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Numerousresearches have also been done by anthropologists on nonverbal communication.In his famous work The Silent Language, Hall makes an exhaustive study of howpeople from different cultures communicate through nonverbal channels, anddiscloses the fact that cultures differ greatly in their use of nonverbalbehaviors and in their beliefs about what is appropriate nonverbal behavior(Hall, 1959). Researches in the field of psychology have gone to great lengthto study the influence of culture on human behavior. Among socialpsychologists, Geert Hofsede is one of the most outstanding, considering hisresearch on culture. In his Culture’s Consequences, Hofstede produces fourvalue dimensions that are influenced and modified by culture. He believes thatthese value dimensions have a significant impact on behavior in all cultures.The four dimensions are: individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance,power distance, and masculinity and femininity (Hofstede, 1980).Whether weapprove of his dimensions or not, we cannot deny his significant contributionto the research of culture contrast. In his book Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, Hofstededescribes culture as “mental programming” and “software of the mind” (Hofstede,1991:4).He believes that culture is just like programs of a computer, whichcontrols the behavior of human beings to some degree. He also classifiesculture into First Culture and Second Culture whereby anthropologists define asCulture with a capital C and Culture with a small c. The former includes allthe aspects of human civilization such as literature, art, music, architecture,philosophy and achievements of science and technology, whereas Culture with asmall c refers to the series of cultural characteristics such as customs,living styles, rules of behavior, social or organizations, and relationsbetween people, etc. 内容来自www.paper51.com Allof the researches prove that learning and culture can not be separated and culturalinput is very essential in teaching foreign language. paper51.com
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