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Utilizing Proverbs as a Focal Point to Cultural Awareness and Communicative Competence: Illustrations from Africa
Author(s) -
Richmond Edmun B.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
foreign language annals
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.258
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1944-9720
pISSN - 0015-718X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1944-9720.1987.tb02947.x
Subject(s) - communicative competence , cultural competence , curriculum , linguistics , foreign language , point (geometry) , communicative language teaching , psychology , competence (human resources) , sociology , pedagogy , language education , philosophy , social psychology , mathematics , geometry
Foreign language teachers often insert proverbs into courses in order to impart cultural awareness to their students. However, these proverbs are usually randomly selected and randomly placed into the course content. In certain languages this becomes a major concern, because proverbs are a prime vehicle of communication in many cultures. Proposed in this article is a model of target‐ and native‐language proverb comparison which can be used to assist proverb analysis in the language curriculum. This study uses examples from the West African language, Mandinka.