CULTURE AND LANGUAGE

“Culture and Language”

“Culture and Language”

Culture and Language

To understand the connection between culture and language, it is essential to study and evaluate a language which is associated to one of the richest culture known. Language can be one of the most important elements in understanding and evaluating a country's culture. The teaching of Language in different European languages was developed within the framework of foreign language teaching, in contradistinction to mother tongue teaching. This development followed the realization of the fact that foreign learners who had to use their languages of adoption in professional, occupational and intellectual activities.

Following the changing role of the French Language from a vehicle of French culture to a vehicle of Science, Technology, Commerce and Diplomacy, the teaching of French as a foreign language (FFL) around the world has shifted emphasis from literary studies to what has come to be known as French for Specific Purposes (FSP), seen essentially as the specialist forms and usages of the French language in specific professions, disciplines, and fields of human activity. Following this trend, Nigerian universities, like their counterparts elsewhere in the world teaching FFL, have been teaching FSP to students in the Bachelor's degree programmed of various disciplines seen as trainees in various professions, careers, and occupations (Amin, 2011).

Adoption

This development followed the realization of the fact that foreign learners who had to use their languages of adoption in professional, occupational and intellectual activities, had language and communication needs that were different from those of the common user of the language. The development of materials for the teaching of these specialist usages thus began by determining communication needs of these foreign language learners in various domains of specialist activity, science and technology, commerce and industry, finance and management, agriculture, medicine, law, etc.

Combined study

The combined study only offers a favorable condition for a profitable and effective study and easy acquisition of FSP. Beyond the mere combined study of French or any other foreign language for that matter, together with some other discipline, there must be the conscious study of the specialist language of such other discipline using the pedagogical methods and techniques that have been developed for such study, and under the expert guidance of a teacher trained in these methods and techniques, as well as in the specialist language of the discipline.

The existence of such combined subjects degree programmers as we have proposed above in other FFL teaching nations of the world, and their success in facilitating the effective teaching of FSP, attest to the feasibility of our proposal. Indeed such combined degree programmers are in great currency in European countries and America where French is taught as a foreign language. In Lancaster University in Great Britain, to cite but just one example, French (and indeed other European languages like German, Italian and Spanish) can be studied together with Chemistry or Computer Science or Geography or Mathematics or Psychology in the School of Science and Engineering; with Accounting and Finance or Economics or Marketing in the School ...