The role of cultural background in the process of language learning

Abstract

Abundance of works have been written on the complexity of the language learning process. In addition to linguistic structure study of a language should also include description of the cultural bac­kg­round of the target language, healthy communication among nations, besides overcoming linguistic difficulties, is associated with the study and perception of the language from the cultural point of view, which leads to the perception of the stereotypes and the view of the world characteristic of the specific language collective by the learner.

My field of interest besides linguistic approach to the language is revealing the awareness of the learner about the cultural background of the language to be studied, as well as discussion on the development of necessary recommendations concerning conceptual approach to the language.

The research, in which twenty-two Georgian learners of Tur­kish language took part, shed light on the learners' awareness of the cultural world of the target language (Turkish), it gave us the opp­ortunity to discuss the existing picture and discuss the need to develop recommendations to eliminate the deficiencies.

The results of the questionnaire survey showed us the following outcome: the awareness of Georgian language learners is limited only to those modern figures and events, which are provided by visual media: news channels, video clips, internet sources. Unfortunately, the Georgian language learner is not familiar with the cultural depths, which represent the national spirit of the language collective, literary traditions, persons and events that became a precedent as a result of stereotypical representations.

My recommendations serve to eliminate the stated deficiencies present throughout the language learning process: when learning a language it is crucial to ensure the involvement of cultural elements in the process: providing graded readers reflecting the culture of the linguistic community in a language-learning process; it is desirable to develop a lingo-cultural dictionary, which, based on the reflection of the nation's culture, provides the language learner with information about the spiritual world of the language to be studied and, as a result, determines healthy communication between the nations.