Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Pavol Burcl
Foreword
Every time we talk about the foreign language education, we cannot miss the four key skills
involved. More or less, for many teachers or lecturers is typical to reinforce one or two
favourite skills. There are colleagues who prefer writing, reading, audio-oral drilling or just
speaking, practical usage by role plays, etc. It is various. Anyway, we are sure about the fact
that reading is not very popular among the students, mainly if they hate it in Slovak. They
often consider reading to be just time killing boring activity.
Our point of view is kind of different. We would like to concentrate on the co-operative
system within the communicative competence, on the appearance of other factors when
working on texts. It will be better not to focus on reading separately. Going through the lines,
as many students do, is not enough.
It is clear that when reading, we are in contact not only with the text itself, but acquire
knowledge. Knowledge of the culture of the particular language. There is no text existing
separately apart from the previous situations. Thing known as intertextuality. Each text is
connected with the culture of origin. So when we try to understand the text, we have to
understand the culture, as well. We must build - cultural awareness.
Cultural awareness
We will take various elements into consideration, such as reading as the skill, understanding
the source text, finding the logic of the source (original) text, the process of translation into
the target language, the level of the mastery and also the motivation. We must change the
rooted perception that it is only geography and history we should deal with.
Gail Robinson (1985), an American expert for the field of intercultural education states that
when the majority of teachers are given the question – „What does culture mean to you?“,
answers appear within the three categories: products, ideas and behaviour . According to
Robinson (1985, p.11) “culture ... is a dynamic system – an ongoing, dialectic process, giving
rise to symbols which may be viewed historically”.
Literature
Catford, J.C. (2000) A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London: OUP, 1965, p.73. According
to: Gromová, E. Kapitoly z úvodu do prekladateľstva. Nitra: FF UKF, 2000, p.19. ISBN 80-
8050-359-1
Dolník, J. (1999) Základy lingvistiky. Bratislava: Stimul, 1999, p.5. ISBN 80-85697-95-5
Robinson, G.L.N. (1985) Crosscultural Understanding. New York: Prentice Hall, 1985.
According to: Tomalin, B. – Stempleski, S. Cultural awareness. Oxford: OUP, 1993, p. 7.
ISBN 0-19-437194-8
Popovič, A. The Concept „ Shift of Expression“ in Translation Analysis. In: Holmes, J.S.- De
Haan, F.- Popovič, A. (eds) The Nature of Translation. The Hague: Morton & Co., p. 78-87.
According to: Gromová, E. Kapitoly z úvodu do prekladateľstva. Nitra: FF UKF, 2000, p.19.
ISBN 80-8050-359-1
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PaedDr. Pavol Burcl
Jazykové centrum, FF UKF
Hodžova 1
949 74 Nitra, Slovensko
e-mail: pburcl@ukf.sk , pavolburcl@yahoo.com