An Analysis of Cross-cultural Practices of Communicative Functions

Abstract

The two most recent national curricula (the 6th and 7th) adopted functional syllabus as compared with the previous national curricula which were mostly grammatically-based ones. As forms have variants from the prototype, communicative functions also bear different perceptive practices among individuals and even more among different cultures. In a functional syllabus, learning English means that learners are able to use functional expressions in English speaking situations where certain functional expressions should be used, and also learners do not use functional expressions where communicative situations do not fit. This study was conducted to investigate cross-culturally different practices of communicative functions. The survey of 105 native speakers of English participating in English Program in Korea (EPIK) and 120 Korean speakers was conducted to check whether or not respondents hire communicative functions for described situations. The respondents were polled in the summer of 2004 when the EPIK session was open at Korea National University of Education. As a result of the study, a significant range of perceptual differences were found between English native speakers and Korean native speakers as to whether a certain situation calls for a practice of communicative function or not. The survey findings should form the basis of a review on raising awareness of language learners for the functional differences of the same expressions for different cultures.