Читать книгу The Concise Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics - Carol A. Chapelle - Страница 77

This entry examines how cultural knowledge is defined and assessed. It addresses the long‐standing interest in applied linguistics and related disciplines, such as intercultural communication, education, psychology, and anthropology, in how culture can be taught and learned. The substantial growth in the field of international educational exchange since the turn of the 21st century has heightened this interest in language and culture learning, and the research and applied literatures have expanded accordingly (Lange & Paige, 2003). Related to this growth is the development of cultural knowledge assessment instruments (Paige, 2004; Fantini, 2009).

This entry presents a conceptual map to introduce how cultural knowledge is defined and assessed to provide a foundation for the discussion of assessment instruments. Next, the dimensions of cultural knowledge are examined in greater detail and four assessment instruments related to those dimensions are presented. The entry condenses decades of theory and research, hence necessarily simplifies the very complex topic of cultural knowledge and assessment. Much of what is discussed originates from disciplines other than the applied linguistics or language education fields. This is not to discount the substantial body of knowledge linking language and culture (Kramsch, 1998; Lange & Paige, 2003; Lussier, 2007; Byram, 2008), but to acknowledge the focus on culture per se.