Intercultural Awareness and Competence Through a Combination of Cultural Subjectivity and Diversity
Starting with the concepts and relations of subject, subjectivity and intersubjectivity,the thesis focuses upon the significance of subjectivity characteristic of English learners and argues that only through subjectivity can they establish individual intercultural awareness and competence, develop a sense of cultural identity, gain an understanding of their target language/culture and realize a diversity of cultures in the world. Any attempt to forget their mother tongue and own culture in learning a foreign language is not only misleading but also damaging because the result will be a negative transfer instead of a positive one, which weakens their subjectivity and causes communication barriers. Language and culture are not only closely intertwined with each other but also inseparable from their subjects-language learners. In this case, the task of intercultural language teaching is to help students develop their intercultural awareness and competence by comparison of similarities and differences between their own language/culture and the target language /culture so as to motivate them to communicate effectively with people from a different culture, initiate them to learn the skills needed for effective communication and enable them to gain the ability to put their knowledge into use. Coupled with China English, biculturalism is playing a more and more important role in intercultural language teaching and learning among Chinese students with the rapid development of Chinas economy and the rapid expansion of her international influence. The recognition of this trend is vital because it will encourage both our teachers and students to establish their confidence in their own subjectivity and to achieve success in intercultural communication.
Subjectivity intercultural communication awareness competence biculturalism
Wang Tao
Nanjing University
国际会议
The Third Asia-TEFL International Conference(亚洲英语教师协会第三届国际会议)
北京
英文
238-246
2005-11-04（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）