Teaching the culture in language through film Linda Marion

“Culture is embedded in language as an intangible, all-pervasive and highly variable force. How are we to capture it and teach it?”

(Crozet and Liddicoat, 1999)

Questions1. What is culture?

2. Why ‘film’ as amedium for teachingculture ina languageprogram?

3. What aspects ofChinese culture areapparent in theChinese film “Not OneLess”4. How can thiscultural content beidentified, thentaught/learnt?

1. What is culture?

When we use the word "culture" in its anthropological sense, we mean to say that culture is any of the customs, worldview, language, kinship system, social organisation, and other taken-for-granted day-to-day practices of a people which set that group apart as a distinctive group. By using the anthropological sense of the world "culture," we mean to consider any aspect of the ideas, communications, or behaviour of a group of people which gives to them a distinctive identity and which is used to organise their internal sense of cohesion and membership. Scollon & Wong Scollon (1995), p. 126.

2. Why ‘film’ as a medium for teaching culture in a language program?

Teaching Culture in the Classroom

“Culture is embedded in language as an intangible, all-pervasive and highly variable force. How are we to

capture it and teach it?” (Crozet and Liddicoat, 1999)

Australian Chinese language learners are faced with the enormous task of acquiring not only a new sound system, syntax and script but also of accessing an eastern culture which is also very different to a western one. In-country visits or exchanges are one way to overcome the problem of achieving exposure to the language and culture in a natural setting. However, for most students this is out of reach and anyway would not happen very often.

•Creates a classroom environment which surrounds students with authentic sights and sounds in a real situation and context – a virtual immersion! •Allows teachers to bring particular aspects of Chinese culture to the students’ attention, by demonstrating them visually, with sound, in a real context.

•Provokes learners to examine themselves in relation to the Chinese culture and language being experienced through film.

Teaching Culture

Using Feature Film

1. Salience within the context of the whole film.

2. Conceptual relevance for the target audience.

3. ICL learners’ language competence.

4. Cultural authenticity and relevance.

The Selection of scenes to use from a language film should be based on four criteria which describe their usefulness for teaching culture in the classroom:

Professor Do Coyle, Nottingham University

3 4

2 1

High Cognitive

Low Cognitive

Low Linguistic High Linguistic

3. What aspects of Chinese culture are apparent in “Not One Less”

Chinese Culture

community

family

The Australians

self

family

community

Cheng, 1999

The Chinese

Culture and Chinese Education

The notion of schooling in this film offers several strata of culture which can be brought to the attention of learners, these include

• Chinese educational philosophy, methodology and rural conditions;

• Confucianism including respect, honour, authority, obedience and the idea of the intrinsic goodness of mankind;

• Verbosity and silence; • Inter-relational elements such as teacher and

pupil, student peer groups; • Naming and titles of address

4. How can the cultural content of a film text be identified, then taught/learnt?

Critical Discourse Analysis

TEXT CONTEXTVerbal & Visual

Language:An analysis of the object

Description & Interpretation of the film text, including dialogue, paralinguistic semiotics and filmic language. Key linguistic features, structure of text, cohesion.

The Processes of production & reception

A Processing analysisExplanation & Interpretation of content, roles and relationships of speakers and listeners, intended audience, and discourse type

The Conditions of production reception:

A Social AnalysisExplanation of the Situational, Institutional & Societal ‘Member Resources’, including socio-historical knowledge, and ‘natural’ assumptions.

1. How is language used to construct a representation of the world?

2. How do key linguistic features work to position the reader/listeners? Do they all pull in the same direction? Is there a pattern?

1. Who is speaking to whom? When? Where? On what occasion?

2. What relations exist between the speaker/writer and the listener/hearer?

1. What is the socio-historical context?

2. What power relations, social, institutional, situational shape this discourse?

TEXT CONTEXTVerbal & Visual

Language:An analysis of the object

Description & Interpretation of the film text, including dialogue, paralinguistic semiotics and filmic language. Key linguistic features, structure of text, cohesion.

The Processes of production & reception

A Processing analysisExplanation & Interpretation of content, roles and relationships of speakers and listeners, intended audience, and discourse type

The Conditions of production reception:

A Social AnalysisExplanation of the Situational, Institutional & Societal ‘Member Resources’, including socio-historical knowledge, and ‘natural’ assumptions.

3. How does the overall construction of the text – logical reasoning, sequencing, visual selection and organisation, interaction patterns contribute to this representation?

4. Are there any internal contradictions?

3. What is going on (content) Who is involved? (subjects) What relations exist between them (relations)? What is language doing? What is the discourse type?

4. Who is the ideal reader of this text? How do the assumptions about what the reader knows and values enable us to work out who the ideal reader is? What do intertextual references tell us about the ideal reader?

3. What are the common sense assumptions that underlie this text? What is taken for granted? What is presented as natural?

4. How is this discourse positioned or positioning in relation to reproducing or changing social practice? Does it work to sustain or transform existing relations of power?

Scene 1, Cut 5 Teacher Gao explains the daily routine

Synopsis Teacher Gao gives Wei Minzhi a series of

intense instructions, a sort of ‘professional development’ session about day to day housekeeping matters and how to teach the 28 primary school students left in his school

Text Analysis

Key linguistic structures & features

i) Instructions: Teacher Gao tells Weiminzhi when the sunlight reaches the nail on the pole in the classroom, it is time to go home. Teacher Gao’s face and voice reveal the extent to which he is worried about leaving the children.

ii) Questions and answers: 那 如 果 要 是 没 有 太 阳 呢 ? When Wei Mingzhi asks a question about what happens on days when there is no sun, Teacher Gao instructs her to send them home a bit earlier.

iii) Questions and answers: 那 如 果 要 是 学 生 提 前 抄 完 呢 ? Repeating the pattern 那 如 果 要 是 , emphasises Wei Minzhi’s attempt to engage in a productive conversation with the teacher.

iv) Questions and answers: Finishing class work early:

Wei Minzhi asks what students can do once they have finished copying the text. Teacher Gao answers they should go out to play and she should not let them fight.

v) Questions and answers: Extension work: After they

have finished the work, students can copy the text out again.

vi) Teacher Gao’s frown and gestures: to a western audience this might indicate annoyance or anger, but there is no intended suggestion here that the teacher is being unreasonable to Wei Minzhi. His tone of voice and manner expresses proper moral serious concern about leaving his students, which overrides all other considerations in this exchange.

vii) Wei Minzhi is observing the politeness rules about

eye contact and giving face to Teacher Gao by listening attentively.

Film Language: i) The Chinese audience would be both shocked and amused

by this travesty of impoverished educational conditions being revealed by the camera with such intense and touching realism.

ii) The actors, although playing parts, have themselves first

hand experience of such conditions and there is a convincing natural and matter of fact quality to the dialogue enhanced by the close-up shots showing the teacher’s concerned expressions and Wei Minzhi’s animated responses.

Context, Processing Analysis

Roles & Relationships

i) Teacher Gao maintains an intense, formal distance as he systematically explains the daily routines.

ii) Wei Minzhi relaxes a little in the familiar environment

of listening to the teacher and is even bold enough to ask some pertinent questions.

Discourse i) Each question that Wei Minzhi asks is answered with

seriousness and at times a sense of hopelessness. This is a teacher/student discourse of instruction in which he repeatedly asks her if she is listening, 听见没有 ? (tingjian meiyou)

ii) This solemn discourse is dominated and driven by Teacher

Gao’s problem. It is not his intention or role to make Wei Minzhi feel comfortable or welcome as one might expect in a western setting.

Context, Social Analysis

Cultural Themes

i) The extreme poverty of rural China: No clock and the need to lengthen the teacher’s bed by putting a chair at the end of it, amplify the extreme poverty and declining standards of living and education in rural China.

Symbols i) The nail on the pole underlines not only the poverty, but

also life being lived at a primitive subsistence level where even a basic item like a clock is missing.

ii) Lack of sealed roads and being at the mercy of the

elements underscores the neglected infra-structure and further stresses the extreme simplicity of the village lifestyle.

ii) Chinese resourcefulness and creativity: Teacher Gao explains the practical strategies he has developed for dealing with the hardships of the impecunious learning environment. Teacher Gao shows how Chinese people can find inventive solutions under difficult conditions and make the best of trying circumstances.

iii) The Chinese teacher’s duties: Chinese teachers are traditionally responsible for many aspects of their students’ lives apart from their education. In this scene, sleeping three to a bed with the female students, cooking for them, and on really windy or rainy days, personally accompanying students home, are all part of a teachers day, as well as teaching them.

一个都不能少 Not One Less

Starring Wei Min Zhi

Directed by Zhang Yimou

REFERENCESCulture:

Kramsch, C. (1998). Language and Culture, OUP.

Liddicoat A. J. & Crozet, C. Ed. c2000.Teaching languages, teaching cultures / Melbourne, Applied Linguistics Association of Australia [and] Language Australia,

Scollon, R. W. S., Suzanne. (2001). Intercultural Communication. Malden, Massachusetts, Blackwell.

Lo Bianco, J. C., Chantal., Ed. (2003). Teaching Invisible Culture - Classroom Practice and Theory. Melbourne, Australia, Language Australia.

Chinese Culture

Hu, W.-C. (1991). Encountering the Chinese. Yarmouth, Maine, USA, Intercultural Press, Inc.

Bond, M. H., Ed. (1986). The Psychology of the Chinese People. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press.