APPLIED LINGUISTICS for BA Students in English
CULTURE IN TEACHING ENGLISH
The definition of culture
It is not an easy task to define culture. If we look up an old Webster’s Dictionary, we will find the following definitions of culture:
1. the cultivation of soil
2. the training of mind
3. the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions and all other products of human work and thought
4. ways of behavior of a given people
5. culture with capital ‘C’ mean formal culture or achievement culture consisting of literature, fine arts, music, architecture, etc.
6. culture with ‘small c’ means way of life culture or behavior culture containing patterns of daily living, attitudes and values.
Hammerly (2001) has designed a scheme in which there are three categories of culture including information or factual culture, which refers to informational facts that an average native speaker would know about his society, such as geographical or historical facts. The second category covers behavioral culture which refers to actual behavior, such as conversational formulas, which Hammerly believes is the most essential for foreign language learning. Lastly achievement or accomplishment culture refers to artistic and literary accomplishments related to the particular target language group.
If we look at the definitions cited above, we can see that culture, on the one hand is what people created or achieved: art, music, literature, history and on the other hand it means the way we develop for our percept, by which we mean our belief, value, attitude system, our world view and our social organizations. This second category had stronger influence on the former one since our value- and attitude system, the way we see the world around us shapes our creation.
