The Question of Culture in Foreign Language Teaching (A Few NEST’s Queries
and Remarks)
Maria-Camelia MANEA, Constantin MANEA
« Universitatea de Stat » din Piteşti
Quoique l’existence et l’ampleur du «modèle culturel» soient discutables dans une assez grande
mesure, il existe une série de traits frappants qui servent à illustrer une certaine détermination de
nature culturelle qu’il serait difficile à nier; parmi ceux-ci, il y a des «façons de parler» qui se
trouvent avérées par des traits caractéristiques et des modèles morphologiques, syntaxiques et
phonotactiques. Les exemples qui en sont donnés proviennent des domaines du langage
métaphorique, du parler idiomatique, de la collocation, de l’usage des noms propres etc. Les
auteurs expriment quelques doutes tels que la primauté des aptitudes biculturelles des professeurs
d’anglais langue étrangère, la supériorité (vraie ou prétendue) de l’anglais comme langue de la
communication internationale, l’existence réelle d’un anglais «modèle», l’utilité de l’analyse des
erreurs comme instrument de travail dans l’activité contrastive et de réflection, la possibilité de la
manipulation linguistique à travers l’importation de néologismes «inutiles» / «de luxe» etc., ainsi
que certaines modalités d’action principales, dont la majorité de nature pratique, pour les
professeurs d’anglais langue étrangère qui ne sont pas des locuteurs natifs.
Mots clé: modèle culturel, TEFL, bilingualisme, biculturalisme, contrastivité, relativité, NEST
1. The ‘cultural model’ was best substantiated linguistically through the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis (or the theory of ‘linguistic relativity’), which claims, starting from individual examples
derived from the study of several lesser known languages (e.g. Hopi, an Amerindian language
belonging to the Shoshonean sub-family of the Uto-Aztecan family, which, for example, has no
tense system), that our conceptual categorisation of the world is heavily dependent upon the very
structure of the language we speak (whence, the concept of ‘linguistic determinism’): “we dissect
nature along lines laid down by our native languages (…) by the linguistic system in our minds” (in
Whorf’s own words, apud David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, p. 306).
Although the impact of the above-mentioned theory on modern psycholinguistics and
didactics was rather insubstantial, we think that, by and large, cultural repercussions of a certain
language’s structure (and ‘mind’) on its users’ linguistic performance can be proved, in many ways,
to be real, sometimes even keenly felt to be so. It could be noted that specific ‘fashions of speaking’
are typical of individual languages, and they include variegated features ranging from lexicon to
morphology, syntax, phonotactics, usage, etc.
2. In spite of the fact that translatability is widely seen as the opposite argument to linguistic
relativity, and also the fact that lots of linguistic structures are so to speak ‘international’ if not
altogether universal, it will be worth reminding, for both teachers and learners of EFL, that the
‘national’ uses of most epithets, metaphors, similes, phrases, clichés, proverbs, collocative and
connotative or stylistic valencies and nuances (all of which are linguistic elements placed at the
lexicon-grammar interface) massively depend on the ‘spiritus loci’ underlying the very structure of
the respective language. For instance, metaphor (especially in idioms), as well as metaphorically
defined figurative uses of words can sometimes meet the ‘international standard’ of acceptability
and usage, e.g. to oil the wheels (cf. Romanian a unge osia, (to come in by) the back door, to blunt
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“to make less sharp; to diminish the sensitivity or perception of; to make dull”, even the eye of the
storm / wind (cf. Romanian “(chiar) în (chiar) mijlocul furtunii”), much in contradistinction to
specific, ‘national’ (sometimes etymological) metaphors, and other similar figurative phrases or
lexical items: to blow hot and cold, to boil down to, to hold a candle to, to pay through the nose, to
lead by the nose, to pull someone’s leg, to drop a brick, writing on the wall, etc.
Similarly, standard / fixed / set similes (or comparative phrases bearing a superlative value)
like as bold as brass, as busy as a bee, as clean as a whistle, as cool as a cucumber, as dead as a
doornail / as mutton, as happy as a cricket, as like as two peas, as large as life, as old as the hills,
as proud as a pancake, as slippery as an eel, and English proverbs like A stitch in time saves nine,
Barking dogs seldom bite, Too many cooks spoil the broth illustrate the ‘cultural’ postulate by their
very structure, although the underlying ideas seem essentially to coincide in several languages. A
similar illustration could be provided by the fairly large number of proper names regularly
associated with typical idioms or (especially cultural) contexts – some of which are used, or at least
recognized internationally – e.g. Absalom, Adonis, Brutus, Cain, Canossa, Croesus, Damocles,
Draco, Goliath, Helen (of Troy), Hercules, Jezebel, Job, Moloch, Pandora, Rubicon, Sharon,
Sisyphus, Tartuffe, Xant(h)ippe, etc. Similarly, the collocative patterns – leading to the wanted
lexical-syntactic accuracy – of the otherwise related verbs to reduce, to decrease, to lower, to
restrict drastically differ from those typical of their Romanian counterparts.
It is such highly specific instances that the numerous (and quite useful) dictionaries of
English usage usually take into account, but our contention is that, unfortunately, these ‘pitfalls’ of
the English language should be duly addressed by NESTs; a very good dictionary like The
Wordsworth Dictionary of English Usage (Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1995) starts from the
assumption that the kind of language it must provide should be “lively, effective and idiomatic”,
with plenty of “notorious and commonly-encountered difficulties of English grammar, spelling and
usage”, but could we make bold to add that the bulk of the work to be done in the field (mainly with
regard to teaching upper-intermediate and advanced students) must be carried out by NESTs – i.e.
non-English speaking teachers?
3. It has often been remarked that, in the vast majority of the cases in the actual reality of
TEFL, it is far better for the teacher to be bilingual than monolingual; as to the bicultural
dimension, which is a lot more difficult to come by, the advantage of this status is, we think, quite
undeniable. We believe that the contrastive dimension itself can be by and large equated to the socalled cultural gap, which can make things so difficult for EFL teachers.
The specific focus is largely dependent (in certain cases, even essentially so) on the intrinsic
differences concerning the linguistic structure of the two languages in contact (i.e. the target
language and the source language). In this connexion, one should by no means underevaluate the
relevant, formative and essentially instructive role of error analysis. In this specific area of TEFL
studies and adjacent reflective work, practical contributions can be made by NESTs, e.g. through
developing didactic, class- and target-oriented software materials that could exploit (much of) the
contrastive dimension of the two languages in contact.
Although, if one takes a purely empirical view of that type of activity, the efficiency of the
pedagogical approach is heavily (sometimes, should we add, even exclusively) subject to the
teacher’s didactic and linguistic capacities and talent, other factors are, provably, at work. One
should primarily consider factors like the teacher’s familiarity with cultural norms and attitudes
belonging to different cultures, his or her range of experience and cultural background itself, their
knowledge of other languages as a solid basis for didactic (and, why not?) cultural insight, and also
their propensity for international, cross-cultural perceptions of reality.
Independently of the action (and, of course, the person) of the ELT teacher, the emergence,
advancement and continuous consolidation of English as the global language rests on the
unprecedented progress of communication through the agency of English as an international
language, in the following areas of action and referentiality: the world of pop and youth culture,
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including entertainment and travel culture, the media, the world of international goods and services,
best represented by the transnational companies, the internet communication system, the world of
scientific culture and research – to mention only the chief such fields of activity.
It will be true to say that a subtle combination of extralinguistic (in our case, ultimately
cultural) factors and circumstances, of an economic, historical, social and political nature, have
lately led to what was often termed “linguistic imperialism”, with English as the prime
representative. One can argue that, on the one hand, English is the mouthpiece of the commercial
concerns, no less than the academic “industry” (some sources claim that the activities relating to
TEFL have made this economic area the third largest industry in Great Britain).
On the other hand, although the fear of being called chauvinistic prevents one from
appearing too peremptory in assessing this, English can be said to be “better” than other
international languages, through at least four or five essential characteristic traits: it is a language
boasting a relatively simple, flexible analytical structure, in whose basic combinatory patterning
what counts is mainly linear ordering, more often than not predictable, it is pragmatically directed
and shaped (in so many fundamental respects), it is a language belonging to a clearly defined and
quite representative culture, it has unreluctantly and rather massively taken over linguistic (and,
thence, cultural) roots, mainly Greek and Latin, it does not waver to choose novelty (not only
lexical novelty!), etc. In spite of the eulogizing impression the fragment below certainly suggests,
the description that Otto Jespersen attempted of the ‘national character’ of the English language is
overall correct to this day – as the following somewhat bulky quotation can clearly demonstrate: “It
will be my endeavour in this volume to characterize the chief peculiarities of the English language
and to explain the growth and significance of features in its structure which have been of permanent
importance. The older stages of the language (…) throw light either directly or by contrast on the
main characteristics of present English, and an attempt will be made to (…) show their mutual
bearings on each other, and relation of language to national character. The knowledge that the latter
conception is very difficult to deal with scientifically (…) may easily tempt into hasty
generalizations (…) There is one expression that continually comes to my mind whenever I think of
the English language and compare it with others: it seems to me positively and expressly masculine;
it is the language of a grown-up man and has very little childish or feminine about it. (…) The
English consonants are well defined; voiced and voiceless consonants stand over against each other
in neat symmetry and they are, as a rule, clearly and precisely pronounced. (…) English has
undoubtedly gained in force what it has possibly lost in elegance, by reducing so many words of
two syllables to monosyllables. If it had not been for the great number of long foreign, especially
Latin, words, English would have approached the state of such monosyllabic languages as Chinese.
[E.g.] many English sentences. ‘First come, first served’ is much more vigorous than the French
‘Premier venu, premier moulu’ (…) Compare also ‘No cure, no pay’, ‘Haste makes waste, and
waste makes want’, ‘Live and learn’ (…) Business-like shortness is also seen in such convenient
abbreviations of sentences as abound in English, for instance, ‘While fighting in Germany he ‘was
taken prisoner’ (= while he was fighting), (…) ‘To be left till called for.’ ‘Once at home, he forgot
his fears.’ ‘We had no idea what to do’, ‘Did they run? Yes, I made them’ (= made them run). (…)
Such expressions remind one of the abbreviations used in telegrams; they are syntactical
correspondences to the morphological shortenings that are also of such frequent occurrence in
English: cab for cabriolet, bus for omnibus, photo for photograph, phone for telephone, and
innumerable others. (…) We shall find our impression strengthened and deepened. It is worth
observing, for instance, how few diminutives the language has and how sparingly it uses them.
English in this respect forms a strong contrast to Italian with its -ino (ragazzino, fratellino,
originally a double diminutive), -ina (donnina), -etto (giovinetto), -etta (oretta), -elto, -elta
(asinello, storiella) and other endings, German with its -chen and -lein especially South German
with its -le, -el, -ert (…) [Their] application in English is restricted to the nursery and it is hardly
ever used by grown-up people except in speaking to children. [With respect to] the standard of logic
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(…), I think that, apart from Chinese, which has been described as pure applied logic, there is
perhaps no language in the civilized world that stands so high as English. Look at the use of the
tenses; the difference between the past he saw and the composite perfect he has seen is maintained
with great consistency (…) In praising the logic of the English language we must not lose sight of
the fact that in most cases where, so to speak, the logic of facts or of the exterior world is at war
with the logic of grammar, English is free from the narrow-minded pedantry which in most
languages sacrifices the former to the latter or makes people shy of saying or writing things which
are not ‘strictly grammatical’. This is particularly clear with regard to number. Family and clergy
are, grammatically speaking, of the singular number, but in reality they indicate a plurality. (…)
This is seen, too, in the vocabulary. In spite of the efforts of several authors of high standing, the
English have never suffered an Academy to be instituted among them like the French or Italian
Academies, which had as one of their chief tasks the regulation of the vocabulary so that every
word not found in their Dictionaries was blamed as unworthy of literary use or distinction.” (Otto
Jespersen, Growth and Structure of the English Language, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1948, in
Linguistics, edited by Archibald A. Hill, Voice of America Forum Lectures, 1969)
4. Some principles and main lines are useful in order to promote the quality of the didactic
action, especially as far as sheer (communicative) efficiency is concerned, but no less with respect
to the idea of observing this activity’s specific cultural potentialities, as well as the notion of sharing
(cultural) values, and also the cross-cultural (or intercultural) dimension. First of all, the reflective
approaches are in order, which should be ELT-friendly, and also boost ELT as a product-oriented
activity. This must be paralleled, we strongly believe, by reciprocal respect between the languages
and cultures thus brought in contact, chiefly through the act of teaching-and-learning, the benefits of
which should ideally devolve not only on English, as a target language, but also on the students’
mother tongue.
Furthermore, the idea should be emphasised that English must no longer be strictly
identified with a certain national culture, as its status as a “language of the entire world” lends it a
global cultural relevance. Then, there is the beneficial principle of cultural accumulation and
improvement, which is added to the (always modern – be it perceived as rather hackneyed) concept
of international cooperation, rather than “cultural control” and taking advantage of “the other”. (In
the ultimate analysis, to take only the most notable example of the kind, did not the cultural
advantages of the Roman conquest, surpass, in time, in most regions subjected by the Empire, the
comparative disadvantages as well as the conquered people’s resentment? Similarly, in today’s
world, promoting ELT should be done democratically, and also in a participative way.)
Complementarity rather than linguistic and cultural ‘brainwashing’ should be the rule in that field
of action, too.
The standard grammars of the English language fail to record lots of features included by
what we may – and in fact have to – call real English. If we generally argue that the native speaker
should qualify as a (linguistic) model for EFL, though not necessarily a cultural model, then how
many EFL teachers would unrelunctantly give a straight answer to the question whether such a
pattern ought to be used as a cultural model, too? Moreover, natural, ‘real’ English, the corpusbased idiom that is (universally, we believe) considered the very gist of the ‘model English’ is to be
met with automatically and logically in the main methods and manuals currently employed to teach
EFL. And, if this ‘model’ is modified, through natural evolution, the didactic materials, the teaching
aids and supports should and must be in their turn changed (automatically or not).
The importance of the informal context is paramount in assessing the model value of the
type of English being taught (a type of language which is, we think, increasingly emphatic of a
broad gamut of interpersonal communication); the specific language choice should be, likewise,
made through the intermediary of the “filter” provided by the teacher, as a ‘breeder’ of
communicative and cultural patterns to be taught.
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In EFL teaching, the set of invented dialogues that manuals or individual teachers can come
up with should be in keeping with (relevant) actual realities in the cultural framework of the target
languages – and nations. On the other hand, it can be argued that the contexts involving ‘unreal’
English are sometimes easier to understand and reproduce, so they can be said to be more
appropriate pedagogically (cf. the ‘real’ English provided by the contexts that are more appropriate
culturally); but we think that the above impediment, although presenting us with a real dilemma,
should be (optimistically) dealt with as a (mere, though rather nasty) paradox.
5. If we wish to rapidly analyze the intercultural / cross-cultural potential of TEFL from a
NEST’s perspective, it would greatly benefit us to make references to the set of idioms and phrases
including names of (especially European) nations. (This example was suggested to us by Ronald
Carter, in his article Orders of reality: CANCODE, communication, and culture, in ELT Journal
52/1, January 1998, p 49, with instances like Dutch courage, to go Dutch, double-Dutch, Dutch
cap, If that’s true, then I’m a Dutchman, Dutch auction, It’s all Greek to me, Beware of Greeks
bearing gifts, French leave, French letter, French kiss, French lessons). To these examples should
be added: the Pennsylvania Dutch “a group of German-speaking people in East Pennsylvania,
descended from 18th-century settlers from South-Western Germany and Switzerland”, in Dutch
“(slang) in trouble”, French vermouth “a dry aromatic white wine”, Greek meets Greek “equals
meet”, Italian vermouth “sweet vermouth”, and also a number of similar Romanian phrases such as:
Vorbeşte chinezeşte / turceşte “I can’t understand him / her (at all)”, pipa neamţului, etc.
The ‘realia’ specific to different cultural areas are therefore reflected in a different manner in
the cultural concepts making up different types of Weltanschauung. (E.g. Romanian dor, English
spleen, French engouement, etc.). If we refer to cross-culturalism in action, the best case in point is,
we think, teaching lexicon.
In a different connection, it has been noticed that cultural manipulation can often act through
linguistic manipulation, especially via the phenomenon of unwanted linguistic interference,
whence the so-called barbarisms and ill-formed calques can be put in a new light. The best
examples in point are, we believe, the words, pre-existing in Romanian, which have recently
acquired new meanings, e.g. cale (instead of Rom. metodă, modalitate, chip): “Vreau să găsesc o
cale pentru ca să le arat supuşilor mei ce poate face un faraon” (Jetix), pas (for Rom. etapă, stadiu):
“Un make-up perfect, în trei paşi”, magic (for Rom. vrăjit, încântător): “(…) face harfa să sune
magic” (Animax TV); or the syntactic ‘barbarisms’, e.g. “Tu şi gura ta spartă!” (Jetix TV – Water
Melon). At other times, what happens is merely linguistic interference resulting in neologistic
borrowing; as far as Romanian is concerned, mention should be made of the (English words, no
doubt, although ultimately Latin or Romance) roots which have in recent times succeeded in
penetrating anew the vocabulary of modern Romanian (as a result of the comparative cultural
“prestige” of English), e.g., management, marketing, a poziţiona, etc.
The specific activity of improving vocabulary skills, especially with upper-intermediate and
advanced EFL students, obviously has to cope with such issues as Deceptive Cognates or False
Friends, starting from the comparative / contrastive dimension of language and linguistic practice
(e.g. abstract, conference, emphatic, fabric, location, panel, support, versatile). In much the same
way, proper names are a notorious source of common errors, more often than not neglected by
books and other didactic materials produced by native speakers of English, e.g. Archimedes, Burma,
Charlemagne, Genoa, Munich, Prague, Socrates, Turin, etc.
6. To conclude, promoting bilingualism must be perceived as essentially opposed to the
mechanical taking over, by the elites in the nations “culturally incorporated”, of a “superimposed”
jargon. We believe that, in teaching EFL, too, the result must be the ever wider access to the
manifold benefits of a new culture of those social-professional groups and areas into which the
communication needs of the global world fall; so, not “linguistic imperialism”, but a “linguistic
global village”.
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The participation of local languages and cultures in the cultural ensemble / aggregate
activated and coordinated by contemporary globalism should be done, ideally, by taking support on
the ideas of complementarity, choice, alternative and cohesion, with balance as the final outcome.
The ultimate result should not therefore be an amorphous, indistinct amalgamation, but rather a
‘round’ entity, representative to the highest degree of today’s complex functionality of the world we
live in. It is one of the main tasks of the educationalist to contribute to it, irrespective of the fact that
(s)he is an English-speaking teacher of EFL, or a non-speaker of English linguist-cum-pedagogue.
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