I. The ethnography of communication

Hymes takes all the factors that are involved in communication into account. He uses the acronym SPEAKING to represent all the relevant factors.

(1) The S stands for the setting and scene of a speech event. Setting refers to the time and place, the concrete physical circumstance in which a speech event takes place. Scene refers to the abstract psychological state or the cultural definition of the occasion.

(2) The P represents participants, namely addresser-addressee, speaker-hearer. The relation between the participants determines to a great extent what it is talked about and how it is said.

(3) The E stands for the ends of speech events that the participants seek to achieve. The interviewer tries to seek information or opinion from the interviewee, who tries to make his point clear and known by others.

(4) The A refers to act sequence, i.e. the actual form and content of what is said.

(5) The K means key, namely the tone, intonation, or manner with which a message is conveyed by the speaker: serious, precise, light-hearted, mocking, sarcastic, etc.

(6) The I stands for instrumentalities, that is the choice of channel of communication.

(7) The N represents norms of interaction and interpretation. They are socio-cultural specific behaviors of speaking, such as when to speak, when to remain silent, loudness, etc.

(8) The last initial G stands for genre, types of discourse. Poems, sermons, lectures, speeches, conversations, etc. are all demarcated in structure and style.

II. Cultural aspect of language teaching and learning

A foreign language learner not only to learn the linguistic knowledge of the target language, but also to pay much attention to developing his cultural awareness, cultural sensitivity and cultural competence in his study of the target language.

The learner’s own culture may promote his target language learning and restrict his correct understanding and appropriate use of the target language.

This may suggest three ends which should be kept in view: one is that learners of a foreign language should gain an understanding of the nature of culture; the second id that their cultural bondage should be reduced; and the third is that they should gain a full understanding of their own cultural background.

Language is associated with a particular culture and the language provides the key to the understanding of the associated culture.

For the purpose of foreign language teaching and learning, culture may be broadly classified into two categories: one is the so-called formal culture, usually written as “Culture”, which is more related to “civilization”. The other category is the so-called popular culture, often written as “culture”, which is more related to everday life including everyday living style, patterns of behaving, thought, values, beliefs, social customs and habits, social norms and conventions, etc.

How we learn is also influenced by culture. The strong link between culture and learning is evidenced by research including that culture has a great influence on cognitive and motivational styles.

A full understanding of the socio-cultural features that are encoded in the linguistics routines, vocabulary and grammar of language comes only with a better understanding of the culture in which the language operates.

Language is so closely related and interwoven with aspect of culture, this cultural approach to a foreign language is necessary, but only when foreign language teachers are well informed of and alter to the cultural features and variables of the target language.