Abstract:Culture plays a very important role in reading comprehension. It is often found that readers cannot understand or misunderstand what they are reading even though they know all the words and grammar structures in it. One of the main reasons for this is that they lack the necessary knowledge of cultural differences in the language they are learning. So readers should pay attention to improve the quality of their cultural background knowledge. This thesis is aimed at learning the relationship between language and culture, and analyzing the influence of difference on English reading. This thesis is divided into five parts. Part one is the introduction of the thesis. Part two discusses the relationship between culture and language. Part three analyzes the influence of the cultural factors on reading comprehension. Part four points out the interaction between understanding different culture and English reading, and part five suggests a few ways to enrich cultural knowledge. 

Key words: language; culture; English reading; cultural difference

中文摘要:文化在阅读中起着重要作用。然而，我们发现在阅读过程中，读者即使认识所有的单词和语法结构，但他们有时还是不能理解或产生误解。其中，主要的原因就是在语言学习过程中，他们缺乏必要的文化知识和对文化差异的了解甚少。所以，作为读者应该重视他们文化背景知识的的培养。本论文的研究意义在于了解语言与文化之间的关系，分析中西文化的差异对英语阅读造成的障碍影响。本论文主要分为五部分，第一部分是本论文的引入，第二部分呈现了文化和语言的关系，接着第三部分分析了影响阅读理解的几种文化因素，第四部分指出了在认知中看中西文化差异性与英语阅读的相互作用，最后第五部分总结出提高文化知识的方法。

关键词：语言；文化；英语阅读；文化差异