Intercultural Differences and Communicative Approaches to Foreign Language Teaching in the Third World

Extract

Language is not simply a formal system of sounds, words, and syntactical structures; language also reaches into the domain of human interaction, which for its own part follows certain rules. Every native speaker assimilates individual social experiences characteristic of his own culture. These experiences inhere in statements that obtain their communicative significance through interpretation: “Die Bedeutung eines sprachlichen Zeichens kennen heisst wis en, wie es verwendet werden kann, d.h. wie man mit ihm handeln kann, welche Regeln für seinen Gebrauch gelten” (Heringer, 1977). Each society accumulates rules according to which concrete statements are interpreted abstractly and which are valid among communicating partners through common usage.