The Enlightenment of Sociolinguistics to Foreign Language Teaching

Abstract：This paper studies English Teaching in China from the perspective of sociolinguistics.It analyses the relation between sociolinguistics and language teaching and points out its enlightenment upon language teaching.It requires that language teachers and teaching designers should pay much attention to the language itself and its related social factors as well.The author demands that we should attach importance to the communicative competence and social culture，emphasize the discourse and contextual teaching.

Key Words：sociolinguistics；foreign language teaching；communicative competence

1 Introduction

Sociolinguistics，as a new and independent edge discipline，mainly studies the relationship between society and language，the position and function of language in society，and how the people in society use the language functions to communicate.In laymans terms，social linguistics studies the use of language（USES）and users（USERS）.

Social linguistics has a broad and narrow sense.In general，social linguistics looks at language from the perspective of society，and it studies the language selection，standardization language，language culture，speech community and multilingual principle.From the narrow sense，social linguistics looks at language from the perspective of society，and it studies linguistic event，language function，code-variant pragmatics，discourse analysis and gender and so on.

2 The Changes of Foreign Language Teaching

2.1 The Changes of Cultivation Objectives

From the point of view of sociolinguistics，the training objective of a foreign language depends on the role and status of the foreign language in the communicative activities of the country（or group）.Sociolinguistics makes people realize that every language has a variety of languages in terms of the style，scope and the way of language use.Language variation is an inclusive concept.

Sociolinguistics believe that even the native speaker，they can only master the language foundation，which is known as common core.The first language acquisition is so difficult，so it is more difficult for foreign language acquisition.No matter what kind of foreign language teaching， it must have a clear goal，and then determine to learn which scope of foreign language，the requirements for listening speaking and writing reading translation，and the requirements for style.The more accurate and specific the cultivation object is，the more pertinently the teaching of foreign language teaching is.

2.2 The Changes of Teaching Syllabus

In the foreign language teaching，the teaching syllabus has been changed many times.At first，it was a syntactic syllabus with the advantages of clear veins and easy access to adults，but it also had many drawbacks：pay more attention on grammar which lead the students to memorize the rules.It should be noted that some grammatical forms can express different meanings，while the same meaning can have different grammatical forms.Another weakness is that it is based on the description of the material instead of the material itself，therefore students do not spent time on learning materials，but in the terminology of learning to describe the material.

Later，situational syllabus appeared，which combines the grammatical structure with the word，and it is much more practical than the syntactic syllabus.After that many people put forward notional syllabuses which is also called functional syllabuses or communicative syllabuses.And after the notional syllabuses，Widowsen put forward interactional syllabus which centered on discourse to design teaching content.

2.3 The Changes of Teaching Contents

With the change of the guiding principle，the teaching contents have been reformed accordingly.In contrast to the previous contents which emphasis on language training，the new textbooks focus on the cultivation of studentsability to communicate with others.It compile some situational dialogues，which enable students to practice in the real situation so students can know how to use different languages correctlyin different occasions.

In addition，the introduction of the concept of English has made researchers aware of the need to write specialized English textbooks.

3 The Enlightenment of Sociolinguistics to Foreign Language Teaching

3.1 Value communication skills

The ultimate goal of teaching is to cultivate studentscommunicative competence.The traditional linguistic theory only pays attention to the language itself.From the theory of sociolinguistics，people have known that communicative competence is not only the language ability，but its formation is restricted by many factors.

From the perspective of sociolinguistics，Chinese English teaching not only require foreign language teachers and foreign language teaching designers to see the language itself，but to see the social factors associated with language.By associating language with these factors to determine the teaching objectives，the teaching method is set up to determine the teaching method to complete the task of foreign language teaching.

3.2 Attach Importance to Social Culture

According to the concept of sociolinguistics，any language is a part of a specific culture.Language is a social phenomenon，and a tool for people to exchange ideas and feelings.Language is an important part of culture.It is a mirror reflecting the culture of a nation and revealing the content of the culture of the people.Therefore，in foreign language teaching，we should introduce the cultural background，and combine the various factors of social culture to teach the communicative principles of language and trains the student to use the appropriateness of language and communication skills.The cultural import in foreign language teaching is very important，and it is directly related to the cultivation of the rationality of language application.To know that the real grasp of a language requires the correct understanding of the social and cultural background of the language，and the learning of language is also a process of understanding culture.

In cross-cultural communication，if you do not understand the cultural background of each others language，even if the foreign language is well spoken，there may be a pragmatic failure or cultural shock，which may affect communication effect.

3.3 Context and Language Use

There are interdependent relations between context and language use.On the one hand，the choice of language must take the influence of context into consideration，and The context restricts the choice of language；on the other hand，the choice of language also influences the construction of context. In the process of language selection，the interaction between the language and the language structure generates a certain discourse meanings dynamically.

Foreign language teaching should start with the real context of language skills training，take the situation as the premise，and take students as the main body to solve the problems of dumb English and pragmatic failure and avoid the negative influence of the lack of situation and contextual information on the communication activities.This can help students construct the foreign language communication skills that they need in their future life and work.

4 Conclusion

In general，the use of language in social meetings is the fundamental starting point.For both foreign language teachers and foreign language teaching designers.It is necessary to broaden the horizon of foreign language teaching and give vitality to foreign language teaching in todays foreign language teaching.They should not only see the language you are teaching，but also the social factors associated with it.In addition，teaching objectives are determined by associating language with these factors.Such as improving studentsforeign language communicative competence，designing teaching procedure，determining teaching methods and completing teaching tasks.Chinese language teaching has some problems in practice.

However，in a certain degree，the theory and practice of sociolinguistics has opened up a new way for us to understand the linguistic phenomenon correctly and grasp the characteristics of language.It plays an important guiding role in our foreign language teaching.

References

[1]Hymen.D.H.FoundationsofSociolinguistics：Anethnographic[M]approach.Philadelphia；University of Pennsylvania Press，1974.

[2]Halliday.M.A.K.AnIntroduction to Functional Grammar[M].London：EdwardArnold，1985.

[3]黃國文.語篇分析的理論與實踐[M].上海：上海外語教育出版社，2001.

[4]許國璋.社會語言學及其應(yīng)用[J].外國語教學，1978，（3）.

作者簡介

高婧，女，漢族，內(nèi)蒙古赤峰人，教育碩士；單位：內(nèi)蒙古師范大學學科教學（英語）專業(yè)；研究方向：英語教育。