遠東學報第二十卷第四期 中華民國九十二年九月二十日出版

A Study of Knowledge Learning---The Role of Culture

In Language Education

Yi-Te Wu, Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, Far East College
吳怡德 遠東技術學院工業工程與管理系

Abstract

As language and culture are interrelated, language cannot be taught without culture.
This paper addresses the issue of the role of culture in language education. It
details how the culture plays the role in language teaching and learning.

Keywords: knowledge, multicultural education, language education,

culture

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遠東學報第二十卷第四期 中華民國九十二年九月二十日出版
1. Introduction
Language learners are also culture learners.
Culture plays an important role in language education
because it motives students and facilitates
communication. The teaching of culture has been
intertwined with the teaching of language, at times
more closely than others, but never more closely than
now. If language education will be to successfully
incorporate the presentation of cultural information in
language classroom, it would greatly increase the
benefits of language study.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Define the Culture
Before investigating the role of culture in
language education, it is crucial to define exactly
what culture is. Culture is all around us, in everything
we do; yet realizing a comprehensive definition is
almost impossible. As Nemni (1992) and Street (1993)
recommend, this is not a simple question to answer,
particularly in an increasingly international world.
Some time ago, Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1954)
found over three hundred definitions of culture in
their study, which underlines the difficulty and scope
of the issues involved in communicating and teaching
about culture. Nonetheless, the development of
culture teaching in language education has led to a
current understanding the role of culture, which we
will briefly summarize here.
On a general level, culture has been referred to
as "the ways of a people" (Lado, 1957). This
viewpoint incorporates both 'material' manifestations
of culture that are easily seen and 'non-material' ones
that are more difficult to survey. This global vision of
culture is reflected in Nemni's (1992, p. 19) note that
the "American way of life" is glorious areas across
the world. Language educators in Taiwan may well
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reverberation this viewpoint. Somewhat likewise,
language teachers or students may refer to Canadian
culture or Japanese culture in speaking of the way of
life in Canada or Japan when referring to the people,
societies and communication in these countries.
Nemni (1992, pp. 13-17) has accurately declared
several problems in speaking of a national culture.
However, to claim one pure national culture for
linguistic or ethnic groups denies the pluralism,
which Nemni also describes as natural in all societies.
Reality presents us that while there are distinctions
between national cultures, they may be not easy to
explain than other differences. Accordingly, we also
speak of culture in a more particular approach in our
language classes.
Adaskou, Britten and Fahsi (1990) identify
culture on a more specific level by outlining four
meanings of culture. Their semantic sense
encompasses the whole conceptualization system
which conditions perceptions and thought processes.
Their aesthetic sense includes cinema, literature,
music, and media, while their sociological one refers
to the organization and nature of family, interpersonal
relations, customs, material conditions, and so on.
Their pragmatic or sociolinguistic sense refers to the
background knowledge, social and paralinguistic
skills, and language code which are necessary for
successful communication. While not necessarily
all-inclusive or mutually exclusive, these aspects of
culture offer more cores to the common definition
above and reflect culture's many dimensions.
The different aspects and levels of culture
briefly outlined here obviously explain that the role
of what culture means in language education is varied.
In language teaching and learning, the issue of
defining culture is best viewed as a continuum. This
provides the ability to strain diverse dimensions of

culture at different points, and allows for major
differences language contexts. For language teachers
and learners in varied contexts, different aspects of
culture may well be more or less important at various
levels of language proficiency.
2.2 Culture Teaching in Language Education
Although some language teachers appear to
think that the presence of culture in recent writings is
relatively current, and evaluate of the language
literature shows that this is clearly not the case. The
early mold is marked: people learned a language in
order to read and study its literature. Allen (1985) has
summarized it: "...prior to the 1960s, the lines
between language and culture were carefully drawn.
The primary reason for language study in the earlier
part of this century was access to the great literary
masterpieces of civilization" (p. 138). As Flewelling
(1993, p. 339) comments, "it was through reading
that students learned of the civilization associated
with the target language." The sixties were also the
height of the audiolingual epoch in language teaching,
and the time when Brooks (1968) "emphasized the
importance of culture not for the study of literature
but for language learning."
In the 1970s, a highlighting on sociolinguistics
resulted in greater emphasis on the context and
condition where the language would be used.
Savignon's (1972) early study on communicative
competence, for example, recommended the "value
of training in communicative skills from the very
beginning of the language program" (p. 9). Culture's
role in the language curriculum grew, and influential
works by Seelye (1974) and Lafayette (1975)
appeared. 'The communicative approach' finally
replaced the audiolingual manner in many areas of
the world, and in describing their framework for
communicative ability, Canale and Swain (1980)
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declared that "a more natural integration" of language
and culture takes place "through a more
communicative approach than through a more
grammatically based approach" (p. 31).
Teacher-oriented texts (Hammerly, 1982; Higgs, 1984;
Omaggio, 1986; Rivers, 1981) now also included
detailed chapters on culture teaching for the language
class, reflecting the prevailing goal: communication
within the cultural context of the target language.
During the 1980s, Stern's (1983a) major work
standard the 'concepts of society' in language
teaching, and his (1983b) paper on the
multidimensional language curriculum suggested a
four component model that included a cultural
syllabus. In Europe, a focus on 'cultural studies'
developed in language teaching, as explain by Byram
(1989) and Murphy (1988).
In the 1990s, the cultural syllabus has been
supported by research in the National Core French
Study (Flewelling, 1994), and its importance was
reaffirmed in Stern's (1992) last book. The European
emphasis on cultural studies has developed further
(Shotton, 1991) and has also been supported by
empirical research (Buttjes, & Byram, 1990). In short,
'culture' in language education today is clearly much
more than great literature. As our understanding of
language and communication has evolved, the
importance of culture language education has
improved. This reality is reflected in current methods
of language learning and teaching, including the
current Tapestry approach (Scarcella, & Oxford,
1992).
That culture teaching and learning is a
developing area in useful linguistics is further
reflected in the growing list of current publications
(Cargill, 1987) that deal particularly with this aspect
of our work. As Higgs (1990) stated, it is the
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recognition of an “unbreakable bond between
language and culture that motivates our profession's
implicit commandment that 'thou shalt not teach
language without also teaching culture” (p. 74).
3. Language Teaching vs. Culture Teaching
As language educators, we teach and our
students learn about the culture of the language
whether or not we include it overtly in the curriculum.
This point was made by McLeod (1976, p. 212) some
years ago: "by teaching a language...one is inevitably
already teaching culture implicitly". Sociolinguistics
reveals why. For example, Brown (1990) questions
whether or not language may be value-free or
independent of cultural background. She concludes:
"there are values, presuppositions, about the nature of
life and what is good and bad in it, to be found in any
normal use of language." Such normal language use
is accurately what most language instructors seek to
teach.
Beyond this viewpoint, Buttjes (1990, p. 55)
refers to ethnographic language studies (Peters, &
Boggs, 1986) and summarizes several reasons why
"language and culture are from the start inseparably
connected":
1. Language acquisition does not follow a
universal sequence, but differs across cultures;
2. The process of becoming a competent
member of society is realized through exchanges of
language in particular social situations;
3. Every society orchestrates the ways in which
children participate in particular situations, and this,
in turn, affects the form, the function and the content
of children's utterances;
4. Caregivers' primary concern is not with
grammatical input, but with the transmission of
sociocultural knowledge;
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5. The native learner, in addition to language,
acquires also the paralinguistic patterns and the
kinesics of his or her culture. (Buttjes, 1990)
Having outlined these findings, Buttjes
cautions readers that "as in the case of first vs. second
language acquisition research, first and second
culture acquisition differ in many respects" (1990, p.
55). Two of his further observations also explain just
how language teaching is culture teaching:
1. Language codes cannot be taught in
isolation because processes of sociocultural
transmission are bound to be at work on many levels,
e.g. the contents of language exercises, the cultural
discourse of textbooks (Kramsch, 1988), and the
teacher's attitudes towards the target culture;
2. In their role of "secondary care givers"
language teachers need to go beyond monitoring
linguistic production in the classroom and become
aware of the complex and numerous processes of
intercultural mediation that any foreign language
learner undergoes... (Buttjes, 1990, pp. 55-56)
Thus, from this evidence and that provided by
Valdes (1990) in the paper referred to above, it is
clear that language teaching is indeed culture
teaching. Such a viewpoint is evident outside of the
fields of applied linguistics and second language
education as well, in writings on intercultural
communication (Luce and Smith [1987]). Consider
this sight from outside of the language education
literature:
Culture and communication are inseparable
because culture not only dictates who talks to whom,
about what, and how the communication proceeds, it
also helps to determine how people encode messages,
the meanings they have for messages, and the
conditions and circumstances under which various
messages may or may not be sent, noticed, or

interpreted... Culture...is the foundation of
communication. (Samovar, Porter, & Jain, 1981, p.
24)
We should and do teach our students the
language culture in our classes when our goal is
communicative competence. Not only is culture part
and parcel of the process, but also the educational
cost of it within language education is great, as
Byram (1988) argues.
The question arises, however, that if language
and culture are so intricately intertwined, why bother
overtly focusing on culture when there are so many
other aspects of the curriculum that need more
attention? As Kramsch, Cain, and Murphy-Lejeune
(1996) have answered this very question by outlining
historical reasons for a discourse-based "culture as
language and language as culture" pedagogy, the
short answer here includes several points. First of all,
we should include culture in our curriculum in an
intentional mode in order to keep away from the
stereotyping and pitfalls Nemni (1992) has outlined.
Second, though culture is indirect is what we teach,
to assume that those who are 'learning the language'
in our classes are also learning the cultural
knowledge and skills necessary to be able language
speakers denies the difficulty of culture, language
learning, and communication. The third reason for
particularly including culture in our language
curriculum is to facilitate teachers to do a better job
teaching culture and to be more responsible to
students for the culture learning that takes place in
our language classes.
4. Conclusion
Language is culture. When a person chooses to
learn French, for example, he or she is not merely
interesting the linguistics of the language, but
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everything to do with French and France. What he or
she is taking in includes all the preconceptions about
the French language that, that it is romantic, it is
beautiful, that it is spoken along the Seine, and so on.
Languages come with some cultural associations
attached.
By speaking the language, therefore, one
automatically makes parallel oneself with the culture
of the language. To speak a language well, one has to
be able to think in that language, and thought is very
powerful. A person's mind is in a sense the centre of
his identity, so if a person thinks in French in order to
speak French, one might say that he has, in a way,
almost taken on a French identity. That is the essence
and the power of a language. Language is culture.
Language is the spirit of the country and people who
speak it.
We believe that the role of culture in all aspects
of education and language are at the core of
promoting global harmony and peace. The language
and culture that each individual brings to the
classroom must be taken into account.
Therefore we believe that language education is not
an end in itself, but the bridge to a unified
multi-cultural society when it taps the students'
cultural and language heritage. Students move toward
into the classroom with both community and
individual languages and cultures. It is important to
tap the cultural/language heritage and knowledge of
each student to supply the foundation for a helpful
curriculum. Such inventive methodologies used in
Langer's work (1994a; Langer, in press) can be
looked upon as starting points for curriculum
development in language education programs.
Langer's research develop the students' cultural and
language heritage via narratives. In so doing, students
employ their cultural and language heritage while
遠東學報第二十卷第四期 中華民國九十二年九月二十日出版
learning new skills. Curricular emphasis on cultural
diversity need not mean group isolation and
separation, but rather should enhance students'
awareness and ability to understand the
interconnectedness of cultures and peoples.
Beyond current practice, several areas need to be
investigated in order to further develop our
understanding of the role of culture in language
education.
One area that needs to be addressed from the
start concerns both teacher and student perceptions of
the importance of culture learning in various
language contexts and programs. How important do
they think culture is in learning a language? Are
certain types of teachers or learners more open to or
motivated about language culture learning? What do
they think about important in a cultural syllabus?
While primary work has been done in language, by
Lessard-Clouston (1996) and Prodromou (1992),
more such information about other languages and
contexts is required. What aspects of culture teaching
do teachers want to progress? What resources do
teachers need to teach more effectively? Which areas
are most difficult? What methods do teachers use,
and how successful are they? How do students
respond to such lessons? Morgan (1993) has study
how culture is evident in course syllabuses, but more
also requests to be known about authentic classroom
practice. Language studies will need to be carried out
to address the performance aspects of cultural
proficiency. What cultural behaviors and mold do
language students need to learn, at what levels? Are
acquired language cultural mold easily maintained?
Over time, do students learn better if they have a
greater interest in or tendency for culture learning?
Do students who have spent a summer or extended
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periods in the language culture take significantly
cultural competence or greater motivation?
Clearly, a final issue is development of a
theoretical framework for culture learning in the
future language class, particularly based on research
in language education in the areas outlined above.
How does one's view of culture in language
education impact his or her learning and/or teaching?
Is a continuum definition of culture really valid?
These questions and issues need future research in
order to lead us towards a deeper understanding of
the role of culture in language education.
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