ents have not yet mastered the language; On the other hand, it is probably because of differences in Chinese and English writing styles that reflect cultural differences.
Narration and description in Chinese seem to be a bit more ornate, or “flowery”, than in English. The following passage from a student’s composition is typical of this kind of faulty writing in English:
“I walked joyfully along the path that was lit up by the golden rays of the morning sun. Beautiful flowers of many colors were blooming. How fragrant they smelled! Little birds were singing in the trees, as if greeting me ‘Good morning! Good morning!’… my heart was bursting with happiness…”
One of the common faults in this matter is the tendency of Chinese students to use too many adjectives. Adjectives, of course, are necessary in good writing. But if not used with care, they can have the opposite effect—quickly kill interest and produce boredom.
Chinese and English-speaking people seem to look differently on the use of set phrases and expressions. Good English writing discourages what are called “clichés” or “trite expressions”. Chinese writing, on the other hand, gives its approval to well-chosen “four-character expressions.” To a native English-speaker, the following sentence would be frowned on as an example of poor writing: He slept like a log and woke up at the crack of dawn, fresh as a daisy.
Trite expressions and clichés originally caught people’s attention precisely because they were and a英语论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.org】re so colorful and express an idea so well. But overuse caused them to lose their charm and freshness.
In persuasive writing such as social or political essays and editorials, English-speaking writers tend to be less militant in tone and language than most Chinese. The idea is to let the facts speak for themselves. In other words, the facts themselves should be able to convince the reader. Thus in such types of writing, one finds rather sparing use of such phrases as we must, we should not, it is wrong to, it is absurd, cannot be denied, resolutely demand. The tone is usually restrained; the language id generally moderate. In present-day Chinese social and political writings, facts are of primary importance, of course, but considerable stress is also laid on militancy, on making one’s stand clear. This difference in attitudes is an important one. Experience has shown that a hard-hitting essay or editorial in Chinese does not always have the effect intended when translated into
Besides the three points of differences mentioned above, there are others. If we couldn’t be acquainted with these differences, we would not write a standard English composition.
From what had been said, it is clear that cultural background knowledge is necessary in language teaching. Teachers should help students to solve the difficulties in language as well as in culture. Thus, further improve our quality of teaching.
It is not easy to teach cultural background knowledge. Firstly, teachers mus
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