A Culturological Approach to English Teaching. The Basic Triad of the English

Roza Karataeva, Russia

Roza Karataeva is a teacher of English at the Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH), Moscow, Russia She is interested in literature, arts, psychology and cultural studies
E-mail: kararoza@yandex.ru

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Introduction
Background
Examples
Conclusions
References

Introduction

Cross cultural communication could hardly be considered the invention of the last hundred years. It was as important in the periods of ancient empires and civilizations as it is now. The twentieth century contributed new approaches with the spring of cultural anthropology in the works of N. Ellias, Levy-Strauss, F. Boaz and many other amazing theoretical and applied studies. Amongst the latter stands out the stunning book by Ruth Benedict “The Chrysanthemum and the sword” (1946), who also wrote “Patterns of Culture”. With the ongoing development of global communication, the spread of new technologies, like internet, skype etc, the issues of cross-cultural communication have acquired an extraordinary popularity not only in the scientific community but far beyond it in the vast masses of people.

This mass audience comprises millions of people, learning English all over the world. There have been loads of books and publications dedicated to the matter. Many modern English language textbooks contain whole units on cross-cultural differences, like the ones published by such popular and recognized publishing houses as Oxford University Press, Macmillan, Cambridge University Press, Longman Pearsons, especially this is the case with specialised books for economists, managers, businessmen of all trades.

Here we can note two accepted approaches.

1. More often than not the main focus is on the difference in behaviour and etiquette of the representatives of different nations and cultures which they traditionally demonstrate during international negotiations and other quite formal contacts. Like the facts that the Germans are known to be very punctual while Latin Americans have vaguer ideas about time. Such differences are often demonstrated by a typical situation: a young and full of energy American manger meets at the negotiations’ table with his elderly Japanese counterpart and is eager to settle all the questions on the spot, here and now (Time is money) and to take the first flight to the next meeting, (sounds like a “rap-style” negotiator), meanwhile his partner, who has gradually step after step climbed the hierarchy to achieve his present important position, is somewhat upset, would like to take his time, to show more respect for traditional values and to establish a more personified contact. For such cases many textbooks or even brochures are very helpful before setting out for such a meeting, or it would be enough to study the psychological profile of the country you go to, prepared by the assistant, and to follow certain rules and be open to compromises – and with mutual wish to reach an agreement such difficulties are easily overcome. With an interpreter or without one. As at present mostly the participants know enough English as the language of international communication, the so called “Lingua Franca”. It has gone a long way from its early primitive version like “Pidgin English” as it is more perfect in grammar, richer in vocabulary and more sophisticated as such. But this international English is deprived of the peculiarities of British English or American, Australian or other variants of the English language spoken as the first language.

2. There is a more complicated situation with training language professionals, such as linguists, interpreters and translators, diplomats, specialist in international relations and other trades as well as all the rest wishing to learn something more than just a lingua franca level, i.e. the language that has not lost its national colouring and uniqueness, as, for example British English. There are textbooks where authors focus more on the peculiarities of British language, putting the accent on the language behaviour in consideration of the fact that language reveals in a concentrated form both historical and synchronous world outlook of the nation, its uniqueness and peculiarity of mental angle of view ( good examples are such textbooks as Inside-Out, Market Leader, Face to Face and others). But, unfortunately, it is scattered about in random and small portions in different units, while, to the author’s view, the explanation of the nation’s philosophy should go before handling any practical aspect of the language.

Background

The present rather vague linguo-culturological analyses focuses precisely on British English due to its unprecedented demand today in Russia. 90% of the students in the classes of phonetics, whom I asked what is the ideal speech they would like to achieve at the end of the course, were confident in choosing the British accents. Though due to peculiarities of Russian sound formation and intonation patterns the American variant is easier and much more comfortable to learn. But the demand for the British pronunciation is so high, that thousands people try hard to learn the Oxford pronunciation. Really hard and hardly with success as, if we remember George Mikes’ famous book about the English, “the Oxford accent hurts your throat and is hard to use all the time” (“Sometimes you can forget to use it, speak with your foreign accent and then where are you? People will laugh at you”) What’s more, relatively low part of the population really speaks it. There is another row of factors why British English is in such a demand, among which we can suggest high educational standards or at least their overall recognition.

So, we shall speak about the English people. With the help of the English people. William S. Maugham in the “Razor’s Edge” wrote: “I don’t think one can ever really know any but one’s own countrymen.” As there are things which “ you can’t come to know by hearsay, you can only know them if you have lived with them. You can only know them if you are them”. Let’s start with the concept which is so popular in today’s Britain, namely “the Englishness”. The term became very popular in the second half of the last century, after the publication of the famous essay by George Orwell “The English people” in 1947. Orwell observes that generally the English are known by stereotypes and that foreigners visiting England hardly notice the existence of real Englishmen, adding ironically that even the accent which Americans call English is typical of less than a forth of the population; the real England is not the England of guidebooks for tourists, and the language of BBC is hardly understood by masses. In these essays about England Orwell sums up the most salient characteristics of the English people to be “artistic insensibility, gentleness, respect for legality, suspicion of foreigners, sentimentality about animals, hypocrisy, exaggerated class distinctions, and an obsession with sport”. We can find many similar views expressed by foreigners describing this nation. Thus, a 19th c. French historian of arts H. Taine notes that in this country the temperament is too fighting, the will is too concentrated, the mind has too utilitarian a character to find pleasure in enjoying beauty and subtleties of shades…they use painting to express characters and feelings, even in landscape they first of all depict the soul; visual objects serve to them as signs, imprints of ideas”. George Mikes after forty years of living in Britain wrote a very ironical book “How to Be an Alien” where he humorously describes the hypocrisy and ambiguity of the English, and which book in line with English humour the English publishing houses distribute in the world as easy-reading books for learners of English. A modern Russian author V. Pelevin, whose books are also not deprived of irony and sarcasms, in one of them, attributes to the English as main qualities political correctness and hypocrisy. But if we speak seriously, leaving fiction and ironical notes apart and focus on cultorological aspect, we can try to distinguish for our didactical teaching purposes some basic traits with the help of which we can really make it easier the explanation of many things and processes in language to our students.

So I tried to single out three basic characteristics of the English summing them up to the following TRIAD: 1. Politeness ,both sincere and formal, insincere, which is actually hypocrisy or indifference. 2. Pragmatism, utilitarianism and economy of means, 3. Dynamism (love to speed both in sports and language), tendency to clear pulsating rhythm.

Orwell also said that two main features of the English language are its vast vocabulary and the simplicity of its grammar. There are no doubts about the former but try to ask any Russian beginner or intermediate learner whether English grammar is so simple. The answer is likely to be a simple “no”. Actually, in the sense of complexity, from the point of view of the abundance of forms and variations (due to intricate flexion system, for example) it is really rather simple, economical, orderly and well-structured. But if we compare the feeling of achievement which the learners of Roman languages get after a few classes and how desperate the learners of English become when after hard, regular and diligent work the sense of success does not arrive so soon and so easily? We can understand that this simplicity is hidden from students and there should be a clue to help them see it and achieve results, as the sense of achievement from the psychological point of view is a highly important motivation. Learning becomes more fun, communication gets easier and new horizons are opening.

These problems of “Englishness” are tackled in many wonderful textbooks, but as they are written by the English authors for foreign students in general, not the speakers of a concrete language, the authors sometimes miss what can present difficulty and what is too easy for students in different countries. Some exercises are too easy for the chosen level, while there is less focus on grammar (which is the skeleton) than on lexis (which is the flesh). As a result students learn words and collocations but as the framework is shaky and unstable, the material disappears as if in the “black holes”. Students get acquainted with natural forms of colloquial speech, with fillers, ellipses, lots of ways to render the meaning of “many/much”, but rather on the passive level, they recognize them while listening, but not use in their own speech. A lot of idiomatic expressions that are given in textbooks without stylistic background also tend to mislead students and they don’t know how to properly use them and sometime misused idioms make their speech funny or unnatural, out of place (they don’t solve their communicative purpose).

If we turn to phonetics, we can see that normally learners study the so called acquired pronunciation or “BBC” accent”. But without understanding the pragmatic aspect of English mentality expressed in English phonetics as well as in other aspects of language the students don’t see the logic behind the rules and what’s more they don’t know about exceptions or irregularities which are in fact nearly as regular as the rules themselves. If they don’t understand the reason and logical character of such irregularities, they fail to understand why loads of CDs and special programmes they had listened to and dialogues they had repeated after professional speakers in the course of learning are of little or no help in understanding the real speech or films in the original. And such students, unless they have had practice with native English speakers or have an ideal musical ear, eventually sound as foreigners, “with a slight European accent” as delicately put their English interlocutors. (The typical dialogue: Where do you come from? – Russia. - Oh, you don’t sound Russian at all. –And what do you mean by Russian accent? – Um, like in James Bond films. ) It can hardly be a compliment for a linguist, taking into account the efforts wasted to speak like the native speaker.

So the basic framework, the structure, which serves as the solid ground for accumulating the material without it being thrown away in the “black holes” is understanding how important it is to get rid of language ethnocentrism (the unconscious belief that all other languages should follow the model of your own language which is primary to other languages) and to perceive the concepts of the other language and to see that any language is the reflection of the “collective unconscious” of a nation. As Ruth Benedict formulated it in the “Patterns of culture”: “ Each culture “chooses” from “the great arc of human potentialities” only a few characteristics which become the leading personality traits of the persons living in this culture”.

Examples

The Triad of basic English features, namely Politeness, Pragmatism and Dynamics can graphically be presented as a Triangle. I’ll give a few examples how to apply it to different aspects as any teacher can complete their own charts on each aspect.

1. At the foundation of the triangle let’s put Pragmatism – practicality, the use of small number of basic units in order to build up many new and more complex constructions.

The ABC. In comparison with Russian alphabet the English one has fewer letters, which however represent more sounds not only because they are read differently in strong and weak positions but also because of a number of fixed combinations which produce new sounds. As a result, from relatively small “building” material we receive practically unlimited number of combinations, hence the vast vocabulary, longest rows of synonyms, an ample choice of expressive words consisting of “imitating” sounds (alliteration effect etc), easiness of borrowing from other languages.

In English Phonetics (it’s especially evident in dialectal accents) there are many tricks to avoid too many (unnecessary for understanding) movements starting with the reduction of vowels and sometimes their disappearance in fluent speech, as well as such a thing which is known as “glottal stop”. The essence of this phenomena is the economy of movements: in certain positions the organs of speech imitate the sound without actually voicing it or the tongue makes the right trajectory for the sound but in the “wrong” place , making it very approximate, as depending on the neighboring sounds, the tongue usually tends to take the position closer to the next sound which changes the picture of a pure sound given in the textbook or by the speaker who takes the trouble to be very clear, articulate and slow. In such natural speech the tongue doesn’t have to repeat similar trajectories, thus making speech more fluent, quick, comfortable and more relaxed, less tiresome for the speaker. For example:

A: Come on, it’s time to go. What are you looking for?
B: I don’t suppose you’ve seen my glasses?
C: Have you lost them again?
B: You’d better carry on. I can’t go with my glasses.

• it’s is reduced to /s/
• “are” is missed out
• “I” is missed out
• The vowel /э/ is missed out and the word is said with one syllable
• “Have” is reduced to /v/
• “d” is missed out
• “I” is missed out

Or

A: I want you to paint my kitchen.
B: What colour?
A: A light green
B: Right

• /t/+/j/ (y) is said /ts/ (ch)
• /n/ is missed out and /t/ is said like /p? before /m/ потому что так легче
• /t/ is said as a glottal stop ( a sound made by stopping the flow of air by closing the vocal cords)
• /t/ is said like /k/ before /g/

Let’s take Grammar. There are very few flexions and, on the other hand, lots of elegantly condensed constructions like Complex Object or Complex Subject (“I saw you dancing” or “He is likely to come”) which in Russian normally have to be translated with obviously heavier clause-sentences. The same is true about such graceful constructions which are very economical in means as “She read herself to sleep” or “I sifted sand into my boots with unthinking hands”. Phrasal verbs, a body of basic short verbs (mostly of Anglo-Saxon origin), can create next to unlimited combinations with postfixes and can, probably, by now express any action or state and make excessive other verbs, which brings about gradual decrepitude and passing away of many older verbs of Latin and French origin. We can add to this list passive infinitives, the use of the same auxiliary verb “to be” in Progressive (Continuous) Tenses and in the Passive Voice, or the use of Participles as definitions and in Progressive Tense forms and in Perfect tense forms and in Passive voice forms, the use of “to be” and “to do” as meaningful and as auxiliary verbs, which reminds Lego constructor: with the same bricks from a relatively small box you can build many various figures. Let’ s add here cases when nouns play the role of adjectives in the classical Genetive Case relations like “a door bell” or “a sales manager” thus avoiding the heavy “of-phrases”. The list can be continued…

2. Let’s define the second angle of the triangle as Dynamics, i.e. rhythm, speed, springiness. In Phonetics it’s rhythmical mostly falling stresses within a phrase, the tendency to evenly alternate stressed and unstressed syllables. When this inner rhythm of a phrase is at risk to be broken, making the phrase sound feeble and flabby (nerveless), the English don’t hesitate to use the stress shift, when the stress is moved from its vocabulary position. For example, the word “controversial” has the secondary stress on the first syllable and the main stress on the third syllable, but if it is followed by a word beginning with a stressed syllable (the word with a prominent stress in the phrase and thus not subject to any shifts) then in the phrase She gave a CONtroversial ANswer, the main stress takes the place of the first secondary stress. Another example is the word “underSTAND” in the phrase “. I Understand EVrything” Dynamic character of the language is also in the verbality of the English language. The English tend to avoid long nominative constructions where nouns and adjectives look like a string of beads with one verb clipping it at the end (of course if one doesn’t want to seem too academic). In Russian language nominative constructions are very typical. In general the English are keen on short words, especially in oral speech they tend to replace words of Latin and French origin with one-two syllable ones, preferably with sharp Anglo-Saxon roots, ample use of phrasal verbs because they are short and about everything, a lot of them coming from sports vocabulary..

3. And the last but not the least, actually the vertex of our triangle is POLITENESS, delicacy, even, if sometimes formal, expression of respect to “the Other”. I put it in the vertex as this is the primary and most privileged of the three features. The other two give way to it. To sound polite and respectful no words are spared, archaic forms survive, the whole class of modality is at its service. “I would like”, “Could I…”, Subjunctive mood, tag-questions, lots of words that make an utterance less categorical, for example, in oral speech “sort of”, “kind of”, “quite”, both in oral and written speech a lot of negative phrases with positive meaning like “I don’t think it unlikely” One can find many examples of phrases like “It is not unnatural that he should use what means he can…” in Maugham’s “Cakes and Ale”. Which gives to the author’s style a very soft intonation.

Politeness is also the ability to say something which you don’t really think, namely hypocrisy, or the ability to make understatements, with some inner message which is not on the surface. English language is very rich in these. Even in grammar we find a very “hypocritical” Tense which is tricky and deceitful for Russian learners, that is Present Perfect, when we say one thing bearing in mind and meaning actually something else or something more than has been put in words. Actually a phrase in Present Perfect is a provocative one as it is meant to elicit a reaction, a response, a dialogue, an action. Otherwise Past Simple would do. For example, if we say “He has done a lot in his short life” we mean that he’s alive and young and will do much more in future, it’s just a good start, while “He did a lot in his short life”= “He’s dead” In Russian to a much lesser degree we have some similar cases: looking at the sleeping kids one can say both “The are sleeping” and “The have fallen asleep”. But in English the shades of meaning are different to a stronger degree. The focus of Present Perfect very often is not on the action but on the continuation, on the reaction, often it can sound as a hint to do sth (politeness) Like “it has started to rain”(=so bring the washing in) etc.

Speaking about etiquette I would like to cite a part of an exercise from “The Market Leader” for beginners. You are making an order in a restaurant. There are two columns – on the left is what you think and on the right is what you should say. The task is to match what you think to what you should say. Неre are the pairs the students are supposed to find:

One can speak for hours about how polite the English are. During my last visit to England I realized how direct and categorical has become our own speech back home. In Oxford at the course of lexicology we were given simple dialogues, for example, three students chatting in campus or in the flat they share and to my ear they were so polite to each other as if it was a talk between members of the royal family. They were so encouraging and attentive to each other in the dialogue. Our students are more direct in their speech. The English people masterfully listen and keep the conversation going, sometimes probably not even really listening. There are many ways to encourage the speaker and show your interest with the help of “Really? Indeed? Oh? You did?” and so on. The wish to keep the conversation at all cost even if you don’t’ understand what it is all about we find in “Winnie-the-Pooh”. For example in Chapter 5:

One day, when Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet were all talking together, Christopher Robin finished the mouthful he was eating and said carelessly: “I saw a Heffalump today, Piglet”
“What was it doing?” asked Piglet.
“Just lumping along”, said Christopher Robin. “I don’t think it saw me”
“I saw one once”, said Piglet. “At least, I think I did,” he said. “Only perhaps it wasn’t”.
“So did I”, said Pooh, wondering what a Heffalump was like.
“You don’t often see them”, said Christopher Robin carelessly.
“Not now,” said Piglet.
“Not at this time of year”, said Pooh.

English language is abundant in forms of polite conversation, like the above mentioned “echo-words”, tag questions, which often are not really questions but the form of polite consideration of the listener. We can find these forms even in the most primitive, “low class” speech of less educated people or teenagers’ speech who in their funny economical way reduced all the forms to “inn’it?”. I heard a story, an anecdote, when a girl, a teenager, was trying to order by phone a cab. She always politely added “inn’it?” after the word “cab” which made it sound as “cabinet”, so she missed her train as the cab never arrived but by the end of the day she was brought a nice antique cabinet for which a nice round sum was charged from her credit card.

Speaking about funny things I would like to give an example of BBC series of The Catherine Tate Show where the actress plays different modern typical English characters making them funny of course by exaggerating their little human foibles. The speech of all the different characters has something in common, they all at least try to sound polite. As an example – an elderly woman, obviously uneducated, whimsical and fretful, explained by her age and little education. She is visited by her teenage grandson. She is at home and let herself loose, she is not selective about her language using four-letter words and saying unpleasant things about other people, this time about an emigrant girl from Social Service whom she had asked not to come anymore. This is how she relates the story to her grandson:

• ‘Ere… She was ‘ere today, weren’t she?
• Who’s that?
• Home help.
• Oh, good.
• Yeah. Lacula something, inn’it?
• Elena.
• Who’s it?
• Her name is Elena.
• Yeah. She’s from… She’s from somewhere, ain’t she?
• Is she?
• Yeah. Oh, yeah. Definitely, yeah. What is it? Czechoslovakia or something? Bulgaria? It’s one of them oddmark countries. Well, I don’t like her and that’s it.
• Oh, God!
• I said to her, “Look, darling, I am not being funny but I don’t want you coming ‘ere no more if you don’t mind.
• Nan, you didn’t.
• She said to me “Mrs Taylor, you mustn’t be so proud.” I said, “What you talking about?” She said, “Do you not want me coming no more because you feel your independence slipping away?” I said, “No, I don’t want you coming ‘ere ‘cause you’re a fucking thief”
• Nan, she’s not stealing from you.
• What are you talking about? Of course, she is. I watch her when she thinks I ain’t looking. Handfuls of gear she takes.
• No, she doesn’t’t.
• “I’m just going to do some ironing for you.” “All right, love,” I say. She was stuffing it in her bag. It’s a wonder I’ve got a stitch of clothing to call me own!
• She is not taking your clothes.
• She’s nicking me food an’ all. I wouldn’t’t mind. I don’t begrudge ‘em having something to eat. I always say to her, “Would you like a nice beef sandwich now you’re here, love? “Oh, no, thank you,” she says. Then when me back’s turned, she’s fucking shovelling it down her”
• She’s from Social Services.
• Cunning little bastard!
• She’ll probably make a complaint about you.
• Good! Let her. Dirty lowlife!

As we can see, she says stupid and unpleasant things not forgetting to add “Love”, “Darling”, “I don’t want you coming here if you don’t mind”. In this dialogue we see how the grandson actively listens and encourages her to go on with her story and that she uses formally polite structures which contradict to what she really says.

Conclusions

In this text I focused on the Englishness of the English language. As English spoken in Britain is different from other variants of English as native language in other countries - not so much in grammar or lexis but in the spirit of the nation. (The difference in American and English mentality expressed in language is finely shown by Kazuo Ishiguro in “the Remains of the day” where a philosophically-minded English butler reflects on how to react to his new American master’s bantering). And I tried to show that the simplicity of system or structure of English language , suggested by Orwell, is difficult to bring home to foreign (Russian, in my case) learners without explanation of the basic characteristics and the “spirit” of the language.

Cultorological approach provides students with the concept of learning and , what’s important, gives them the sense of achievement sooner than it usually comes “by itself”, as it is helpful not only for developing such skills as reading and listening, but for more complicated skills of producing character, i.e. speaking and writing. It gives the opportunity to avoid following constructions of the native language of the learner as it results in a tiresome and clumsy sounding literal self-translation from the native language, but it encourages to create utterances and texts which would sound more English. The feeling of the spirit and soul of the language awakens imagination and motivation, makes up for the artificial situation of a lesson.

Giving-up language egocentrism does not mean to give up one’s native language while learning a foreign one. Often it’s quite difficult for students to see that many mechanisms, laws and psychological processes in both languages are the same. From automatic use of their native language they come to understanding language as a structure, a system of signs, which reflects the perception of the world.

Such approach can increase the independence of students in understanding language phenomena, as they are given the clues to enhance analyses and ability to use analogies in creating their own utterances and texts. And it is interesting and successfully speeds up the process of language interiorization.

There could be other aspects of applying cultorological approach to English language teaching which is the unique history of the country but it’s a theme for another study. Here I wanted to stress the importance of cultorological approach to teaching and so that, hopefully, Russian native speakers could be surprised to see what Orwell saw in his language saying about its simple grammatical structure. They will just feel it.

References

Benedict, R.F. “Patterns of Culture”, A Mentor Book, 1958

Cotton, D., Falvey, D., Kent, S. “New Market Leader” Elementary Business English Coursebook, Pearson Longman, Harlow, G.B., 2008

Cunningham, J. and Bell,J. “Face2face” Advanced, Cambridge University Press, 2009

Ishiguro, K. “The Remains of the Day”, Vintage International Edition, 1993

Hewings, M. “English Pronunciation in use Advanced”, Cambridge University Press, 2007

Maugham, W.S. The Razor’s Edge”, “Manager”, Moscow, 2005

Maugham, W.S. “Cakes and Ale: or the Skeleton in the Cupboard”, “KARO”, S-Petersburg, Russia, 2005

Mikes, G. “How to Be an Alien”, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow, GB, 2008

Milne, A.A. “Winnie-the-Pooh”, Puffin Books, 1992

Pelevin, V. “DPP(NN)”, Eksmo, Mosow

Taine, H. “Lectures on Art”, Owens press

“The Catherine Tate Show “Am I bovvered?”, BBC series, 2005

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