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disease in medical science. It refers to brain-generated defect in
sounding words (Gao, 2006). In 1990s, Cao proposed the term
“aphasia of Chinese literature” in face of the loss of Chinese
literature (Cao, 1996). In China, it is Cong Cong who first cited
this term in the teaching field in Guangming Daily. According
to him, “aphasia of Chinese culture” means that in intercultural
communication, students are incompetent in expressing Chi-
nese culture in English, which is beneficial to neither students’
overall development of communicative competence nor the
successful and equal communication (Cong, 2000). After the
publication of this article, more and more people are aware of
this phenomenon. Some linguistic scholars in China have real-
ized the importance of keeping a balanced teaching of target
culture and native culture.
Previous Studies on the Aphasia of Chinese Culture
Concerning the previous studies, both theoretical studies and
empirical studies have been done.
There are some essential theoretical studies in this field. Liu
emphasized cultural teaching should balance native culture and
target culture. He proposed some strategies for the integration
of target culture and native culture (Liu, 2003). Gao brought
forward “productive bilingualism” which can be represented by
“1 + 1 > 2”, as the incorporation of two languages and two
cultures results in the fulfillment of creative potentials (Gao,
2001). Zhang et al. suggested “Productive Multiculturalism” to
balance the diverse culture in English learning (Zhang, Mi, &
Sun, 2009). Zhang criticized three misunderstandings of inter-
cultural communication to arise students’ and teachers’ atten-
tion to native culture (Zhang, 2009). Liu and He explored the
post-orientation of localization in China from the perspective of
globalization (Liu & He, 2010).
There are also some significant empirical studies in this field.
Deng and Ao investigated the aphasia of Chinese culture from
the aspect of English majors and proposed some suggestions on
the textbook, curriculum and the abilities of teachers (Deng &
Ao, 2005). However, their investigation lacked the students’
participation. Zhang et al. took the notice of the aphasia of
Chinese culture in non-English majors (Zhang, Mi, & Yin,
2008). While, they only adopted the questionnaires to dig out
the reason, which were not complete enough. Xiao et al. studied
the current situation of the aphasia of Chinese culture in college
by investigating the teaching management and revealed that
Chinese culture teaching does not correspond to the college
English syllabus (Xiao, Xiao, Li, & Song, 2010).
The literature review indicates several gaps in terms of ex-
ploring of the issue on the aphasia of Chinese culture. Regard-
ing subjects, most of studies focus on the higher education, and
few studies have been touched on middle school education. For
methods, most of the studies focus on the theoretical study and
quantitative methods, but little work has combined both of
them together to dig out the deeper and more specific reasons.
As for the key materials—textbooks and NMET (National Ma-
triculation English Test) papers, they are ignored by the schol-
ars on this phenomenon.
According to the research gaps mentioned above, further re-
search needs to complement them. Thus this paper studies this
issue from the aspect of senior high school’s context and fo-
cuses on Chinese culture in classroom instruction, textbooks
and NMET papers to enhance the culture teaching in senior
high school English class.
Research Questions, Su bjects, Method ol o gy and Data
Collection
Research Questions
For the intentions of disclosing the problems underlying lack
of native culture and providing countermeasures, the present
study is designed to answer the following questions:
1) Does the aphasia of Chinese culture exist among senior
high school students? If so, to what extent do the students
“lose” their Chinese culture?
2) What’s the arrangements of Chinese culture in English
class?
3) What’s the proportion of Chinese culture in English text-
books?
4) What’s the proportion of Chinese culture in NMET pa-
pers?
Subjects
Subjects in this study: 1) 112 students from a key middle
school in Kunming. All of them are senior high school students
of Grade one, for they are not so busy to prepare the NMET. 2)
10 teachers from the same middle school in Kunming. 3) 5
required NSEFC (New Senior English for China) textbooks. 4)
5 NMET I papers 2006 to 2010.
Methodology
In order to make the investigation more comprehensive, both
quantitative methods and qualitative methods are applied.
For the quantitative methods, questionnaires and test papers
are adopted. They are adapted and revised according to Zhang
Liyue (2009)’s, for her test papers and questionnaires are more
proper. The test paper is for the students. The questionnaires are
one for teachers and one for students. The test paper is designed
to check whether the aphasia of Chinese culture exists among
senior high school students and to what extent the students
“lose” the native culture. It consists of twenty Chinese phrases
which can typically reflect Chinese culture. All of them are
required to be translated into English. There are 100 scores in
all. The questionnaire for teachers includes ten multiple choices
with four scales, A = strongly agree; B = agree; C = disagree; D
= strongly disagree. The questionnaire for students also in-
cludes ten multiple choices with four scales.
As for qualitative methods, it includes observation of the
class and document analysis. The observation lasts one month
for 3 teachers’ classes. It aims to dig out the more objective
reasons. In doing this, the researcher does not let the teachers
and students know anything about this research beforehand.
Document analysis includes the analysis of textbooks and NM ET
I papers. The former concentrates on 5 required textbooks
(NSEFC) published by People’s Education Press to know the
culture arrangements of the textbooks, especially the proportion
and selection of Chinese culture in it. Since there are no special
items for testing culture knowledge, the latter focuses on the
culture carriers—the cloze and reading parts of NMET I papers
2006 to 2010 to see the proportion of Chinese culture in the
papers.
Data Collection
Questionnaire and test paper investigations are applied after
the class observation. For the questionnaires, 112 students and