Culture &

Language

Ebru A. DAMAR, PhD

Word Englishes and Culture

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WHAT IS CULTURE?

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 DEFINITION OF CULTURE
⦿ A vast amount of different
definitions;
⦿ In anthropology it refers to
civilization, the society itself
and a theory of human and
society
⦿ In science it refers to
civilization
⦿ In social sciences it refers to
the whole process of
education

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In its simplest meaning culture covers everything that
people in a certain society learns and shares.
Including:
- language,
- religion,
- eating behaviors,
- social life,
- rules of etiquette,
- moral values

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Culture, in its broadest sense, is cultivated
behavior; that is the totality of a person‘s
learned, accumulated experience which is
socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior
through social learning.

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 Culture & Language
⦿ Culture and language as inseperable aspects
⦿ How to integrate culture into language teaching
⦿ Grammar Translation Method,Audio Lingual
Method in 1930 ands 1940’s
⦿ Language teaching is in a way of culture teaching

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⦿ Misinterpretation of the
messages in target language as
a result of lack of cultural
understanding/awareness
⦿ How ELT textbooks and
teachers present cultural
information
⦿ Teachers with limited
knowledge about foreign
culture

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 CULTURE
LEARNING/TEACHING
⦿ Integration of language and culture
⦿ Culture learning
“Culture learning is the process of acquiring the
culture-specific and culture-general knowledge, skills, and
attitudes required for effective communication and
interaction with individuals from other cultures. It is a
dynamic, developmental, and ongoing process which
engages the learner cognitively, behaviourally, and
affectively”
⦿ Two aspects of culture learning:
a) Culture -general aspects of culture learning
b) Culture-specific aspects of culture learning

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 CULTURE-GENERAL LEARNING
⦿ Culture -general aspects of culture learning refers to
the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes that
are more generalisable in nature and transferable
across cultures.
⦿ It is a point where the learners recognise that they are
“cultural beings”
⦿ They ultimately become “intercultural beings” across
cultures.

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 CULTURE-SPECIFIC LEARNING
⦿ The culture-specific learning involves
acquiring knowledge, behavioural skills, and
attitude as related to a given target speech
society.
⦿ The culture-specific aspect is specified into
Big “C” and the small “c” domains of
target-culture learning.

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Big ‘C’ and Small ‘c’
⦿ The Big “c” domain represents a set of facts
and statistics relating to the arts, history,
geography, business, education, festivals and
customs of a target speech society.

⦿ The small “c” domain refers to the invisible

and deeper sense of a target culture.

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⦿ The language teacher
should possess at least
some intercultural
knowledge and develop it
alongside his or her
students.
⦿ The textbooks should be
reorganized by adressing
the all types of aspects of
culture learning:
Culture-general,
culture-specific.

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⦿ It is important to give equal value
to all cultures for multicultural
understanding.
⦿ English teachers should emphasize
the importance of intercultural
understanding by teaching about
other cultures together with the
Anglo-American culture with no
specific emphasis on any culture.
⦿ We need to develop a “global
philosophy” rather than a
“one-size-fits all philosophy to
promote cultural diversity in
textbooks.

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⦿ An EFL teacher should implement the intercultural
approach in a tactful, skillful, and conscious way.
⦿ Systematic intercultural training is a pre-condition for
educating a new generation of young people who will
not only tolerate, but also understand, accept, and
respect people from different world cultures.

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⦿ With such an integration of
culture-specific learning to language
classes, EFL learners would develop
tolerance towards different
assumptions, values and beliefs and
understand the effects of those in the
discourse level while communicating
in English in international settings
⦿ Integrated culture teaching is a panacea
which would override the effectiveness
of so-called safe accuracy-oriented
frameworks on the way to
Intercultural Communicative
Competence (ICC).

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 References:
Alptekin, C. (1993). Target-language culture in EFL materials. ELT
Journal,47/2, 136-143.
Alptekin, C. (2002). Towards intercultural communicative competence in
ELT. ELT Journal, 56/ (1), 57-64.
Byram, M. and Esserte-Sertiez, V. (1991). Investigating Cultural Studies in
Foreign Language Teaching. Multilingual Matters Limited: England.
Chastain, K. (1998). Developing Second-Language Skills: Theory and
Practice. USA: HBJ.
Gao, F. (2006). Language is culture-On Intercultural Communication.
Journal of Language and Linguistics. 5/ (1), 58-67.
Gürsoy , E. & Damar , A. E. (2009). The egg or the chicken?: how culture
influences foreign language learning. International Congress on
Intercultural Dialogue and Education Proceedings, 50-59.
Jiang, W. (2000). The relationship between culture and language. ELT
Journal, 54/ (4), 328-333.
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Kramsch, C. (1996). Context and Culture in Language Teaching.
Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Sali, P. (2008). A quest into EFL teachers’ and learners’
perspectives on culture teaching. LINCOM studies in second
language teaching.226- 234.
Scollon, R. and Scollon, S. W. (1995) Intercultural
Communication. USA: Blackwell.
Tseng, Y. (2002). A lesson in culture. ELT Journal, 56/ (1), 11-21.
Tseng, C. And Chao, C. (2012). Teaching culture in Taiwan’s
EFL classroom. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences. 47,
1843-1846.
Wright, D.A. (2000). Culture as information and culture as
affective process: a comparative study. Foreign Language
Annals, 33/ (3), 330-341.
Zaid, M.A. (1999). Cultural confrontation and cultural acquisition
in the EFL classroom. IRAL, 37/ (2), 111-127.

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