趙海成 劉心童

華北理工大學(xué) 河北唐山 063000

【Abstract】Sociolinguistics studies the rules of language and its application,focusing on the relationship between language and social factors,which has a great impact on foreign language teaching.Based on the current situation of English teaching in China and from the perspective of sociolinguistics,this paper puts forward some suggestions on English teaching in an attempt to promote its better development.

【Key Words】sociolinguistics；English teaching；enlightenment；communicative competence

1.Introduction

English is an important component of language category.From the perspective of sociolinguistics,English not only reflects the social phenomena,but also is an important expression form of cultural presentation.English teaching not only is the teaching of language knowledge unilaterally,but also needs to make students perceive the cultural environment and social-linguistic environment behind the language generation；language is not inherent but is the product developed with the use of tools and the change of socio-cultural environment.Therefore,the enlightenment brought by the study on sociolinguistics to English teaching is of great significance to improve the quality and level of English teaching.

2.Deficiencies in Current English Teaching

For a long time,English teaching has been focusing on grammar knowledge and neglected the cultivation of students’oral English expression and communicative ability.As a whole,the students did well in the written test but shrank back when they needed to speak English.The main reason is that students are self-doubt because they are fear of making mistakes,practice less and concern about face-saving.Therefore,firstly,we shall help students to change their minds psychologically,eliminate psychological fear and express themselves openly.

Although students have mastered a lot of language knowledge,they still encountered many difficulties in language expression because they were short of relevant cultural background knowledge of language,which is typically expressed in the aspect that the language is organized by Chinese mode of thinking,so,plenty of Chinglish is generated.

The class-t eaching model is single and student s lack ri ch pract ical experience.The teachi ng model of Engli sh i s sti ll carried out by centering on vocabulary,grammar and discourse analysis,and students just passively accept knowledge.This kind of teaching model which only focuses on“input”but i gnores“out put”i s diffi cult t o cul ti vate the t al ent s needed by our soci et y.

Hymes who is a famous linguist believes that the ultimate goal of language teaching is to cultivate the communicative ability of learners.Hu Wenzhong also once said that the communicative ability will be a tree without roots without the basis of language ability.

3.The Enl ight enment of Soci oli ngui st i cs t o Engl is h Teachi ng

The success or failure of English learning largely depends on the understanding of students.Firstly,students must recognize the status and role of English as a language in social intercourse and understand what good language habit is.The attitude to language learning can be corrected and the usage specification of language can be mastered only by recognizing these two problems.The studies on second language acquisition show that the correct learning attitude will greatly impact the efficiency and level of students’learning.

Because language variant exists objectively,nobody can avoid it,and teachers cannot discriminate against students due to their non-standard language or accent.On the contrary,teachers shall give them more guidance and care.If teachers hold prejudiceagainst them,theopposition between studentsand teacherswill becaused certainly,which isnot conducive to theestablishment of a good relationship between teachers and students,and will ultimately affect the teaching effect.

Theteacher should educatestudentsabout paying attention to the normalization of language,distinguishing what the beautiful language that people can accept is,what the ugly language that people can’t accept is,what the language that conforms to grammatical standard is and what the language that does not conform to grammatical standard is.Thestudentsshall havethe ability to distinguish thenew languagephenomenon,and do not blindly reject,pursuefashion and deliberately imitate.If thestudents did not master thecorrect grammar rules,there will be no standard language expression form,so that the bad language sense also will be generated.Therefore,teachers shall create a normalized languageenvironmentfor studentsand cultivatestudents'good language sense.

English teaching shall pay attention to cultivating the stylistic consciousness of students.In terms of a particular situation,a specific range and a specific purpose,people will use a certain language to communicate with a specific target.Therefore,thelanguage communication of peoplehasa certain range of register,and inthisway,peoplehavedifferent languagestyles when they communicate in different registers.The functional variants of language have different effects on the teaching,learning and usage of English.

English teaching must beclosely combined with cultural teaching.Language is the carrier of culture,and English teaching is inseparable from culture teaching.On the one hand,culture is an important part of language and non-negligible part in language learning,on the other hand,the understanding of the culture helps students understand and master the language,so as to make students better integrate into the language and more confidently use the language to express themselves.Therefore,cultural teaching must be an important part of English teaching.

The ultimate purpose of foreign language teaching is to cultivate students’ability of social intercourse,and in On Communicative Competence,Hymes,the American sociolinguist,pointed out that language must use principles otherwise the grammar will lose its significance.(Hymes,1972)His"using principle"is the appropriateness of language usage in communication.The so-called appropriateness is the ability to speak different things in different occasions.The"occasion"is the language environment referred by sociolinguist and functionalist.Sociolinguistic theory callstheutterance that producessomecoherent meaningsin acertain context“discourse”.The principle of cultivating social communicative ability in foreign language teaching determines that English teaching shall organize teaching activities at the discourse level from the whole to the details and from the language point to the teaching mode.

In the process of learning English,we should always pay attention to applying sociolinguistics and exploring the deeper meaning of language.Besides,in order to meet thegoal of English teaching,wecan also usesomemethodsof second language acquisition for reference,properly adjust theoriginal way of teaching,explore the new teaching idea,provide the students with thecomplete professional books and learning methods,and finally achieve ahigh-level teaching.