Langue cible et culture vehiculee

The paper raises a number of questions related to the acquisition of a foreign language. The paper focus on the issue of the cultural aspects involved in the teaching and acquisition of the target language and raises the question whether it is possible to dissociate the language from its culture and whether the target language can be taught without taking into account the cultural, social and psychological traits of the learners. The paper comes out with the conclusion that curriculum designers have to take notice of the native culture of the foreign language learner in order to avoid an inevitable cultural clash and to resuscitate a positive cultural interaction. Such a positive interaction can significantly develop aptitudes for the foreign language acquisition. If the learner develops a negative attitude towards the target language, this may aggravate the difficulties he encounters in his attempt to learn the target language. The paper hence aims at highlighting the cultural component of the target language which manifests itself in all linguistic aspects including language structures, idiomatic and metaphorical expressions. To illustrate this aspect, we have conducted a practical study on a number of students in the French Department in King Saud University in order to show to what extent these students can assimilate idiomatic expression and proverbs which have a significant cultural importance. This is meant to indicate the students capacity to understand the cultural aspects of such linguistic structures and to point out the need for the language instruction to be careful in the selection of idioms and proverbs so as to avoid a cultural clash between the native language learner and the culture of the target language.