails. (8) About the only time I get a little decent treatment is when someone needs some money or wants some help with homework. (9) Despite feeling like being left out, i have to admit that I love my wife and girls and wouldnt trade them for any thing in the whole world. (10) I am surrounded by a whole bunch of brains and good looks, and I am proud of them all. (11) I know they love me too and they show it on occasion (扬俊峰,2001).There are altogether eleven sentences in this paragraph. (1) serves as a topic sentence and tells us the paragraph is about what it is like being the only man in a household of women. (2) and (3) present the detail about bathroom use to support (1). (4) and (5) present the detail about women talking and his feeling of being excluded to support (1). (6), (7) and (8) give another detail about women ganging up to support (1). And still, to support sentence (1),(9),(10) and (11) give the detail about the writers unwillingness to trade them for anything else in the whole world because they are smart, good-looking and they love the writer. Thats to say, the writer uses four details to describe what it is like being the only man in a household of women, and First, Then, Next and Despite are four signals to guide the readers. Without knowing the different ways of thinking, students may have troubles to get the whole paragraph in a short time. That is, the negative transfer will occur and become the barrier in passage reading.From what has been discussed above, we know that cultural differences affect every aspect of comprehension: comprehension of words, phrases and expressions, and texts. Anderson also stated Every stage of comprehension involves readers background knowledge of culture. Therefore, understanding the social cultural of English language is helpful for English texts comprehending. The more English culture Chinese students master, the less comprehension barriers they will meet in English reading, and the less negative transfer will occur.1.2 Effects and significance of Chinese cultural transferThe phenomena listed above prove a fact that the effects of Chinese cultural transfer can be positive or negative. When positive cultural transfer occurs, it is a useful tool for students to understand the text. However, when negative cultural transfer occurs, the Chinese culture will be an obstacle to reading comprehension.Therefore, negative cultural transfer becomes the main barrier in English learning. In the light of the layers of culture, negative cultural transfer can be further divided into two layers: the negative transfer of surface-structure culture at the physical and conventional layers of culture, that is concerned with system, law, politics, art, etc., and material; and the negative transfer of deep-structure culture at the psychological layer of culture, that is closely related to viewpoint of cultural values, ways of thinking, cultural norms, rules, etc.(Dai Weidong& Zhang Hongling,2000) the surface-structure transfer of culture is overtly and explicitly understood and communicated. On the contrary, deep-structure transfer of culture is much more difficult to understand because it is covertly and implicitly involved in peoples attitudes, thoughts, etc. As Dai Weidong (2000) notes, negative transfer of deep-structure culture is not easy to discover because social culture and value systems hide in the inner minds of people, but it is just these cultural values that determine what people think, what people say and what people do. Thats to say, it is deep-structure cultural transfer that determines students comprehensive competence. Then, lets look at this material:Bright red costumes, with hats, shoes, and stockings to match, are to be all the craze in the Spring, smart women will have to be careful not to yarn in the streets in case some short-sighted person is on his way to post a letter. (崔亚英，2006） If Chinese students do not know that the post box in England is red, they will not understand the humor that the short-sighted person will treat the women in red as a post box in it. On the contrary, they will be puzzled: why should the women in red be careful about the short-sighted person.This example shows that Chinese cultural transfer is a key factor which affects students English reading comprehension. Chinese cultural transfer, especial negative cultural transfer, determines whether students understand the English reading material deeply or not. From that point of view, importance should be attached to the study of cultural transfer, and then find effective ways to improve middle school students English reading ability.2. Improve reading ability through learning the theory of cultural transfer. Analyzing the phenomena in section 3.1, it is obvious that Chinese culture, possessed by the English learners, can results in the positive cultural transfer which is good for reading comprehension, and negative cultural transfer which is bad for comprehension. Therefore, to improve learners reading ability, two aspects are needed. The first one is making full use of positive cultural transfer; and the second is avoiding negative cultural transfer.2.1 Make full use of positive Chinese cultural transfer. Positive Chinese cultural transfer, generally speaking, occurs when ones Chinese cultural norms are similar to ones of the English language culture. Thats to say, the more similar between Chinese and English, the more positive cultural transfer will be. Therefore, the most effective way to make full use of positive Chinese cultural transfer is to find the similarities between Chinese culture and English culture.As a English teacher, cultural awareness is significant. The teacher should show students that Chinese and English have something in common. With the similarities, students can stimulate the positive cultural transfer and be interested in the reading materials. Thus, their reading competence enhanced.2.2 Avoid negative Chinese cultural transfer.Since negative cultural often results in communicative difficulties, misunderstanding and even hatred, many scholars have given much more attention to it. According to Dai Weidong(2000), negative cultural transfer refers to the cultural interference cause by cultural differences, which shows that people subconsciously use their cultural norms and values not only to guide their cultural norms and values but also to judge others behaviors thought, especially those who came from different cultures. If negative Chinese cultural transfer occurs, it will be the main barrier in English reading of Chinese students. So, avoiding negative Chinese cultural transfer is undergoing.Because it is the cultural difference that causes the negative cultural transfer. To avoid it, realizing the differences is important. As to the Chinese middle school students, they know about little cultural differences between Chinese and English as has been stated. So, the responsibility for introducing students to look for the differences is laid on the shoulders of middle school English teachers. One the class, more cultural differences between Chinese and English should be infiltrated during the language teaching. With these cultural differences, students can avoid the interference of Chinese culture consciously when reading English materials.To sum up, cultural transfer occurs because of the similarities a