社会文化视角下文化语境在二语习得中的作用

The Function of Context of Culture in SLA form a Sociocultural PerspectivesAbstract:The context of culture is more and more important in the second language acquisition(SLA). This article will analyze the relation among the context of culture,SLA and the Sociocultural theory, the effect and function of context of culture from Sociocultural Perspectives in SFL, and thereby aims to bring and raise SLA's awareness of the importance of context of culture.Key words: Sociocultural Perspectives Context of Culture SLA1.IntroductionPeople's communication is carried out in a certain language environment, that is in the context. A Japanese student in the U.S. was killed because he failed to understand the meaning of―Freeze!‖ This tragedy has told us correct grammar couldn’t make ourselves understood in intercultural communication, that is to say, the textbook-based knowledge of a foreign language does not grant us communicate with foreigners fluently without misunderstanding. Hardly addressed in the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom, polysemous and other contextually motivated usages in the target language are often elusive to its learners. If the learners aspire to use English as a living language, then their awareness of English pragmatics, that is, how English functions in natural contexts, especially in cultural context, needs to be enhanced. This paper discusses the role and reason why cultural context is worthy our attention including several important types of culture-specific expressions. And which requires SLA’s learners study and pay more attention to these complicated cultural knowledge, then it can make them stronger intercultural competence.In the process of translation, context is even more important. This article aims to present examples to demonstrate the impact of context on translation. Context refers not only to a sentence, a paragraph or a part of an article, but also the entire scene with the event-related background and the environment. Semantics depends on the context and also influenced by context. Communication takes place through a medium and in situations that are limited in time and place. Each specific situation determines what and how people communicate, and it is changed by people communicating. Situations are not universal but are embedded in a cultural habitat, which in turn conditions the situation. Language is thus to be regarded as part of culture. And communication is conditioned by the constraints of the situation-in-culture. So is translation as a form of cross-cultural communication. The complexity of translation, one of the most complex things in human history, lies in the multitude of and the delicate relationship among its relevant factors. Translation is never innocent. There is always a context in which translation takes place, always a history from which a text emerges and into which a text is transposed. The situation-in-culture has been given much emphasis.Looking back at the past 15 years in the field of second language acquisition (SLA),V ygotskian sociocultural theory, learning as changing partic ipation in situated practices, Bakhtin and the dialogic perspective and critical theory. Related to the arrival of these perspectives, the SLA field has also witnessed debates concerning understandings of learning and the construction of theory. The debate discussed in this article involves conflicting ontologies. We argue that the traditional positivist paradigm is no longer the only prominent paradigm in the field: Relativism has become an alternative paradigm. Tensions, debates and a growing diversity of theories are healthy and stimulating for a field like SLA.In this article, we characterize the several most important developments in the SLA field over the past 15 years. Although research and findings in the early decades of SLA were major accomplishments, we believe that the developments of the past 15 years are better characterized asontological, manifested in part as debates and issues. More specifically, we address the arrival of sociocultural perspectives in SLA and then discuss .SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON SLAThese more recent arrivals to the field of SLA—sociocultural perspectives2on language and learning—view language use in real-world situations as fundamental, not ancillary, to learning. These researchers focus not on language as input, but as a resource for participation in the kinds of activities our everyday lives comprise. Participation in these activities is both the product and the process of learning. We provide brief summaries of the sociocultural perspectives we find typically invoked in recent SLA research, mentioning relevant studies. We do not, however, refer to all studies that draw on these perspectives. Readers are urged to see Lantolf (2000) for an overview of Vygotskian SLA studies and Zuengler and Cole (2005) for a review of language socialization research in second language learning. The order we have chosen is somewhat arbitrary. We begin, however, with Vygotskian sociocultural theory and language socialization because one or the other is often positioned as the primary theoretical framework. These two also seem to be invoked more frequently than situated learning theory, Bakhtinian approaches to language, or critical theories of discourse and social relations—the remaining perspectives we discuss. Segregating these sociocultural perspectives into their own sections allows us to address their unique disciplinary roots and contributions to SLA. Thoughwe believe researchers must take care in how they bring together these varying approaches, given their distinctiveness, we suggest that the ―hybrid interdisciplinarity‖ that many SLA scholars practice (Rampton, Roberts, Leung, & Harris, 2002, p. 373) has been productive and mirrorsthe increasing interdisciplinarity found in much of the current social science research. Vygotskian Sociocultural TheorySLA research using Vygotskian sociocultural theory first began to appear in the mid-1980s (Frawley & Lantolf, 1984, 1985) but quickly gained momentum in the mid-1990s with a special issue of the Modern Language Journal (Lantolf, 1994), devoted to sociocultural theory and second language learning. That same year, an edited volume appeared(Lantolf & Appel, 1994), and the first of a series of annual meetings dedicated to sociocultural research in SLA convened in Pittsburgh. Since then, conference presentations and publications taking this approach to SLA have only increased. Like traditional cognitive approaches to learning, Vygotskian sociocultural theory is fundamentally concerned with understanding the development of cognitive processes. However, its distinctiveness from traditional cognitive approaches can best be highlighted by citing Vygotsky: ―The social dimension of consciousness [i.e., all mental processes] is primary in time and fact. The individual dimension of consciousness is derivative and secondary‖ (1979, p.30). Lantolf and Pavlenko (1995) clarify that even though Vygotskian sociocultural theory does not deny a role for biological constraints, ―development does not proceed as the unfolding of inborn capacities, but as the transformation of innate capacities once they intertwine with socioculturally constructed meditational means‖ (p. 109). These means are the socioculturally meaningful artifacts and symbolic systems of a society, the most important of which is language. Of significance for SLA research is the understanding that when learners appropriate mediational means, such as language, made available as they interact in socioculturally meaningful activities, these learners gain control over their own mental activity and can begin to function independently. And as Lantolf (2000) notes, ―according toVygotsky, this is what development is about‖ (p. 80).SLA researchers have focused on learners’ linguistic development in the zone of proximal development (ZPD), Vygotsky’s conception of what an individual can accomplish when working in collaboration with others (more) versus what he or she could have accomplished without collaboration with others (less). The ZPD points to that individual’s learning potential, that is, what he or she may be able to do independently in the future (Adair-Hauck & Donato, 1994; Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994; Anton, 1999, 2000; DiCamilla & Anton, 1997; Nassaji & Cumming, 2000; Ohta, 2000; Swain & Lapkin, 1998). Others have focused on the use of private speech or speech directed to oneself that mediates mental behavior. Private speech manifests the process in which external, social forms of interaction come to be appropriated for inner speech or mental development (Anton & DiCamilla, 1998; McCafferty, 1994, 2004b; see also McCafferty, 2004a). Still others have focused on activity theory and taskbased approaches to second language teaching and learning (Coughlan& Duff, 1994; McCafferty, Roebuck, & Wayland, 2001; Parks, 2000; Storch, 2004; Thorne, 2003).Language SocializationLanguage socialization researchers, including those in SLA, closely identify with Vygotskian sociocultural approaches to learning (see Ochs, 1988; Schiefflin & Ochs, 1986; Watson-Gegeo, 2004; Watson-Gegeo & Nielson, 2003). But in contrast to a disciplinary history in psychology and a focus on cognitive development, this theory emerged from anthropology with an interest in understanding the development of socially and culturally competent members of society. In her introduction to an edited volume comprising language socialization studies among childrenin a variety of cultures, Ochs comments that she and her co-editor, Schieffelin (1986), ―take for granted . . . that the development of intelligence and knowledge is facilitated (to an extent) by children’s communication with others,‖ and instead emphasize the ―sociocultural information [that] is generally encoded in the organization of conversational discourse‖ (pp. 2–3). As such, language socialization research has investigated the interconnected processes of linguistic and cultural learning in discourse practices, interactional routines, and participation structures and roles.3Although language socialization research in the 1980s largely investigated ways in which children are socialized into the social practices of a community, by the mid-1990s the language socialization approach was being applied to adult second language learners (see, e.g., Duff, 1995; Harklau, 1994; Poole, 1992). Whether at home, in the classroom, at work, or in any number of other environments, language learners are embedded in and learn to become competent participants in culturally, socially, and politically shaped communicative contexts. The linguistic forms used in these contexts and their social significance affect how learners come to understand and use language. In a recent review of language socialization research in SLA, Zuengler and Cole (2005) observed that even though some studies portray socialization as a smooth and successful process (e.g., Kanagy, 1999; Ohta, 1999), many other studies, mostly classroom based, demonstrate ―language socialization as potentially problematic, tension producing, and unsuccessful‖ (p. 306). For example, some researchers have found that school socialization processes can have negative effects on second language learning (Atkinson, 2003; Duff & Early, 1999; Rymes, 1997; Willet, 1995) and others have observed contradictory home and school socialization processes, which often result in students’ r elatively unsuccessful socialization to school norms (Crago, 1992; Moore, 1999; Watson-Gegeo, 1992). These findings, among others, point to the shifting emphasis in language socialization research to the sociopolitical dimensionsof discourse and social organization and their implications for language learning (Watson-Gegeo, 2004). Like language socialization, situated learning theory, to which we now turn, underscores the role of social identity and relationships as well as the historical and practical conditions of language use in learning.IMPLICATIONS OF SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVESFOR CLASSROOM PRACTICEHall (2002) observes that traditional SLA approaches seek to identify good pedagogical interventions that will most effectively ―facilitate learners’ ass imilation of new systemic knowledge into known knowledge structures‖ (p. 48). However, given their different understandings of language learning, socioculturally informed studies offer much different recommendations for improving classroom practice. For example, in seeing learning as participation, as relational and interactive, and as constrained by unequal power relations, Lave and Wenger’s perspective asks educators to consider how the practices of school relate to those outside of school, how schools and classrooms themselves are organized into communities of practice, and what kinds of participation are made accessible to students.Other studies taking sociocultural perspectives have examined classroom interactions or discourse patterns with an eye toward identifying those that best facilitate student participation (Gutierrez, Rymes, & Larsen, 1995; Nassaji & Wells, 2000; Nystrand, Gamoran, Zeiser, & Long,2003; Tharp & Gallimore, 1991). Still others have examined such topics as the kinds of guided or scaffolded assistance from teachers (or other experts) that can move students along within their ZPD (Aljaafreh &Lantolf, 1994; Anton, 1999; McCormick & Donato, 2000; Nassaji & Cumming, 2000), the effectiveness of goal-oriented dialogue between peers to mediate learning (Donato, 1994; Ohta, 2000; Swain & Lapkin,1998), and the need for dialogic and contextually sensitive approaches to language assessment ( Johnson, 2001, 2004). These studies are only a few among many, but they share the sociocultural awareness that highly situated classroom participation promotes language learning.We acknowledge that we do not specify general recommendations for transforming classroom practices, primarily because we are aware of the limits of what can be generalized across classroom contexts. Hall (2000) speaks to the situatedness of learning processes in saying that―effecting change in our classrooms will not result from imposing solutions from outside but from nurturing effectual practices that are indigenous to our particul ar contexts‖ (p. 295). Clearly, thisis no easy task for educators. It requires ongoing and intense work with every group of students and reflective awareness of how the affective and political dimensions of classroom life affect individual students’ parti cipation. However, with the increased awareness and sensitivity to local contexts that sociocultural perspectives bring us, we have reason to hope that we are closer to understanding and creating the kinds of classroom communities that learners need.language learning is essentially social.Target language interaction cannot be viewed simply as a source of “input”for autonomous and internal learning mechanism. But it has a much more central role to play in learning.Interaction itself constitutes the learning process, which is quite essentially social rather than individual in nature.The social-cultural belief in the centrality of language is a “tool for thought”, or a means if mediation, in mental activity.From the socio-cultural point of view, learning is also a mediated process. It is mediated partly through learner’s developing use and control of mental tools. Importantly is also seen as socially mediated, that is to say, it is dependent on face-to-face interaction and shared processes, such as joint problem solving and discussion.The mature, skilled individual is capable of autonomous functioning, that is of self-regulation. However, the child or the unskilled individual learns by carrying out tasks and activities under the guidance of other more skilled individuals, initially through a process of other-regulation, typically mediated through language.Successful learning involves a shift from collaborative inter-mental activity to autonomous intra-mental activity. The process of supportive dialogue which directs the attention of the learner to key features of environment, and which prompts them through successive steps of a problem, has come to be known as scaffolding.Sociocultural theory of human mental processingHe argued that language develops primarily from social interaction.The zone of proximal development，often abbreviated ZPD, is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help.V ygotsky stated that a child follows an adult's example and gradually develops the ability to do certain tasks without help.V ygotsky's often-quoted definition of zone of proximal development presents it as:―the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers. For example, two 8-yesr-old children may be able to complete a task that an average 8-yesr-old can do. Next, more difficult tasks are presented with very little assistance from an adult. In the end, both children were able to complete the task. However, the styles methods they chose depended on how far they were willing to stretch their thinking process.”V ygotsky and some educators believe the role of education is to give children experiences that are within their zones of proximal development, thereby to encourage and advance their individual learning.V ygotsky’s sociocultural theory in SLALanguage development takes place in the social interactions between individuals. L2 learners advance to higher levels of linguistic knowledge when they collaborate and interact with speakers of L2 who are more knowledgeable than they are (Lantolf).A learner is capable to learn in the zone of proximal development(ZPD) when there is support from interaction with a more advanced interlocutor.Vygotsky inspired research and its application to second and foreign language developmental processes and pedagogies. Vygotskian cultural-historical psychology, often called sociocultural theory in applied linguistics and SLAresearch (see discussion below), offers a framework through which cognition can be systematically investigated without isolating it from social context. As Lantolf (2004: 30–1) explains, ‘despite the label“sociocultural” the theory is not a theory of the social or of the cultural aspects of human existence . ... it is, rather, ... a theory of mind ... that recognizes the central role that social relationships and culturally constructed artifacts play in organizing uniquely human forms of thinking’.The relationships between human mental functioning and the activities of everyday life are both many and highly consequential. Participation in culturally organized practices, life-long involvement in a variety of institutions, and humans’ ubiquitous use of tools and artifacts (including language) strongly and qualitatively impact cognitive development and functioning. Within the Vygotskian tradition, culture is understood as an objective force that infuses social relationships and the historically developed uses of artifacts in concrete activity. An understanding of culture as objective implies that human activity structures, and is structured by, enduring conceptual properties of the social and material world. In this sense, culture is 1) supra-individual and independent of any single person, and 2) rooted in the historical production of value and significance as realized in shared social practice 1 (See Bakhurst 1991; Cole 1996 for discussions.) Language use and development are at the core of this objective characterization of culture both at the level of local interaction (actual communicative activity) as well as that of society and the nation state in arenas such as language policies, language ideologies, and public education as mass social intervention (to name but a few). As we will discuss briefly below and in greater detail in the chapters dealing with mediation, culturally constructed meaning is the primary means that humans use to organize and control their mental functioning and for this reason, language development and use plays a central role in Vygotsky’s theory of mind.Sociocultural theory is a theory of the development of higher mental functions that has its roots in eighteenth and nineteenth century German philosophy (particularly that of Kant and Hegel), the sociological and economic writings of Marx and Engels (specifically Theses on Feuerbach and The German Ideology), and which emerges most directly from the research of the Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky and his colleagues. While research establishing the relevance of culture to the formation of human mental life has been carried out within the social sciences for over a century, contemporary neuroscience research also demonstrates that phylogenetically recent cortical areas of the brain (specifically the prefrontal cortex) are hyper-adaptive to use and experience. (See LeDoux 2002.) A growing mass of evidence from a variety of disciplines has established strong connections between culture, language, and cognition, and this is nowhere more relevant than in application to organized education, where environment, information, and behavioral processes are (ostensibly) engineered to create optimal conditions for learning and development.Before we proceed further, we think that it is necessary a terminological clarification. In part due to its use by multiple research communities, there has been considerable and understandable debate about the label ‘sociocultural theory’—what it means, who it belongs to, and what its intellectual lineageis. (A colloquium at the American Association for Applied Lantolf & Thorne (forthcoming in 2005): Chapter 1 3Linguistics organized by Zuengler and Cole (2004) addressed this very issue.) There exists a general use of the term‘sociocultural’, sometimes hyphenated as ‘socio-cultural’, in general reference to social and cultural contexts of human activity (for example, Heath 1983; Ochs 1987; Ochs and Schieffelin 1984). L2 researchers, most especially Norton (2000) and her colleagues (Norton and Toohey 2004), have also situated their research within the broader socio-cultural domain. This research is concerned primarily with socialization and the discursive construction of identities (for example, gender, foreigner, native, worker, child, etc.) and is certainly theoretically commensurate with the intellectual project we develop with this volume. However, the term ‘sociocultural theory’ as we use it is meant to invoke a much more specific association with the work of Vygotsky 2 and the tradition of Russian culturalhistorical psychology, especially within applied linguistics research. (See Donato 1994; Frawley and Lantolf 1985; Lantolf 2000; Lantolf and Appel 1994; Swain 2000; Thorne 2000b; 2005.) Moreover, it is heavily focused on the impact of culturally organized and socially enacted meanings on the formation and functioning of mental activity. Our adoption of the term ‘sociocultural theory’ in this second and more constrained sense presents a paradox in that it is unlikely that Vygotsky himself ever used the term. James Wertsch, in particular, has encouraged the adoption of‘sociocultural’ over ‘cultural-historical’ to intentionally differentiate the appropriation of Vygotskian theory into the West from certain negative entailments found in the Russian tradition. (See Wertsch, del Río, and Alvarez 1995.) The critique is that the term ‘cultural-historical’ brings with it colonialist and evolutionist overtones that position industrialized societies as superior to developing societies and those without Western scientific cultures and literacies. While we agree that this is a serious problem in much of the post-enlightenment and early twentieth-century research in psychology, education, linguistics, and anthropology, in our estimation a simple name change does not rectify the situation. Another common usage problem is that the choice of‘sociocultural’ provokes confusion in that this term is used in a wide array of current as well as historical research that is in no way linked to the Marxist psychology that emerged in the writings of Vygotsky, Luria, and A. N. Leont’ev. Lantolf & Thorne (forthcoming in 2005): Chapter 1 4 In sum, and despite our preference for the label ‘cultural-historical psychology’, due to the inertia and name recognition of ‘sociocultural theory’ (hereafter SCT) for the multiple lineages of Vygotsky-inspired research in applied linguistics, we continue with this convention (and have been urged by our publisher to do so). While current SCT approaches include numerous and somewhat divergent emphases, all would agree with Wertsch (1995:56) that ‘the goal of [such] research is to understand the relationship between human mental functioning, on the one hand, and cultural, historical, and institutional s etting, on the other’.The remainder of this introductory chapter has two primary goals: to present an overview of the organization of the book, and to outline an orientation to language and communicative activity that is compatible with the theory of mind and mental development that informs our discussion of L2 learning.Two categories of context•Context of culture•Context of situation( Malinknowski, 1923)•Context of culture means the total way of life of a people, which refers to the patterns of customs, traditions, social habits, values, beliefs and languages of a society (Dai Weidong, 1989)文化语境与语言•Context of culture influences language•Language reflects the environment in which people live•Language is a mirror of culture•Language is culture•Eskimo--- three words for snow (falling snow, fallen snow, snow packed into ice)•English--- one word (snow)•Hopi--- one word for anything that flies•English--- aeroplane, dragonfly, butterfly•Navaho--- no distinction between horse and horses•English--- horse/horsesThe impact of context of culture on language at various levels •At lexical level•At pragmatic level•At discourse level•At stylistic levelChinese and English words compared••1) different context of culture, similar or same connotative meaning.•Fox 狐狸•Dove 鸽子•Bee 蜜蜂•White 白色•Red 红色•Rose 玫瑰different context of culture, different connotative meaning•Owl 猫头鹰•Dragon 龙•Dog 狗•Green 绿色•Blue 蓝色•Fat meat 肥肉•青天 blue sky•青山 green hills•青丝 black hair•红茶 black tea•红糖 brown sugar•黑啤 dark beerconnotative meaning is specific for A context of culture and vacant for B contextof culture•Turtle 乌龟•Daffodil 黄水仙•Greetings vary with contextsof culture•1) talking about eating•2) talking about weather•3) talking about actions2.The influence of cultural context on SLAReflecting people’s tradition, culture is a complex factor. The culture between different nations is also different. Translation is a cross-culture exchange, so next we will discuss the influence of culture, religion and idiom on translation.3.1.CustomIf the culture is different, the custom is different. So in doing translation, the related custom must be consid ered. Let’s first see a sentence; ―Quick，Nancy．‖Mike said and swung the car into the left lane．The translated version is ―快，南西。