Language Learning and Teaching

     The process of acculturation runs even deeper when language is brought into the picture. To be sure, culture is a deeply ingrained part of the very fiber of our being, but language—the means for communication among members of a culture—is the most visible and available expression of that culture. And so a person's world view, self-identity, and systems of thinking, acting, feeling, and communicating can be disrupted by a contact with another culture.

  Sometimes that disruption is severe, in which case a person may experience culture shock. Culture shock refers to phenomena ranging from mild irritability to deep psychological panic and crisis. Culture shock is associated with feelings of estrangement, anger, hostility, indecision, frustration, unhappiness, sadness, loneliness, homesickness, and even physical illness. Persons undergoing culture shock view their new world out of resentment and alternate between self-pity and anger at others for not understanding them. Edward Hall (1959: 59) described a hypothetical example of an American living abroad for the first time. 

At first, things in the cities look pretty much alike. There are taxis, hotels with hot and cold running water, theaters, neon lights, even tall buildings with elevators and a few people who can speak English. But pretty soon the American discovers that underneath the familiar exterior there are vast differences. When someone says "yes" it often doesn't mean yes at all, and when people smile it doesn't always mean they are pleased. When the American visitor makes a helpful gesture he may be rebuffed; when he tries to be friendly nothing happens. People tell him that they will do things and don't. The longer he stays, the more enigmatic the new country looks. 

  This case of an American in Japan illustrates the point that persons in a second culture may initially be comfortable and delighted with the "exotic" surroundings. As long as they can perceptually filter their surroundings and internalize the environment in their own world view, they feel at ease. As soon as this newness wears off and the cognitive and affective contradictions of the foreign culture mount up, they become disoriented.

  It is common to describe culture shock as the second of four successive stages of culture acquisition:

1. Stage 1 is a period of excitement and euphoria over the newness of the surroundings.
2. Stage 2—culture shock—emerges as individuals feel the intrusion of more and more cultural differences into their own images of self and security. In this stage individuals rely on and seek out the support of their fellow countrymen in the second culture, taking solace in complaining about local customs and conditions, seeking escape from their predicament.
3. Stage 3 is one of gradual, and at first tentative and vacillating, recovery. This stage is typified by what Larson and Smalley (1972) called "culture stress": some problems of acculturation arc solved while other problems continue for some time. But general progress is made, slowly but surely, as individuals begin to accept the differences in thinking and feeling that surround them, slow h becoming more empathic with other persons in the second culture.
4. Stage 4 represents near or full recovery, either assimilation or adaptation, acceptance of the new culture and self-confidence in the "new" person that has developed in this culture.

   Wallace Lambert's (1967) work on attitudes in second language learning referred often to Durkheim's (1897) concept of anomie—feelings of social uncertainty or dissatisfaction—as a significant aspect of the relationship between language learning and attitude toward the foreign culture. As individuals begin to lose some of the ties of their native culture and to adapt to the second culture, they experience feelings of chagrin or regret, mixed with the fearful anticipation of entering a new group. Anomie might be described as the first symptom of the third stage acculturation, a feeling of homelessness, where one feels neither bound firmly to  one's native culture nor fully adapted to the second culture.

   Lambert's research supported the view that the strongest dose of anomie is experienced when linguistically a person begins to "master" the foreign language. In Lambert's (1967) study, for example, when English-speaking Canadians became so skilled in French that they began to "think^”  in French and even dream in French, feelings of anomie were markedly high. For Lambert's subjects the interaction of anomie and increased in the language sometimes led persons to revert or to "regress” back to English—to seek out situations in which they could speak English. Such an urge corresponds to the tentativeness of the third stage of acculturation-periodic reversion to the escape mechanisms acquired in the earlier stage of culture shock. Not until a person is well into the third stage do feelings of anomie decrease because the learner is "over the hump" in the transition to adaptation.

   The culture shock stage of acculturation need not be depicted as a point when learners are unwitting and helpless victims of circumstance. Peter Adler (1972: 14) noted that culture shock, while surely possefssing manifestations of crisis, can also be viewed more positively as а profound cross-cultural learning experience, a set of situations or circumstances involving intercultural communication in which the individual, as a result of the experiments, becomes aware of his own growth, learning and change. As a result of the culture shock process, the individual has gained a new perspective on himself, and has come to understand his own identity in terms significant to himself. The cross-cultural learning experience, additionally, takes place when the individual encounters a different culture and as a result (a) examines the degree to which he is influenced by his own culture, and (b) understands the culturally derived values, attitudes and outlooks of other people.

SOCIAL DISTANCE

The concept of social distance emerged as an affective construct to give explanatory power to the place of culture learning in second language learning. Social distance refers to the cognitive and affective proximity of two cultures that come into contact within an individual. "Distance" is obviously used in a metaphorical sense to depict dissimilarity between two cultures. On a very superficial level one might observe, for example, that people from the United States are culturally similar to Canadians, while U.S. natives and Chinese are, by comparison, relatively dissimilar. We could say that the social distance of the latter case exceeds the former.

     John Schumann (1976c: 136) described social distance as consisting of the following parameters:

1. Dominance. In relation to the TL [target language] group, is the L2 [second language learning] group politically, culturally, technically or economically dominant, non-dominant, or subordinate?
2. Integration. Is the integration pattern of the L2 group assimilation, acculturation, or preservation? What is the L2 group's degree of enclosure—its identity separate from other contiguous groups?
3. Cohesiveness. Is the L2 group cohesive? What is the size of the L2 group?
4. Congruence. Are the cultures of the two groups congruent—similar in their value and belief systems? What are the attitudes of the two groups toward each other?
5. Permanence. What is the L2 group's intended length of residence in the target language area?

      Schumann used the above factors to describe hypothetically "good" and "bad" language learning situations, and illustrated each situation with two actual cross-cultural contexts. His two hypothetical "bad" language learning situations:

1. The TL group views the L2 group as dominant and the L2 group views itself in the same way. Both groups desire preservation and high enclosure for the L2 group, the L2 group is both cohesive and large, the two cultures are not congruent, the two groups hold negative attitudes toward each other, and the L2 group intends to remain in the TL area only for a short time.
2. The second bad situation has all the characteristics of the first except that in this case, the L2 group considers itself subordinate and is considered subordinate by the TL group.

The first situation is typical, according to Schumann, of Americans living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The second situation is descriptive of Navajo Indians living in the southwestern part of the United States.

     A "good" language learning situation, according to Schumann's model (p. 141), is one in which the L2 group is non-dominant in relation to the TL group, both groups desire assimilation (or at least acculturation) for the L2 group, low enclosure is the goal of both groups, the two cultures are congruent, the L2 group is small and non-cohesive, both groups have positive attitudes toward each other, and the L2 group intends to remain in the target language area for a long time. Under such conditions social distance would be minimal and acquisition of the target language would be enhanced. Schumann cites as a specific example of a "good" language learning situation the case of American Jewish immigrants living in Israel

     Schumann's hypothesis was that the greater the social distance between two cultures, the greater the difficulty the learner will have in learning the second language, and conversely, the smaller the social distance (the greater the social solidarity between two cultures), the better will be the language learning situation.

     One of the difficulties in Schumann's hypothesis of social distance is the measurement of actual social distance. How can one determine degrees of social distance? By what means? And how would those means be quantifiable for comparison of relative distances? To this day the construct has remained a rather subjectively defined phenomenon that, like empathy, self-esteem, and so many other psychological constructs, defies definition even though one can intuitively grasp the sense of what is meant.

William Acton (1979) proposed a solution to the dilemma. Instead of trying to measure actual social distance, he devised a measure of perceived social distance. His contention was that the actual distance between cultures is not particularly relevant since it is what learners perceive that forms their own reality. We have already noted that human beings perceive the cultural environment through the filters and screens of their own world view and then act upon that perception, however biased it may be. According to Acton, when learners encounter a new culture, their acculturation process is a factor of how they perceive their own culture in relation to the culture of the target language, and vice versa. For example, objectively there may be a relatively large distance between Americans and Saudi Arabians, but an American learning Arabic in Saudi Arabia might for a number of reasons perceive little distance and in turn act on that perception.

   By asking learners to respond to three dimensions of distance, Acton devised a measure of perceived social distance—the Professed Difference in Attitude Questionnaire (PDAQ)—which characterized the "good" or successful language learner (as measured by standard proficiency tests) with remarkable accuracy. Basically the PDAQ asked learners to quantify what they perceived to be the differences in attitude toward various concepts ("the automobile" "divorce," "socialism," "policemen," for example) on three dimensions: (a) distance (or difference) between themselves and their countrymen in general; (b) distance between themselves and members of the target culture in general; and (c) distance between their countrymen and members of the target culture. By using a semantic differential technique, three distance scores were computed for each dimension.

   Acton found that in the case of learners of English who had been in the United States for four months, there is an optimal perceived social distance ratio (among the three scores) that typifies the "good" language learner. If learners perceived themselves as either too close to or too distant from either the target culture or the native culture, they fell into the category of "bad" language learners as measured by standard proficiency tests. The implication is that successful language learners see themselves as maintaining some distance between themselves and both cultures. That Acton's PDAQ did not predict success in language is no surprise since we know of no adequate instrument to predict language success or to assess language aptitude. But the PDAQ did describe empirically, in quantifiable terms, a relationship between social distance and second language acquisition.

   Acton's theory of optimal perceived social distance supported Lambert's (1967) contention that mastery of the foreign language takes place hand-in-hand with feelings of anomie or homelessness, where learners have moved away from their native culture but are still not completely assimilated into or adjusted to the target culture. More important, Acton's model led us closer to an understanding of culture shock and the relationship of acculturation to language learning by supplying an important piece of a puzzle. If we combine Acton's research with Lambert's, an interesting hypothesis emerges—namely, that mastery or skillful fluency in a second language (within the second culture) occurs somewhere at the beginning of the third—recovery—stage of acculturation. The implication of such a hypothesis is that mastery might not effectively occur before that stage or, even more likely, that learners might never be successful in their mastery of the language if they have proceeded beyond early Stage 3 without accomplishing that linguistic mastery. Stage 3 may provide not only the optimal distance but the optimal cognitive and affective tension to produce the necessary pressure to acquire the language, pressure that is neither too overwhelming (such as the culture shock typical of Stage 2) nor too weak (which would be found in Stage 4, adaptation/assimilation) Language mastery at Stage 3, in turn, would appear to be an instrument progressing psychologically through Stage 3 and finally into Stage 4.

     According to this optimal distance model (Brown 1980) of secomd language acquisition, an adult who fails to master a second language second culture may for a host of reasons have failed to synchronize linguistic and cultural development. Adults who have achieved nonlinguistic means of coping in the foreign culture will pass through Stage 3 and into Stage 4 with an undue number of fossilized forms of language (see Chapter 8 for a discussion of fossilization), never achieving mastery. They reason to achieve mastery since they have learned to cope without sophisticated knowledge of the language. They may have acquired a sufficient number of functions of a second language without acquiring the correct forms. What is suggested in this optimal distance model might well be seen as a culturally based critical-period hypothesis, that is, a critical period that is independent of the age of the learner. While the optimal distance model applies more appropriately to adult learners, it could pertain to children, although less critically so. Because they have not built up years and years of a culture-bound world view (or view of themselves), children have fewer perceptive filters to readjust and therefore move through the stage acculturation more quickly. They nevertheless move through the same stages, and it is plausible to hypothesize that their recovery stages arc crucial periods of acquisition.

Some research evidence has been gathered in support of the optimal distance construct. In a study of returning Peace Corps volunteers who had remained in their assigned countries for two or more years, Day (1982) garnered some observational evidence of the coinciding of critical leaps in language fluency and cultural anomie. And Svanes (1987, 1988) found that university foreign students studying in Norway appeared to achieve higher language proficiency if they had "a balanced and critical attitude to the hot people" (1988: 368) as opposed to uncritical admiration for all aspects the target culture. The informal testimony of many teachers of ESL in the United States also confirms the plausibility of a motivational tension  created by the need to "move along" in the sometimes long and frustrating process of adaptation to a new homeland. Teachers in similar coin could benefit from a careful assessment of the current cultural stags of learners with due attention to possible optimal periods for language mastery.

CULTURE IN THE CLASSROOM

While most learners can indeed find positive benefits in cross-cultural living or learning experiences, a number of people experience psychological blocks and other inhibiting effects of the second culture. Teachers who follow an experiential or process model (Robinson-Stuart & Nocon 1996) of culture learning in the classroom can help students turn such an experience into one of increased cultural and self-awareness.

     Stevick (1976b) cautioned that learners can feel alienation in the process of learning a second language, alienation from people in their home culture, the target culture, and from themselves. In teaching an "alien "language, we need to be sensitive to the fragility of students by using techniques that promote cultural understanding. Donahue and Parsons (1982) examined the use of role-play in ESL classrooms as a means of helping students to overcome cultural "fatigue"; role-play promotes the process of cross-cultural dialog while providing opportunities for oral communication. Numerous other materials and techniques—readings, films, simulation games, culture assimilators, "culture capsules," and "cultur-grams”—are available to language teachers to assist them in the process of acculturation in the classroom (Fantini 1997; Ramirez 1995; Levine et al. 198?7; McGroarty & Galvan 1985; Kohls 1984).

     Perhaps the best model of the combination of second language and second culture learning is found among students who learn a second language in a country where that language is spoken natively. In many countries, thousands of foreign students are enrolled in institutions of higher education and must study the language of the country in order to pursue their academic objectives. Or one might simply consider the multitude of immigrants who enter the educational stream of their new country after having received their early schooling in their previous country. They bring with them the cultural mores and patterns of "good" behavior learned in their home culture, and tend to apply those expectations to their new situation. What is the nature of those students' expectations of behavior in their new educational system?

     Consider Kenji, a university student from Japan who is studying at a pre-university language institute in the United States. During his previous twelve years of schooling, he was taught some very specific behaviors. He was taught to give the utmost "respect" to his teacher, which means a number of things: never to contradict the teacher; never to speak in class unless spoken to—always let the teacher initiate communication; let the teacher’s wisdom be "poured into" him; never call a teacher by a first name; respect older teachers even more than younger teachers. But in his new U.S. language school, his youngish teachers are friendly and encourage a first-name basis, they ask students to participate in group work, they try to get students to come up with answers to problems, rather than just giving the answer, and so on. Kenji is confused. Why?

Some means of conceptualizing such mismatches in expectations were outlined in a thought-provoking article by Geert Hofstede (1986), who used four different conceptual categories to study the culture of norms of fifty different countries. Each category was described as follows:

1. Individualism as a characteristic of a culture opposes collectivism (the word is used here in an anthropological, not a political, sense). Individualist cultures assume that any person looks primarily after his/her own interest and the interest of his/her immediate family (husband, wife and children). Collectivist cultures assume that any person through birth and possible later events belongs to one or more tight "in-groups," from which he/she cannot detach him/herself. The "in-group" (whether extended family, clan, or organization) protects the interest of its members, but in turn expects their permanent loyalty. A collectivist society is tightly integrated; an individualist society is loosely integrated.
2. Power Distance as a characteristic of a culture defines the extent to which the less powerful persons in a society accept inequality in power and consider it as normal. Inequality exists within any culture, but the degree of it that is tolerated varies between culture and another. "All societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others" (Hofstede 1980:136).
3. Uncertainty Avoidance as a characteristic of a culture defines the extent to which people within a culture are made nervous by situations they perceive as unstructured, unclear, or unpredictable, situations which they therefore try to avoid by maintaining strict codes of behavior and a belief in absolute truths. Cultures with a strong uncertainty avoidance are active, aggressive, emotional, compulsive, security-seeking, and intolerant; cultures with а weak uncertainty avoidance are contemplative, less aggressive, unemotional, relaxed, accepting of personal risks, and relatively tolerant.
4. Masculinity as a characteristic of a culture opposes femininity. The two differ in the social roles associated with the biological fact of the existence of two sexes, and in particular in the social roles attributed to men. The cultures which I labeled as “masculine" strive for maximal distinction between what women expected to do. They expect men to be assertive, ambitious and competitive, to strive for material success, and to respect whatever is big, strong, and fast. They expect women to serve and to care for the non-material quality of life, for children, and for the weak. Feminine cultures, on the other hand, define relatively overlapping social roles for the sexes, in which men need not be ambitious or competitive, but may go for a different quality of life than material success; men may respect whatever is small, weak, and slow. So, in masculine cultures these political/organizational values stress material success and assertiveness; in feminine cultures they stress other types of quality of life, interpersonal relationships, and concern for the weak.