Culture and
Language: Conceptualized and Problematized
The five articles/chapters we read for this week all build
upon last week’s blog discussion and readings regarding how to define culture.
This week’s articles were, for the most part, in dialogue together in
complicating any sort of perceived definition of “culture” in their attempts to
situate the term within the field of TESOL:
Wintergerst & McVeigh (2011) provide necessary
terminology and instruct TESOL teachers-in-training how to best instruct their
students. By necessity of teaching students a second or other language, ESL
instructors must take into account that their students will bring to the
classroom various backgrounds and experiences that may be different from or similar
to those associated or loosely connected with the language being learned. The
authors rightly claim that language and culture are interrelated, and thus any
discussion of second-language acquisition must take into account what
culture(s) are associated with that language. Provided in this article (in
addition to key terminology) are six ways in which TESOL teachers “can
encourage language learners to build an awareness of culture – their own as
well as that of others” (2). These include
1) Have
students articulate their own definition of culture,
2) Raise
culture to a conscious level,
3) Point
out the hidden aspects of culture,
4) Show how
cultures may value the same thing differently,
5) Help
students understand how culture works, and
6) Build
awareness about stress caused by cultural adjustment.
The authors provide scholarly justification for all of these
points on a point-by-point basis, most of which is echoed in the other readings
for the week. However, one point that is unique to this article is the last one
regarding stress caused by cultural adjustment. This is something we’ve all
experienced to at least some degree; simply by being in college we have had to
go through a cultural adjustment. And, for many of us, it may have been more
stressful than for others. Negotiating the differences between being a member
of a high school culture, or a work culture, or any sort of other culture when
entering into a new one (such as college) can create anxiety in learning
different traditions, standards, lexicon, etc. An exchanges student I worked
with last semester commented to me that his anxiety was lessened due to his
involvement in ISU’s English Language Institute courses the summer before he
began his fall semester here. Hopefully other educational institutions (such as
elementary and secondary schools, workplaces, etc.) offer similar resources.
Kumaravadivelu (2010) writes this article to actively
problematize perceived views of the term “culture” as fixed, static, homogenous
characteristics with defined boundaries that are often based on geographical
location. He reviews the history of the term, but quickly admits that the term
is “elusive” and that one cultural critic (Stuart Hall, 1997) “came to the
conclusion that there is not much point in trying to define culture” (9). However,
he then explains that social scientists have continued to get a more concrete
sense of what culture is (more on this in the optional article by Atkinson).
While Kumaravadivelu hits on some of the same notes as the other authors of
this week’s readings – that cultures are interrelated, have fuzzy borders (if
any at all), are non-homogenous, are part of dialectical relationships between
individuals, communities, and larger groups – Kumaravadivelu also introduces
the term “bricolage” in relation to “cultural creativity that reuses and
recombines disparate materials” (12) to describe how culture is
pluralistic. Kumaravadivelu states that
cultures thrive in part because of
the connections they forge with one another…. All cultures are a result of a
mishmash, borrowings, mixtures that have occurred, though at different rates,
ever since the beginning of time. Because of the way it is formed, each society
is multicultural…. In other words, because no culture can exist in its purest
form, every culture is, willy-nilly, a hybrid culture. (12)
Kumaravadivelu chooses several words here that, if we were
to compose our own definition of culture again (like we did that first week of
class), I would borrow; chief among my choosings would be “bricolage,”
“mishmash,” “willy-nilly,” and “hybrid.” These words, in my opinion, are common
words (not necessarily scholarly) that aptly capture the essence of the
elusiveness of “culture.”
Lantolf’s article in Hinkel’s text approaches Second Culture
Acquisition (SCA) from a cognitive standpoint, commanding me to dig deeply
through twenty years of memory to access a base knowledge from my Cognitive
Psychology course as an undergrad. Lantolf is not so concerned with
second-language learners learning to operate within cultures associated with
that second or other language as he is with the question of someone “becoming
cognitively like members of other cultures,” answering the question of, “…can
adults learn to construct and see the world through culturally different eyes?”
(29).
In answering this question, Lantolf examines the
relationship between culture and the mind. One of the important points he
brings up is one echoed in other texts for this week: Bourdieu’s (1991) concept
of the habitus. Lantolf defines the
habitus as “a shared body of dispositions, classificatory categories, and
generative schemes that arise in collective history and is inculcated largely
through the pedagogical practices of the family, which rely for their
effectiveness on their thoughtlessness, nonreflectivity, and appearance of
cultural neutrality” (35). Kumaravadivelu defines the term as something that
“functions as a prism through which individuals see themselves and others. It
conditions their words, their deeds, and their attitudes. It is at once a product
of sociological forces and a creation of individual agency” (14). Lantolf
quotes Bourdieu’s assertion that, once this habitus is set, it will condition
all other learning (35). In other words, this habitus is the original and
perhaps immovable lens through which all of our subsequent learning will be
filtered. Thus, taking on full membership in another culture – as a native
(whatever that means, right?) – is not attainable once one has acquired the L1
as the original conceptual structure. At best, adults can “plug in” new
structures into the framework of the L1 (37). Original conceptual organizations
can be modified to accommodate the C2/L2, but the conceptual organization can
never reach the level of the original habitus of the C1/L1. Lantolf explains that
Vygotsky’s theory of inner speech as well as Vygotsky’s work regarding sense
vs. semantics parallels Bourdieu’s.
Atkinson’s article was – for me – the most direct in
problematizing a definition of culture (this is the beginning of the third week
of class, and we’re still defining this term. It is indeed a complex and
elusive concept!). Atkinson gives a brief overview of the lack of treatment
culture has garnered in the TESOL area (TESOL
Quarterly publications, to be specific) from 1984 – 1998. Admittedly, we
have had quite a bit of reading in this course regarding culture and its
relationship to language learning; thus, I imagine his call in 1999 to address
culture within the realm of TESOL has been heard and addressed. However, he
makes some fabulous points that I feel are still worth attention.
Atkinson’s overriding message is that language educators
should not be reductivist or static in defining culture. While Stuart Hall
(1997) in Kamaravadivelu surmised that perhaps there was no point to defining
culture, since the term eludes definition, Atkinson reports that Shore (1996)
contends that we cannot simply refuse to define culture, nor can we ignore it.
Shore is an anthropologist, and to discard the notion of culture would be to
cut away a huge part of the theoretical framework upon which anthropology
builds. Instead, Shore maintains, we should continue (the act must be
continuous, as culture is continually evolving) “to refine the notion of culture” (Shore qtd. in Atkinson 635, my
italics). I think the verb choice Shore uses – “refine” instead of “define” –
warrants noting, as “refine” connotes an ongoing process while “define” suggests
one that has finality.
Atkinson classifies the few articles during this time period
from 1984 – 1998 as falling into three categories in terms of how “culture” is
treated:
1.
Accepts a received view of culture, a view that
defines culture as bounded geographically, deterministic, homogenous, static.
2.
Attempts to expand the received view but doesn’t
challenge the received view quite enough.
3.
Attacks the received view of culture head-on,
bringing in viewpoints that suggests perspectives such as transculturation
(630, attributed to Zamel), “critical multiculturalism” (attributed to Kubota),
and perceiving students as individuals rather than part of various defined
cultures (attributed to Spack).
While Atkinson praises scholars such as Zamel, Kubota, and
Spack for furthering the conceptual notion of culture by leaps and bounds, he
claims the concept (in 1999) is still understudied in TESOL. Thus, he examines
how culture is studied in social sciences and cultural studies as a guide to
how the field of TESOL should proceed. Postmodernism, according to Atkinson, is
responsible for most of the challenges to the perceived notion of culture in
social sciences and cultural studies (and
his footnote at the bottom of 631 is perhaps the best definition of
“postmodernism” I’ve come across in my 3+ years of graduate study here!). These
areas of scholarship, according to Atkinson, have concluded the following:
1.
“…there is no social group that is not
constantly infiltrated by outside influences” (631). In other words, groups are
interconnected, interrelated, and have a high degree of hybridity. Atkinson
cites three pivotal studies (although he also notes others in addition) that
support this assertion: Pratt (1991), Clifford (1992), and Appadurai (1996).
Appadurai’s, again, brings up the notion of bricolage that I mentioned earlier
in this blog (Atkinson calls it “cultural bric-à-brac,” 633).
2.
“Just like outside influences, personal
idiosyncrasy, agency, and person-internal cognitive disunity also subvert the
idea of homogeneous cultures – individuals frequently act in ways that modify,
resist, or ignore cultural norms” (633). In other words, not only are cultures
constantly infiltrated by other cultures and influences, individuals make
choices (have agency) to act and or refuse to act (resist) the norms of
cultures in which they participate.
3.
“…that cultures themselves can therefore be seen
as highly constructed ideologies/ideal systems meant to reduce out very real
differences among people in bounded geographical areas and social groups, and
to exclude both the possibility and reality of outside influence and individual
differences among them” (634).
4.
Power. Atkinson states that “power is implicated
in basically all sociocultural phenomena, but received views of culture(s)
typically idealize such phenomena so that this fact is hidden or left out of
the picture” (634). Under this point, Atkinson brings up ideas of dominant
discourses, orientalism, and politics of representation.
Thus, after all of this, Atkinson arrives at his call for a
“middle-ground approach to culture” (636). He mentions Bakhtin (social groups
are both homogenous and heterogenous), Bourdieu, Foucault, and Giddens. This
middle-ground approach, according to Atkinson, must adhere to six basic
principles based on the theory he analyzes previously in his article:
1.
All humans are individuals.
2.
Individuality is also cultural.
3.
Social group membership and identity are
multiple, contradictory, and dynamic.
4.
Social group membership is consequential.
5.
Methods of studying cultural knowledge and
behavior are unlikely to fit a positivist paradigm.
6.
Language (learning and teaching) and culture are
mutually implicated, but culture is multiple and complex.
I’m interested in delving into these principles more, since
I left this article until last and these principles (and the theories behind
them) require much more time than I have left in order to fully comprehend.
However, Atkinson closes his article by restating his original intent of the
article, which is “to present a way of looking at the vexed notion of culture ecumenically” (649, Atkinson’s italics).
One more point I want to give more than cursory attention to
is the chapter by Bouton in Hinkel’s text. Bouton’s chapter regards
implicatures, which I had never heard of before (and my Word spell-check is not
liking). However, this term explains how conversational statements can be
culturally driven (in a semantic or relative or otherwise way) to the point
that the direct meanings of the words themselves in a phrase do not necessarily
mean the same as the speaker’s intended meaning. Bouton sets out to determine
if interpreting implicatures can be taught in ESL classrooms. His conclusion is
that certain ones can be taught; that formulaic ones specifically can be taught
to language learners in an ESL classroom quicker than those students can pick
them up in the immersion environment. I know that ISU’s ELI addresses idioms,
but I am not sure if they address implicatures. This is an area I’d like to
focus more on in the future, as the exchange student I worked with last
semester would often ask me what certain conversational phrases really meant.
Other important points of this week’s readings:
- · “Big C” culture vs. “little c” culture (in Wintergerst 9; Kumaravadivelu, 10)
- · Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (language shapes thought) as well as how language and culture are linked (Kumaravadivelu 18;
- · The National Standards for Foreign Language Education Project (1996), (Kumaravadivelu 24; Wintergerst 3)
- · Orientalism (Kumaravadivelu 16-17), which also leads to a discussion of power, individualism, and collectivism (Kumaravadivelu 15; Wintergerst 17) – these concepts are treated more directly in Atkinson.
