Language, Culture, and Identity

Language, Culture, and Identity

By Laura Turner

Defining Culture

Culture is a way of life. It's the "glue" that binds a group of people together.

Matsumoto (2000) defined culture as a dynamic system of rules, explicit and implicit, established by groups in order to ensure their survival, involving attitudes, values, beliefs, norms, and behaviors, shared by a group but harbored differently by each specific unit​ within the group, communicated across generations, relatively stable but with the potential to change across time.

​Cultural Parameters

• Individualism (vs. collectivism): the degree to which a culture values the needs of the self over the group. In individualist cultures, personal needs take precedence over those of others, while members of a collectivist culture sacrifice personal wishes to satisfy the group. An individualist society is loosely integrated; a collectivist society is tightly integrated.

Poll

Do you think Panama is an individualist or a collectivist society?

• Individualist

• Collectivist

Cultural Parameters

• Power distance (status differentiation) the extent to which the culture fosters equality versus inequality in power among members of the group. In large power distance societies, status is ascribed to certain occupations, ranks, and positions in society. People in small power distance cultures gain status through achievement, as opposed to family background or rank.​

Cultural Parameters

• Uncertainty avoidance: the extent to which people are uncomfortable in unstructured, unclear, or unpredictable situations. Strong uncertainty avoidance implies a need for security, strict rules, and absolute truths; cultures with a weak uncertainty avoidance tend to be more contemplative, accepting of personal risks, and tolerant of change.

Cultural Parameters

• Gender role differentiation:​ the degree to which gender roles are specific and distinct (masculinity) as opposed to relatively overlapping social roles for the sexes (femininity). In other words, what should men and women are expected "to do".

Cultural Parameters

• Action focus: differences in valuing "doing" versus "being". In the former culture, decisiveness and spontaneity are valued over reflectiveness. Responses to problems may be immediate and possibly impulsive. "Being" cultures value contemplation, tradition, and conformity.​

Cultural Parameters

• Space distance: differences in standars for touching, proxemics, eye contact, and privacy. Public space cultures accept closer nonverbal distances, touching, and such artifacts as open doors to one's home and office, while private cultures value larger "space bubbles" in conversation, minimal touching, and less transparency.

Cultural Parameters

• Time orientation: the extent to which a culture values fixed vs. fluid time concepts. Fixed time cultures are punctual, acutely aware of passing time, single-focused, goal-fixated, and are more intolerant to interruptions. Fluid time cultures are more flexible with time constraints, slower-paced, and see the value in the "journey" as much as reaching a goal.

Cultural Parameters

• Tightness: the degree to which a culture is homogeneous. A tight culture is highly integrated, with few differences among members of a community, offering greater validity to generalization. A loose culture exhibits diversity, accepts greater divergence of beliefs, customs, religions, etc., and therefore harder to "pin down".

Individualism

Individualism is the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

Multiple Choice

According to the Country Comparison Tool, which country is collectivist?

• Japan

• Panama

• United States

• United Kingdom

Stereotypes

Open Ended

Mention some stereotypes that we may have regarding our students

Stereotypes​

Such sometimes negatively biased concepts derive from one's own culture-bond worldview. We picture other cultures (or other regions) in an oversimplified manner, lumping cultural differences into exaggerated categories, and then view every person in a culture as possessing the same traits.​

Culture and Language Classrooms​

Both, learners and teachers of a Second Language need to recognize openly that people are not all the same beneath the skin. Language classrooms can celebrate cultural and individual differences, and even engage in a critical analysis of the use and origin of stereotypes (Abrams, 2002).

We must strive to understand the identities of our learners in terms of their sociocultural background and their unique life's experiences.​

Multiple Choice

Can language shape the sense of orientation (space and time)?

• Yes

• No

Multiple Choice

Does language change the reasoning of events?

• No

• Yes

Cross-Cultural Researh

​Acculturation

“The process of becoming adapted to a new culture”

Cross-Cultural Researh

4 stages

• Initial excitement and euphoria

• Culture shock Estrangement and hostility

• Culture stress Recovery

• Assimilation or adaptation to the new culture​​

Ideology, Policy, and Politics​

​Ideology

Body of assertions, beliefs, and aims that constitute a sociopolitical system within a group, culture, or country.

Power issues​

Open Ended

In your experiences learning English (or any other Second Language), do you think that you were better taught by a native speaker rather than someone like you that learned the language? Did that factor make a difference?

Linguistic Imperialism and Language Rights - English as an International Language

The propagation of English as a medium of education, commerce, and government "impeded literacy in mother tongue languages... and thwarted social and economic progress for those who do not learn it.

Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights - UN​

Communities of Practice​

(Lave & Wenger, 1991)

1. Mutual engagement: learners in a classroom build collaborative relationships that bind the learners together as a social entity.

2. Joint enterprise: learners (and teacher) negotiate an understanding of what binds them together as a community.

3. Shared repertoire:​ as part of its practice, the community produces a set of commonly used resources and practices.

Classroom Applications

1. Does the activity value the customs and belief systems that are presumed to be part of the culture (s) of the students?

2. Does the activity refrain from promoting demeaning of stereotypes of any culture, including the culture (s) of your students?​

3. Does the activity refrain from devaluing of the students' native language(s)?​

Classroom Applications

4. Does the activity recognize varying degrees of willingness of students to participate openly due to possible inhibiting cultural factors, such as power distance or collectivism/individualism?

5. If the activity requires students to go beyond the comfort zone of uncertainty avoidance in their culture (s), does it do so empathetically and tactfully?

6. Is the activity sensitive to the perceived (and sometimes deeply ingrained) roles of males and females in the culture (s) of your students?​

Classroom Applications

7. Does the activity sufficiently connect specific language features (e.g. grammatical categories, lexicon, discourse) to cultural ways of thinking, feeling, and acting?

8. Does the activity in some way draw on the rich background experiences of the students in their own culture, as well as their experiences in other cultures?

Classroom Applications

9. Where possible, does the activity promote critical intercultural thinking and awareness, helping students to appreciate heritages and values different from their own?​

10. Does the activity help students to construct their own social identities within and embracing community of practice?​