Language and Culture

 

What is Culture?

 Language and Culture

Culture and Foreign Language Teaching


Culture Acoording to Expert:

    Culture indicates all aspects that members of a group share together. Children learn ways of doing things, ways of talking, smiling, laughing, liking and disliking things. Culture determines people‟s action, their social relationship and their morality (Gurito, 2003: p 1).

    Culture is that which the language learner needs to know in order to understand the meaning of the message in anotherlanguage other than the formal properties of the language code (syntax, morphology and phonology) (Dwyer, 1996: p.3).

From these definitions, we can get some ideas about culture. Culture is a tradition that is carried out from generation to generation which is unique in each region and language is communication either written or spoken.

For examples:

1. - Traditional Dance (Tari Tradisional)

- Finger Cut Ceremony (Upacara potong jari)

- Rock Jump (Lompat Batu)

- Puppet (Wayang)






- My culture in Nias, the way we dress must be polite, but in Jakarta the way they dress is very sexy.

- In Nias, there are family name in the las of the name, but here, nothing.

- Difference of dialect when we use Indonesia languages.

- And so on.

“Yaahowu” is special meaning to the society. You should use this word if it is a custom event, visiting, meeting new people, Easter, Christmas, and various others. So Yaahowu said it is very meaningful in terms of life.



1. Example between my native language and my culture (Nias)

A: Can you help me for a moment?” (Tola o tolodo?)

B: I will help you later (Sabata ua) If the answer like this, the answer is, He/She will not help you. A: “Can I help you?” (Hadia zitola utolo?)

B: Please do your business (Halowogo halowomo!) If the answer like this, the answer is, He/She doesn’t need your help

A: „Would you like something a coffee?” (Omasi o’ kofi?)

B: “I have problem with my stomach (Afokho dalugu) If the answer like this, the answer is, He/She need different drink


When I was elementary school, my teacher was teaching me by using Indonesia languages and sometimes Nias Island. For examples “I” in Nias means “yaodo” and “yauge” means “you”. It’s not formal but in English is same.


Language teachers have been at the business of incorporating cultural information into their foreign language classes, long before it became popular to do so. While these teachers may not have used the term culture, they are certainly aware of the fact that one does not communicate in a foreign language by grammar and vocabulary alone. Yet now that experts are suggesting that teachers add „culture‟ to their language classrooms the situation becomes problematic because it is not really clear what this means in practice. (Dwyer, 1996)


It is important for language teachers to learn about the culture of the people who use the language. By understanding the culture, it will be easier for the language teachers to understand the language and to teach the language to their students. Some materials are easier to be explained by relating them to culture. Some experts believe that it is better to use the students‟ cultural context when teaching a foreign language. They believe that it is easier for the students to learn the language when they are familiar with the context. Others believe that it is better to use the target language cultural context so that they can learn the language in its natural settings.


THANK YOU

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