Power
LITERATURE REVIEW
The Definition of Culture
Culture is defined with different terms depending on the time and personal idea of the scholar and for that reason it is a really complex phenomenon. Kramsch(1998) defines culture as ‘membership in a discourse community that shares a common social space and history, and common imaginings.(p.10). On the other hand, Liddicoat, Papademetre , Scarino and Kohler(2003) describe culture as
a complex system of concepts, attitudes, values, beliefs, conventions, behaviours, practices, rituals and lifestyle of the people who make up a cultural group, as well as the artefacts they produce and the institutions they create.(p.45)
In a study by Yajuan (2009), the author defines and categorizes the term under two broad titles. The first one is called as ‘advanced’ or ‘formal’ culture, which is in connection with civilization. It is also referred to as ‘cultural knowledge information’. The second category is ‘popular culture’ or ‘deep culture’, which is more related to everyday life and living style.
The Place of Culture in EFL Classes
As an undeniable fact, language and culture have an interdependent relationship and this relation is described with different terms in some studies such as linguaculture (Friedrich,1989) and languaculture(Risager,2005). Given the fact that the culture exerts considerable influence on language patterns and pragmatic use of it in a certain community, it is of great importance for a language learner to make great effort to develop his/her cultural awareness in that process.Mitchell and Myles(2004) express that ‘language and culture are not separate, but are acquired together, with each providing support for the development of the other’ (p.235). In order to understand the details of the matter clearly, it is necessary to define term ‘culture learning’ because there has been a great change in attitudes and approaches towards the incorporation of certain elements into ‘culture learning’
The Definition of Culture
Culture is defined with different terms depending on the time and personal idea of the scholar and for that reason it is a really complex phenomenon. Kramsch(1998) defines culture as ‘membership in a discourse community that shares a common social space and history, and common imaginings.(p.10). On the other hand, Liddicoat, Papademetre , Scarino and Kohler(2003) describe culture as
a complex system of concepts, attitudes, values, beliefs, conventions, behaviours, practices, rituals and lifestyle of the people who make up a cultural group, as well as the artefacts they produce and the institutions they create.(p.45)
In a study by Yajuan (2009), the author defines and categorizes the term under two broad titles. The first one is called as ‘advanced’ or ‘formal’ culture, which is in connection with civilization. It is also referred to as ‘cultural knowledge information’. The second category is ‘popular culture’ or ‘deep culture’, which is more related to everyday life and living style.
The Place of Culture in EFL Classes
As an undeniable fact, language and culture have an interdependent relationship and this relation is described with different terms in some studies such as linguaculture (Friedrich,1989) and languaculture(Risager,2005). Given the fact that the culture exerts considerable influence on language patterns and pragmatic use of it in a certain community, it is of great importance for a language learner to make great effort to develop his/her cultural awareness in that process.Mitchell and Myles(2004) express that ‘language and culture are not separate, but are acquired together, with each providing support for the development of the other’ (p.235). In order to understand the details of the matter clearly, it is necessary to define term ‘culture learning’ because there has been a great change in attitudes and approaches towards the incorporation of certain elements into ‘culture learning’
References: Alptekin, C. (1996). Target-language Culture in EFL materials. In T. Hedge, & N. Whitney (Eds.), Power, pedagogy and practice (pp. 53-61). Oxford: Oxford University Press Alptekin, C. (2002). Towards intercultural communicative competence. ELT Journal, 56(1), 57-64 Bennett, M. J. (1993). How not to be a fluent fool: Understanding the cultural dimension of language . The Language Teacher, 27(9). Pennycook, A. (1989). The concept of method, interested knowledge, and the politics of language yeaching. TESOL Quarterly, 23(4),589-618