英语论文文化背景知识对英语听力理解影响的调查研究A Study of Cultural Background Knowledge’s Effects on English Listening ComprehensionAThesisPresented to文化背景知识对英语听力理解影响的调查研究摘要：听力理解是一个复杂的过程，影响听力的因素很多，有诸如语音，词汇，语法等一系列语言知识方面的因素，也有一些非语言知识的因素，文化背景知识便是其中之一。
为检验文化背景知识对英语听力理解的影响，本研究对60名非英语专业的大学生进行了一次英语听力检测实验。
实验结果显示文化背景知识对听力理解有促进作用，具体来说，它在减轻听音前的心理压力，增强听者自信心，培养听者英语学习兴趣等方面都有着极其重要的作用。
基于以上结论，本文建议，在听力教学过程中，教师应尽可能多的增加文化背景知识的输入量。
这不仅可以增强学生的英美文化意识，还可以培养学生的英语思维能力，从而间接地提高学生的听力水平。
同时，教师还必须注意输入的策略，给学生制造轻松愉悦的环境，比如可以通过观看电影，课前演讲，文化对比等形式，以活泼的形式促进学生听力的提高。
关键词：文化背景知识；英语听力理解；英语教学iA Study of Cultural Background Knowledge’s Effects on EnglishListening ComprehensionAbstract：Listening comprehension is a complicated process, which is affected not only by such linguistic factors like pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, etc., but also some important nonlinguistic factors, one of which is cultural background knowledge. The paper presents an empirical studyon 60 non-English major collage students with the aim to testify the function of cultural background knowledge in English listening comprehension. The results of the experiment reveal that cultural background knowledge has the promotive function in English listening comprehension; it can reduce the psychological pressure before listening, strengthen the confidence on one hand, and reinforce the interest of English learning on another. Therefore, the paper lends strong support that in English listening teaching, teachers should introduce a lot of cultural background knowledge which can not only improve students’listening level and strengthen students’ consciousness of foreign cultures, but also cultivate the ability of thinking in English. In the teaching process, teachers should pay more attention to the input methods and create a relaxing and pleasant environment in listening classes. Such means as watching the movies, doing the class report, comparing cultures of different nations, etc, are all effective ones that will improve students’ ability and consequently facilitate students to form the self-study habit.Key words: cultural background knowledge; English listening comprehension; English teachingiiCONTENTS摘要 (i)Abstract (ii)Introduction (1)1 Literature Review (2)1.1 Diverse Views on English Listening Comprehension (2)1.2 Category of Cultural Background Knowledge (3)1.3 Process of English Listening Comprehension and ItsInfluencing Factors (3)1.3.1 Listening Process (3)1.3.2 Influencing Factors in English Listening Comprehension (4)2 Experiment (4)2.1 Research Questions (5)2.2 Methodology (5)2.1.1P a r t i c i p a n t s (5)2.1.2 Materials (5)2.1.3 Procedures (5)3 Findings and Results (6)4 Discussion (7)4.1 About Data (7)4.2 Influences of Cultural Background Knowledge (8)4.2.1 Psychological Pressure (8)4.2.2 Self-confidence (8)4.2.3 Learning Interest (9)4.3 Learning and T eaching Strategies (10)Co nclusion (11)Bibliography (13)Appendix A Testing Paper (14)Appendix B Testing Items (17)Table 3.1 (7)Figure 3.1 (7)Acknowledgements (21)IntroductionListening as the first step of learning a language has been studied for many years. Recent researches on English listening have focused on such influencing factors as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, etc. What is new, however, is the analysis from theperspective of information processing,English listening comprehension is a complicated psychological process with the interaction of language and thinking. In addition, it is the interaction of listener’s conceptual formation, background knowledge, and processing strategies. Research on English listening comprehension from the three angles of cognitive psychology can provide an inspiration for teaching listening and clear out the barrier in listening comprehension. (Ying Guoli, 2009: 82)Although many people have realized the importance of cultural background knowledge in English listening, few people made researches on how it affects the comprehension, and still fewer use it in listening teaching. With this question in concern, this survey concentrates on how the cultural background knowledge affects English listening comprehension and how to input more cultural background knowledge in listening teaching.Deducing from database of sixty non-English majors, this paper makes an elaborate investigation and description of influences of cultural background knowledge in English listening comprehension through observation and comparison of the subjects’ distinct reations to the testi ng items. The participants are students from two non-English major classes of the same grade who have almost the same English cultural background knowledge, around 60 in total. In the first class, before the listening test, their teacher introduced the relative cultural background knowledge of the material firstly, then told the examinees that the following listening test will include the information they have learned. The second class listened to the same testing materials directly, no cultural background knowledge was introduced before listening. By comparing thecorrectness rates of students of these two classes, we come to analyze the influences of the cultural background knowledge in English listening comprehension.The paper is divided into 4 Chapters. The introductory chapter contains some basic issues for the study. Chapter 1 is the literature review part which will firstly present researches on this topic that have been made and the corresponding conclusions, and then introduce the category of cultural background knowledge which is ―a complex matter, including knowledge, belief, art, morals, customs, and other capabilities acquired by people as a member of society‖.(Zhang Cengyi, 2009: 7) The English listening process and influencing factors which obstacle the understanding of the listening materials will be included as well. In Chapter 2, we will introduce our experiment that includes the research questions, methodologies such as participants, testing materials, and the procedures of the experiment, etc. We will report the corresponding results and findings in Chapter 3, followed by discussion in Chapter 4. And the last part is conclusion of the paper.1 Literature Review1.1 Diverse Views on English Listening ComprehensionWith the development of globalization, more and more people realize the importance of learning English. Researchers of the whole world have investigated kinds of methods to help people improve their English. And they reach the agreement that mastering a language means to develop abilities of listening, speaking, reading, and writing at the same time. Just as David Crystal (2002: 378) mentioned, ―Language work is first heard, then practice orally, before seen and used in written form.‖According to the statistics offered by Guo Jianmin (2004:117), 45% of adults’ time connects with listening in daily communicative activity. And the latest National CET-4 Reform Program promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 2005 claimed that the part of listening comprehension rise to 35%. Therefore, there is no need to explain the importance of listening in English study.Many researchers, like He Fusheng (2006: 9-10) and Gao Guixiang & Pan Bingxin (2002: 2-5), analyzed the factors that influence the listening comprehension. They concluded that the l isteners’ abilities of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, intonation, etc, would affect correctness of listening.Recently, some other researchers, like Xiang YU (2008: 14) and Xiang Huyue (2008: 96-98), took such personal subjective factors as interest, motivation, self-confidence, etc, into concern in English listening comprehension study. There are also some researchers who begin to pay their attention to the importance of cultural background knowledge in listening. Listening comprehension is a complicated psychological process. Linguists approach English listening mainly from psycholinguistic perspectives which identify two kinds of information processing models that can be labeled as bottom-up and top-down in the listening process.H.Douglas Brown (2001) believed that bottom-up processing proceeds from sounds, words, grammatical relationships, lexical meanings, etc. to a final ―message‖while top-down processing is evoked from ―a bank of prior knowledge and global expectations ‖and other background infor mation that the listener brings to the text. David Crystal (2002: 372) pointed out, ―T oday, learning a foreign language is likely to mean learning a great deal about the foreign civilization and culture at the sametime. … It helps the learners to become m ore fullyaware of differing ways of behavior, and reduces the risks of culture shock, foreigner stereotyping, and intolerance.‖In addition, some researchers claimed the degree of the familiarity about the materials, the quantity of cultural background kn owledge, and the listeners’ psychological diathesis will directly affect understanding of the listening contents.From all the above researches, influences of cultural background knowledge turn out to be obvious. After mastering the relative cultural background knowledge, listeners will become more confident. Otherwise, they will be nervous and uneasy in listening.1.2 Category of Cultural Background KnowledgeThe category of culture is both huge and ambiguous. It can be studied from such aspects as the physical geography, economy, history, politics, educational system, literature art, music, science, technology, media, sport, daily life-style, popular beliefs, folk customs, and social values, etc. That knowledge is huge and complex; no one can remember them at one time. What we can do is to accumulate them little by little in daily learning.Every nation has its own unique cultural background. The process of learning English is also the process of understanding and mastering the culture of English-speaking countries. Any word or action can reflect the cultural connotation to some extent. And people always try to understand others based on their own cultural background knowledge and linguistic habits. Under the deep influence of mother tongue and homeland culture, in the process of listening comprehension, listenersusually analyze and understand English with Chinese thinking style, which would cause difficulties in understanding the speaker’s real intention quickly and exactly. So in English listening teaching, teachers should try their best to guide students to learn cultural background knowledge as much as possible. We should make the category of cultural background knowledge clear, so we can pay more attention to them in daily learning. With regard to cultur e, I mean ―the pattern of learning embodied in symbolic forms, including actions, utterances and meaningful objects of various kinds, by virtue of which individuals communicate with one another and share their experiences, conceptions and beliefs‖ (Hinkel, 2001: 77).1.3 Process of English Listening Comprehension and Its Influencing Factors1.3.1 Listening ProcessListening comprehension includes listening and distinguishing the single phoneme and successive speech sounds, as well as grasping the meaning. According to cognitive psychology, listening is the active process in which the listeners accept, understand and choose the useful information positively, and then preserve it into long-time memory. In other words, listening comprehension is not a passive accept, but involves positively analyzing the listening content by using their acquired knowledge, then choosing, arranging and classifying them. This is a re-arrangement process. This process includes three stages, namely, the linguistic stage, the cognitive stage, and the met cognitive stage.1.3.2 Influencing Factors in English Listening ComprehensionThis part is concerned with the influencing factors in listening process. The activity of listening can be further divided into 6steps. First, it is the perception and recognition of the speech sound. That is to say, at the beginning of the listening, sound waves reached the ears. In this step, the pronunciation, intonation, stress, plosive, and rhyme, are the main influencing factors. Second, it is the initial understanding of the exact materials. This step requires listeners to grasp the meaning of the words, phases, and sentences. So it is influenced by the vocabulary and grammar. Third, it is to preserve the material in short-time memory. However, ―Inform ation kept in short-time memory will be forgotten after 30 minutes if it is not repeated‖(Wu Xinchun & Zhang Jun, 2009:181). So, the forth step, which connects the listening materials with their own cultural background knowledge, is essential. Then, the listeners comprehend the materials and preserve them in long-time memory. At last, the main idea and outline will be caught. From the last three steps, we can conclude that the listeners’cultural background knowledge and thinking mode affect the listening comprehension deeply and widely.From the above statement, we can predict that cultural background knowledge has a great influence on listeners’psychological diathesis in English listening. In the following chapter, the paper will present the experiment that will testify the function of cultural background knowledge in English listening. And based on the experimental study, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the function of background knowledge, make both students and teachers realize the importance of cultural background knowledge in listening comprehension and to bring the awareness of input of background information in English teaching at the same time.2 ExperimentIn the previous chapter, we have discussed the category of cultural background knowledge and the process of listening comprehension which is a complicated psychological process. In this chapter, we will illustrate our experiment which is designed to testify the function of background information in listening comprehension. It will include the research problems, methodologies, such as participants, testing materials, and the procedures, etc.2.1 Research QuestionsBased on testing materials chosen from CET-4 and CET-6 which contain 5 short dialogues and 5 long passages, the specific research questions we set out to address in the present study will include:ⅰ. Whether there is any influence of cultural background knowledge on English listening comprehension.ⅱ. How cultural background knowledge will affect English listening comprehension.ⅲ.Learning and teaching strategies in English listening comprehension.2.2 MethodologyIn the following, we will illustrate our experiment in details, including its participants, stimuli, and procedures.2.2.1 Participants60 undergraduates aging from 20 to 22 take part in this project. Half of them are sophomores, from class 5, Physical Department of HeZe University, in Shang Dong Provence. The rest 30 students are from class 2 of the same grade in the same department and university. The selection of the participants bases on three reasons. Firstly, all the participants are undergraduates aging from 20 to 22 who have the ability ofmature thinking and prediction. Because the function of the cultural background knowledge can only be revealed by associating with the context, then prediction and deduction of abstruse meaning are needed. Secondly, they are all from science department. Comparatively speaking, they are not familiar with the culture of English-speaking countries. Therefore, in the process of the experiment, we can control the quantity of cultural background knowledge that they have learned. Thirdly, they have acquired the fundamental English knowledge, such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, intonation…So we can give prominence to the influences of cultural background knowledge in listening.2.2.2 Testing MaterialsAll these testing materials which contain 5 short dialogues and 5 long passages are chosen from CET-4 and CET-6 which suit the level of the participants. Among them, short dialogues 2, 4, 5 and long passages 1, 2, 4 are testing items about cultural background knowledge which include the idioms, historical eminent person and his work, theory of language research, and the creation of basketball. In order to simulate the real listening test, the rest 2 short dialogues and 2 long passages do not relate to background cultural knowledge.2.2.3 ProceduresBefore the tests, we select the listening materials carefully and collect the relative cultural background knowledge thoroughly. To arouse self-learning interest, the knowledge is illustrated as simple and interesting as possible.The two tests are carried out separately in English listening classes. And in order to simulate the real atmosphere of examination, the explanation and operation are done by teachers. Before listening, students of the first class (class 5 mentioned inthe participants) are told that the following cultural knowledge will be contained in the following listening test. Then their teacher explains the relative cultural background knowledge and asks them to listen carefully. Now, let us take the passage 1 and passage 2 (in Appendix A) of the test which will be mainly analyzed and discussed in this thesis, as an example. About passage 1, the teacher introduces the achievements of Benjamin Franklin in his life, his contribution in American history, and his works. And about passage 2, the teacher introduces contrastive opinions on language origins, and Chomsky’s theory is illustrated in specific. At last, the listening proceeds when they have known well the background knowledge. Students of the second class (class 2) are not given any relative cultural background knowledge before listening. The listening process goes directly.3 Findings and ResultsIn this paper, we have 20 testing items that include 5 short dialogues and 5 long passages. And every passage contains 3 questions (in Appendix A). Although for some particular questions, class 1 has done better, such as question 5 whose correctness rate is 76.6% compared with the 53.3% of class 2. Students of Class 2 have their own advantages on other questions, such as question 1 whose correctness rate is 66.6% compared with the 30% of class 1. These differences demonstrate that there are many factors influencing the listening comprehension. For those non-cultural materials, such as long passages 3 and 5, there is not a great disparity in the correctness rates between class 1 and class 2. So we will not analyze the correctness rates of those questions. But the correctness rates of passage 1 (question 6 to 8) and passage 2 (question 9 to 11) (inAppendix A) make us see clearly the huge function of cultural background knowledge in English listening comprehension. Because before listening, class 1 has learned the relative cultural background knowledge which we have mentioned in the previous chapter. With the help of that knowledge, they do a better work than students of class 2. Therefore, this paper will investigate the influence of the cultural background knowledge in English listening by analyzing and discussing these two passages. The correctness rates of question 6 to 11 will be showed in the following table.Table 3.1 ResultsCRClassPassage 1 Passage 2 6 7 8 9 10 11Class 130% 56.6% 90% 43.3% 50% 73.3%Class 2 20% 13.5% 66.6% 33.3% 20% 73.3%(QN stands for Question Number; CR stands for Correctness Rates)We will firstly transform Table 3.1 into a figure for a clearer observation in thefollowing:30%56.60%90%43.30%50%73.30%20%13.50%66.60%33.30 %20%73.30%0%20%40%60%80%100%123456Class2Class1 Figure 3.1 the corresponding figure of Table 3.14 Discussion4.1 About DataBased on comparison of the percentage rate in the above figure, it can be obviouslyinferred that for each question, students in class 1 score more highly than those in class 2. Thus, the correctness rate is much higher for each question. Consequently, we conclude that if one is familiar with the corresponding cultural background knowledge, it will become easier to understand the whole test and get the right answer.In the following part, we will prove our viewpoint by analyzing each individual question.As for question 6 (in Appendix A), it is about vocabulary. Compared with other questions, the correctness rate is not very good. Students of class 1 still did better than those in class 2. The difficult point of this question lies in the words that are too difficult for most students. TheQNquestion is ―Which of the following words i s not used to describe Franklin?‖(in Appendix B). The selection is ―A. Brilliant.B. Industrious.C. Versatile.D. Brave.‖ (in Appendix A). And the right answer is ―Brave‖. Although the other three words have been given in the record, most students can not catch them. But students of class 1 know well about Franklin’s life story in which his bravery is not reiterated, so they have a higher probability to get the right answer. This has been proved by the correctness rates of question 6 of the two classes presented in the above figure.Looking at the correctness rates of questions 7, 8 and 10, thedisparity of the two classes is more obvious. That is also the best explanation of the function of cultural background knowledge in English listening. Questions 7 and 8 (in Appendix A) are about Franklin’s autobiography that is an inspiring account of the poor boy’s growth history. In it, Franklin does not show off the honors and prizes he has got in his life, but honestly mentions his own misdeeds and errors. He writes it to give lessons to others. Question 10 is about Chomsky’s linguistic theory. Because students of class 1 are familiarized with this knowledge, most of them can get the right answers. The correctness rates of the two classes are the best explanations that cultural background knowledge has a promoting function in English listening comprehension.According to the data analyses, it is obvious that the influence of cultural background knowledge on listening comprehension is tremendous. Based on such a fact, this chapter will elucidate how cultural background knowledge affects listening comprehension from individual psychological respects, namely, psychological pressure, self-confidence, learning interest in specific.4.2 Influences of Cultural Background Knowledge4.2.1 Psychological PressureStudents with higher anxiety may perform worse in reading, writing, listening, and speaking of a foreign language. By analyzing the correctness rates of the two classes, students of class 1 know well about the cultural background knowledge of the material, even if they only catch several words and sentences, they can get the main idea, so the anxiety and pressure will be somehow reduced. From the psychological respect, Da Huiming (2007, 24) pointed out that language anxiety is one of the mostimportant factors which influence the individual performance in foreign language learning. This kind of language anxiety is named as psychological pressure in English listening. Listening materials are handed out in a wink. It cannot be read repeatedly as reading materials. So in the listening process, listeners will be in deep anxiety and pressure unconsciously. And at the same time, they consider the difficulty oflistening materials too great to perform well. The promoting function of cultural background knowledge is revealed at this time.4.2.2 Self-confidenceNo matter what you do, if you keep self-confident, you have half succeeded. In listening process, self-confidence is one of the most important factors that affect your comprehension. In this part, we come to discuss how enormous cultural background knowledge strengthens listeners’ self-confidence before listening and while listening.Students of class 1 have done a better work. Before listening, the more one knows about the cultural background knowledge of the English-speaking countries, the more one believes he can do well. Learning the cultural background knowledge not only brings the cultural awareness, but also cultivates the thinking ability in English. That is the top-level aim of English learning. As time goes by, listeners will have complete confidence in themselves. This can also help reduce the psychological pressure.The function of cultural background knowledge is more obvious in the process of listening, for most English articles bring out the theme at the beginning. In the process of listening, when students of class 1 get the familiar material, they will associate it with their justly learned knowledge. When they find that thematerials and their knowledge are same, they become confident immediately. Even if there are some differences, they would not pay more attention to them. So it will be easier to catch the right answer. Self-confidence will be increased little by little with every success. After a period, no matter what materials one listens to, he will always have confidence.4.2.3 Learning InterestAs a famous proverb goes, interest is the excellent teacher of human being. Liao Jianhua (2006) held that interest is the unity of consciousness and activeness in the process of English learning. With interest, there is a driving force in people’s mind, which impels people to try their best to master as much knowledge as possible. It is necessary for students to cultivate the interest of learning English. But, how can they do? It is a difficult problem for both teachers and students. As to one criterion for good teaching, teachers are responsible for making the materials interesting and enjoyable. Cultural background knowledge that includes a lot of real life senses and interesting stories would be good tools to cultivate students’ interest of English listening. So in English listening teaching, teachers should be clear that the input of cultural background knowledge and the practice of listening are bidirectional processes. In other words, accumulating cultural background knowledge as much as possible can help listeners comprehend the listening materials and listening to diverse materials can enrich listeners’cultural background knowledge as well.Above all, those three factors interact with each other. Without the psychological pressure, one can perform easily and confidently. With the confidence, interest of learning rises higher and higher. Vice versa, the maintenance of interest is a goodmethod to reduce pressure and to increase confidence. And all of them can be realized through the accumulation of cultural background knowledge.4.3 Learning and T eaching StrategiesKnowing the influencing factors of listening comprehension is just the first step. If students cannot make use of learning strategies, it will be like that having a good tool, but do not know how to use it. So in order to achieve somewhere, it is necessary for teachers and students to cooperate to formulate and carry out the useful strategies.In the whole process of English teaching and learning, teachers should use diverse and i nteresting materials and vivid teaching methods to attract students’attention. So teachers should have a wide range of professional knowledge, especially the cultural background knowledge of English –speaking countries. If a teacher wants to give students a cup of water, he must have a barrel of it. They should create relaxing atmosphere and build good relationship between teachers and students.They should have the strong sense of duty, and they cannot only impart knowledge, but also stimulate students’ i nterest and motivation of learning at the same time. And it should be kept in mind that the classroom teaching is not enough for students, teachers can make the fullest use of students’ free time to arouse their confidence, interest, and motivation. Above all, all those strategies that teachers can take are related to cultural background knowledge. In listening teaching, if a teacher only lets students listen to the records mechanically, students will soon feel tired, become anxious, and loose their confidence and interest finally. It would be a good solution that periods of listening alternate with periods of inputting cultural background。
