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On Exposure of English Biblical Culture to Chinese College Students from the Perspective of Cross-Culture

Author: WangLan
Tutor: RenDongSheng
School: Ocean University of China
Course: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Keywords: the Exposure of English Biblical Culture the Perspective of Cross-Culture Investigation Non-English Majors
CLC: H319
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2010
Downloads: 217
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Abstract

Language and religion have all been identified as major components of culture: language, as the most distinctive part of culture, embodies culture and reflects culture in a symbolic system; religion, one of the most essential parts in culture’s deep structure, plays a dominant role in other components of culture. Naturally, the link between language and religion can be presented as: language reflects and embodies religion as part of culture, and on the other way around, religion as a determiner affects language in a profound way. Christianity, one of the bedrocks of western culture, plays a vital and essential part in Western civilizations. Bible is the cannon of Christianity, thus biblical culture inevitably has penetrated every phase in the evolution of modern Western civilizations and woven into every fabric in today’s Western culture. Therefore the Biblical culture exerts overwhelming influence upon English language not only in major English speaking countries but also across the globe as an international lingua franca. It is well acknowledged that proper understandings in target language culture greatly facilitate effective cross-cultural communications, help in diminishing cross-cultural shocks and conflicts to a notably large extent, and eventually promote beneficial communications between cultures. The ability cultivation of cross-cultural communication has been set as a major goal in“The College English Curriculum Requirements (for Trial Implementation)”promulgated in 2004 by the Division of Higher Education in Ministry of Education.From the perspective of cross-culture, this paper has conducted a detailed survey and analysis pertaining to the manifestation of English Biblical culture in“New Horizon College English”, the college English textbooks employed by non-English majors in Yantai University; afterwards, this paper has completed an exploratory multi-purpose investigation on the exposure of English Biblical influence among altogether 162 non-English majors of freshmen and sophomores in Yantai University, and the data feedbacks are processed by rudimentary analyses in quantitative and qualitative professional approaches. The assumption before the survey according to the traditional mainstream pedagogy-- the language proficiency cultivation includes cultural competence cultivation, thus there is a strong degree of positive correlation between English Biblical cultural testing scores and the scores of CET4. Through regression analysis, the survey discovers that there is a low degree of positive correlation between English Biblical cultural testing scores and the scores of CET4. Through the mean and variance analysis on the data of English Biblical cultural testing scores respectively for freshmen and sophomores, new evidences manifest there is almost complete blankness in the English Biblical cultural competence both for freshmen and sophomores; moreover, time invested in college English has little influence on the improvement of English Biblical cultural competence. In reference to the analysis from the investigation on the cross-cultural difficulties respectively for freshman and sophomores, the paper reaches conclusions as follows: There is no strong degree of positive correlation between language proficiency cultivation and cultural competence cultivation; English Biblical cultural competence has been ignored to a great degree in the college English teaching process at Yantai University,thus in turn the ignorance of biblical cultural competence to a large extent has directly compromised students’ability in cross-cultural communication.Taking the relationship between religion and language as the entry point, this paper restores the religious nature of English Biblical culture, and recognizes its prevailing impact on Western culture. In the light of improving students’cross-cultural tolerance and their abilities in cross-cultural communication, this paper strives to arouse due attention to the English Biblical culture in Colleges teachers and students in process of college English teaching and learning. The purpose of the paper is to serve as one small step towards the future research on exposure or influence of English Biblical Culture to the Chinese college students.

On Exposure of English Biblical Culture to Chinese College Students from the Perspective of Cross-Culture

Abstract

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