Cultural Awareness. Barry Tomalin

awareness is the term we have used to describe sensitivity to the impact of culturally-induced behaviour on language use and communication. ‘Cross-cultural awareness’ in this book covers British and American life and institutions, beliefs, and values, as well as everyday attitudes and feelings conveyed not only by language, but by paralinguistic features such as dress, gesture, facial expression, stance, and movement.

      In writing this book, we chose the term cultural awareness because we felt it most successfully encompassed the three qualities which the activities were designed to develop, namely:

      – awareness of one’s own culturally-induced behaviour;

      – awareness of the culturally-induced behaviour of others;

      – ability to explain one’s own cultural standpoint.

      Although cross-cultural interaction is one of the fastest-growing areas of language study, the systematic study of cross-cultural interaction may be new for many teachers. For this reason it is important to explore a number of background questions which teachers have asked.

Why is the study of cross-cultural interaction important?

      A number of factors, both linguistic and socio-economic, have raised the study of cross-cultural interaction to high international profile in recent years. They are:

      1 The rise in economic importance of the Pacific Rim countries

      Countries such as Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Thailand have very different traditions and cultural behaviours from the traditional ELT heartlands of Europe and North America. As increasing numbers of students have travelled abroad to learn English, there has been a re-evaluation of teaching content to take account of the need to explore and explain cultural differences in greater detail.

      2 The influence of increased immigration on curricula

      Teachers of English as a second or foreign language in English-speaking countries have long recognized the need to teach the way of life of the host country to immigrants. However, in recent years, a more open recognition of the need to understand the immigrant community’s way of life has led to a more critical awareness of the host community’s culture.

      3 The study of pragmatics

      Linguistic studies in the field of pragmatics (the ways in which language use is influenced by social context) have heightened awareness of the degree to which cross-cultural communication is affected by culturally-related factors. Such factors include people’s expectations regarding the appropriate level of formality and degree of politeness in discourse.

      4 The study of non-verbal aspects of communication

      Of crucial importance has been the work on non-verbal aspects of communication such as gesture, posture, and facial expression. Studies have shown these non-verbal elements to be the most culturally-influenced part of behaviour.

      All these different factors are reflected in the activities in this book.

What culture do we teach?

      The study of British and American/Canadian life and institutions has been a traditional part of school curricula in Europe and North America. Sometimes it has taken the form of special courses, such as Civilisation in France, Landeskunde in Germany, and Civiltà in Italy. These courses emphasize the ‘big C’ elements of British and American culture – history, geography, institutions, literature, art, and music – and the way of life.

      We have to recognize that the subject itself has broadened as a result of the influences described above. ‘Big C’ (‘achievement culture’) remains as it was, but ‘little c’ (‘behaviour culture’) has been broadened to include culturally-influenced beliefs and perceptions, especially as expressed through language, but also through cultural behaviours that affect acceptability in the host community. Gail Robinson (1985), an American researcher in the area of cross-cultural education, reports that when teachers are asked, ‘What does culture mean to you?’, the most common responses fall into three interrelated categories: products, ideas, and behaviours. The broadening of ‘little c’ (behaviour culture) can be expressed through the following diagram.

      ‘Big C’ culture has benefited from a clearly identified curriculum of topics to be covered, and textbooks which deal with them. The culturally-influenced behaviours which constitute ‘little c’ culture have tended to be treated in an anecdotal, peripheral, or supplementary way, depending on the interest and awareness of teachers and students. In our view, the study of culturally-influenced behaviour should arise out of the language material being studied, but should nevertheless be clearly identified and systematically treated as a regular feature of the language lesson.