Article published In: Australian Review of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 24:1 (2001) ► pp.61–73
Teaching of culture within foreign language teaching and its relationship to nationalism
Published online: 1 January 2001
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.24.1.05dob
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.24.1.05dob
Abstract
This paper argues that the teaching of culture in second/foreign language classrooms involves more than equipping learners with the knowledge and skills necessary to communicate with native speakers. In the past few decades, the emphasis in second/foreign language teaching has shifted from acquisition of linguistic forms to enhancing communicative competence. In that process the native speaker has been seen as a source of "correctness" in communication behaviour and the target culture, monolithic and homogeneous. Such practice enforces the current nationalism-dominated worldview and may contribute to boundary maintenance between nations as much as, or possibly more than, to cross-cultural understanding and tolerance. This argument is based on the recognition that second/foreign language classrooms act as a location where more than two nations intersect, contributing to formations of cultural identities: both Us and the Other. In the current world of ever-increasing globalisation, national identity, which is embedded in our language and discourse, is more vigorously formed than ever in order to maintain national boundaries. Therefore, it is necessary for the second/foreign language profession to address the implications of cultural contents beyond communication needs and to foster critical attitudes in language learners.
References (29)
Austin, T. (1998). Cross-cultural pragmatics -- building in analysis of communication across cultures and languages: examples from Japanese. Foreign Language Annals, 31(3), 326–341.
Buell, F. (1994). National culture and the new global system. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Byram, M. (1989). Cultural studies in foreign language education. Clevedon; Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.
(1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon; Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.
Carrier, J. G. (1995). Introduction. In Carrier, J. G. (Ed.), Occidentalism: images of the West. Oxford; Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press.
Castles, S., B. Cope, M. Kalantzis, & M. Morrissey (1992). Mistaken identity: multiculturalism and the demise of nationalism in Australia. (3rd ed.). Sydney: Pluto Press.
Cryle, P. (1992). Disciplining civilisation. In In the place of French: essays on and around French studies. Brisbane: University of Queensland.
Fawcett, C. (1996). Archaeology and Japanese identity. In D. Denoon, M. Hudson, G. McCormack, & T. Morris-Suzuki (Eds.), Multicultural Japan: palaeolithic to postmodern. Cambridge; Melbourne: Cambridge Uni Press.
Finocchiaro, M., & C. Brumfit. (1983). The functional-notional approach: from theory to practice. NY; Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Giroux, H. A. (1993). Living dangerously: identity politics and the new cultural racism: towards a critical pedagogy of representation. Cultural Studies, 71, 1–27.
Hobsbawm, E. J. (1983). Introduction: invention of tradition. In E. J. Hobsbawm & T. O. Ranger (Eds.), The invention of tradition. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hutchinson, J. (1992). Moral innovators and the politics of regeneration: the distinctive role of cultural nationalists in nation-building. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, XXXIII1, 101–117.
Hymes, D. H. (1972). On communicative competence. In J. B. Pride & J. Holmes (Eds.), Sociolinguistics: selected readings. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Kohn, H. (1944). The idea of nationalism: a study in its origins and background. New York: Macmillan.
Larrain, J. (1994). Ideology and cultural identity : modernity and the Third World presence. Oxford: Polity Press.
Pennycook, A. (1989). The concept of method, interested knowledge, and the politics of language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 23(4), 589–618.
Pütz, M. (1997). Teaching sociolinguistics: language and some socio-cognitive processes at work. In M. Putz (Ed.), The Cultural context in foreign language teaching. Frankfurt am Main; New York: P. Lang.
Savignon, S. J. (1983). Communicative competence: theory and classroom practice: texts and contexts in second language learning. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.