Language Learning and Teaching

   Table 7.1 shows Hofstede's conception of the manifestation of the first of the above four categories, individualism/collectivism, with particular focus on classroom manifestations of these two factors in contrast.

   Teachers who are charged with educating students whose cultural backgrounds differ from their own must of course attend to such factors as those that Hofstede has brought to our attention. The climate for effective classroom language acquisition may be considerably clouded by what students see as contradictory expectations for their participation, and as a result, certain unnecessary blocks stand in the way of their success.

LANGUAGE POLICY AND POLITICS

The relationship between language and society cannot be discussed for long without touching on the political ramifications of language and language policy. Virtually every country has some form of explicit, "official," or implicit, "unofficial/'policy affecting the status of its native language(s) and one or more foreign languages. Ultimately those language policies become politicized as special interest groups vie for power and economic gain. Into this mix, English, now the major worldwide lingua franca, is the subject of international debate as policy makers struggle over the legitimization of varieties of English. Some strands of research even suggest that English teaching worldwide threatens to form an elitist cultural hegemony, widening the gap between "haves" and "have nots." The surface of these issues will be scratched in this section, with the suggestion that the reader turn to other sources for further enlightenment. 

Table 7.1.  Differences in teacher/student and student/student interaction related the individualism versus collectivism dimension (Hofstede 1986: 312) 

World Englishes

The rapid growth of English as an international language (EIL) of communication has stimulated interesting but often controversial discussion about the status of English in its varieties of what is now commonly called "world Englishes"(Kachru & Nelson 1996;Kachru 1985,1992). Learning English in India, for example, really does not involve taking on a new culture since one is acquiring Indian English in India. According to Kachru, the "Indianization" of English in India has led to a situation in which English has few if any British cultural attributes. This process of "nativization" of “indigenization" (Richards 1979) of English has spread to an "outer circle" (Kachru 1985) of countries that includes India, Singapore, the Philippines, Nigeria, Ghana, and others. In such contexts English is commonly learned by children at school age and is the medium for most of their primary, secondary, and tertiary education.

The spread and stratification of EIL led Kachru and others who have joined in the debate (Tollefson 1995; Phillipson 1992; Davies 1989; Quirk 1988 for example) to a fresh conceptualization of contexts of English language use. 

The traditional dichotomy between native and non-native is functionally uninsightful and linguistically questionable, particularly when discussing the functions of English in multilingual societies. The earlier distinction of English as a native language (ENL), second (ESL) and foreign (EFL) has come under attack for reasons other than sociolinguistic. (Kachru 1992: 3) 

Instead, we are advised to view English in terms of a broad range of its functions and the degree of its penetration into a country's society.

ESL and EFL

The spread of EIL has indeed muddied the formerly clear waters that separated what we still refer to as English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Learning ESL—English within a culture where English is spoken natively—may be clearly defined in the case of, saw an Arabic speaker learning English in the USA or the UK, but not as easily identified where English is already an accepted and widely used language for education, government, or business within the country (for example, learning English in the Philippines or India). According to Nayar (1997), we need to add yet another ESL context, English in Scandinavia, where English has no official status but occupies such a high profile that virtually every educated person can communicate competently with native speakers of English.

     Learning EFL, that is, English in one's own culture with few immediate opportunities to use the language within the environment of that culture (for example, a Japanese learning English in Japan), may at first also appear to be easy to define. Two global developments, however, mitigate the clarity of identifying a simple "EFL" context: (a) the current trend toward immigrant communities establishing themselves within various countries (e.g., Spanish or Chinese or Russian communities in a large city in the United States) provides ready access to users of so-called foreign languages; (b) in the case of English, the penetration of English-based media (especially television, the Internet, and the motion picture industry) provides further ready access to English even in somewhat isolated settings.

     The problem with the ESL/EFL terminology, as Nayar (1997:22) pointed out, is that it "seems to have created a world view that being a native speaker of English will somehow bestow on people not only unquestionable competence in the use and teaching of the language but also expertise in telling others how English ought to be taught." As we saw in earlier chapters, native-speaker models do not necessarily exemplify the idealized competence that was once claimed for them. The multiplicity of contexts for the use of English worldwide demands a careful look at the variables of each situation before making the blanket generalization that one of two possible models, ESL or EFL, applies. By specifying country, language policy, and status of English, we can at least begin to guard against falling prey to the myth that native-speaker models are to be emulated at all costs.

     In terms of degrees of acculturation, on the surface one could conclude that second language learning in a culture foreign to one’s own potentially involves the deepest form of culture acquisition. Learners must survive in a strange culture as well as learn a language on which they are totally dependent for communication. On the other hand, one should not too quickly dismiss second language learning in the native culture (a Nigerians learning English in Nigeria) from having a potential acculturation factor. In such contexts, the learner could experience considerable culture stress, depending upon the country, the cultural and sociopolitical both the native and target language, the purposes for which one is learning the language (career, academic, social), and the intensity of the mi of the learner.

Linguistic Imperialism and Language Rights

One of the more controversial issues to rear its head in the global of EIL is the extent to which the propagation of English as a medium of education, commerce, and government "has impeded literacy in mother tongue languages, has thwarted social and economic progress for those who do not learn it, and has not generally been relevant to the needs of ordinary people in their day-to-day or future lives" (Ricento 1994:422). Linguistic imperialism, or "linguicism," as this issue has come to be named (Phillipson & Skutnabb-Kangas 1994; Phillipson 1992; Skutnabb-Kangas & Cummins 1988), calls attention to the potential consequences of English teaching worldwide when Eurocentric ideologies are embedded in instruction, having the effect of legitimizing colonial or establishment power and  resources, and of reconstituting "cultural inequalities between English and other languages" (Phillipson 1992:47).

     A central issue in the linguistic imperialism debate is the devaluing of native languages through the colonial spread of English. For more than a century, according to Phillipson (1992), there was little or no recognition of the imperialistic effect of the spread of English (and French) in colonial contexts. But in recent years, there have been some signs of hope for the preservation of indigenous languages as seen, for example, in the Council of Europe's 1988 European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, which assumes a multilingual context and support for minority languages, likewise, within the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights has endorsed the right of all people to develop and promote their own languages and to offer children access to education in their own languages (Ricento 1994).

     As teachers venture into the far corners of the earth and teach English, one of our primary tenets should be the highest respect for the languages and cultures of our students. One of the most worthy causes we can espouse is the preservation of diversity among human beings. At every turn in our curricula, we must beware of imposing a foreign value system on our learners for the sake of bringing a common language to all. We can indeed break down barriers of communication with English, but we are reminded that the two-edged sword of EIL carries with it the danger of the imperialistic destruction of a global ecology of languages and cultures.

Language Policy and the "English Only" Debate

Yet another manifestation of the sociopolitical domain of second language acquisition is found in language policies around the world. Questions in this field range from the language of the education of children to the adoption of "official" status for a language (or languages) in a country. The first topic, the language of education, involves the decision by some political entity (e.g., a ministry of education, a state board of education) to offer education in a designated language or languages. Such decisions inevitably require a judgment on the part of the policy-making body on which language(s) is (are) deemed to be of value for the future generation of wage earners (and voters) in that society. We can visualize the potential twists and turns of the arguments that are mounted to justify a particular language policy for education. A tremendous clash of value systems is brought to bear on the ultimate decision: linguistic diversity, cultural pluralism, ethnicity, race, power, status, politics, economics, and the list goes on. In the final analysis, "history indicates that restricting language rights can be divisive and can lead to segregationist tendencies in a society. At the same lime, such legislation rarely results in a unified society speaking solely the mandated language(s)" (Thomas 1996:129).

     In the United States, one of the most misunderstood issues in the last decade of the twentieth century was the widespread move to establish English as an "official" language. Noting that the USA had never declared English to be official, proponents of "English only" ballots across many states argued that an official English policy was needed to unify the country and end decades-long debates over bilingual education. The campaigns to pass such ballots, heavily funded by well-heeled right-wing organizations, painted  a  picture  of the  unity  and harmony of people communicating in a common tongue. What those campaigns did not reveal was the covert agenda of the ultimate devaluing of minority languages cultures. (See Crawford 1998,Thomas 1996,Tollefson 1995, Auerbach 1995 for further information.) In related legislative debates across the USA, bilingual education was singled out by the same groups as a waste of time and money. In 1998, for example, in the state of California, a well-financed campaign to severely restrict bilingual education programs managed to the public by promoting myths and misunderstandings about language acquisition and multilingualism (Scovel 1999). Once again, those who end  up suffering from such moves toward "English only" are the already dicenfranchised minority cultures.

LANGUAGE, THOUGHT, AND CULTURE

No discussion about cultural variables in second language acquisition complete without some treatment of the relationship between language and thought. We saw in the case of first language acquisition that cognitive development and linguistic development go hand in hand, each interacting with and shaping the other. It is commonly observed that the manner in which an idea or "fact" is stated affects the way we conceptualize the idea. Words shape our lives. The advertising world is a prime example of the use of language to shape, persuade, and dissuade. " Weasel words" tend to glorify very ordinary products into those that are "unsurpassed," "ultimate”, “super-charged," and "the right choice." In the case of food that has been sapped of most of its nutrients by the manufacturing process, we are told that these products are now "enriched" and "fortified." A foreigner in the United States once remarked that in the United States there are no "small eggs, only  "medium," "large ", "extra large," and "jumbo."

     Euphemisms abound in American culture where certain thoughts are taboo or certain 'words connote something less than desirable. We are persuaded by industry, for example, that 'receiving waters" are the rivers into which industrial wastes are dumped and that "assimilative capacity" refers to how much of the waste can be dumped into the river before it starts to show. Garbagemen are "sanitary engineers"; toilets are "rest rooms"; slums are "substandard dwellings." And when it comes to reporting on military conflicts like the Gulf War of 1991 or the Kosovo War of 1999, deaths are referred to as "collateral damage."

Verbal labels can shape the way we store events for later recall. In a classic study. Carmichael, Hogan, and Walter (1932) found that when suburb were briefly exposed to figures like those in Figure 7.1 and later asked to reproduce them, the reproductions were influenced by the labels assigned to the figures.

Figure 7.1 Sample stimulus figures used by Carmichael, Hogan, and Walter (1 932)

For example, the first drawing tended to be reproduced as something like this if subjects had seen the "eyeglasses" label: 

Or like this if they had seen the “dumbbells” label: 

     Words are not the only linguistic category affecting thought. The way a sentence is structured will affect nuances of meaning. Elizabeth Loftus (1976) discovered that subtle differences in the structure of questions can affect the answer a person gives. For example, after viewing a film of an automobile accident, subjects were asked questions like "Did you see the broken headlight?" in some cases, and in other cases "Did you see a broken headlight?" Questions using "the" tended to produce more false recognition of events. The presence of the definite article led subjects to believe that there was a broken headlight whether they saw it or not. Similar results were found for questions like "Did you see some people watching the accident?" versus "Did you see any people watching the accident?" or even for questions containing a presupposition: "How fast was the car going when it hit the stop sign?" (presupposing both the existence of a stop sign and that the car hit a stop sign whether the subject actually saw it or not),

     On the discourse level of language, we are familiar with the persuasiveness of an emotional speech or a well-written novel. How often has a gifted orator swayed opinion and thought? Or a powerful editorial moved one to action or change? These are common examples of the influence of language on our cognitive and affective states.

     Culture is really an integral part of the interaction between language and thought. Cultural patterns of cognition and customs are sometimes explicitly coded in language. Conversational discourse styles, for example may be a factor of culture. Consider the "directness" of discourse of some cultures: in the US, for example, casual conversation is said to be less frank and  more  concerned  about face-saving  than  conversation in Greece (Kakava 1995), and therefore a Greek conversation may be more confrontational than a conversation in the US. In Japanese, the relationship of one's interlocutor is almost always expressed explicitly, either verbally and/or nonverbally. Perhaps those forms shape one's perception of others in relation to self.

     Lexical items may reflect something about the intersection of culture and cognition. Color categorization has been cited as a factor of one’s linguistic lexicon. Gleason (1961:4) noted that the Shona of Rhodesia and the Bassa of Liberia have fewer color categories than speakers of Euronean languages and they break up the spectrum at different points. Of course, the Shona or Bassa are able to perceive and describe other colors, in the same way that an English speaker might describe a "dark bluish green,” but according to Gleason the labels that the language provides tend to shape the person's overall cognitive organization of color and to cause varying degrees of color discrimination.

     You might be tempted at this point to say, "Ah, yes, and I hear that the Eskimos have many different words for 'snow,' which explains why they are able to discriminate types of snow better than English speakers”. This claim is one of the myths about language "that refuses to die" (Scovel 1999:1), a vocabulary "hoax" (Pullum 1991) perpetuated along with other myths about Eskimos, such as rubbing noses and throwing Grandma out to be eaten by polar bears (Pinker 1994: 64). The problem lies not in the fact that there is no single language called "Eskimo," but that “language spoken in northeastern Canada like Inuit do not have a disproportionately large number of words for this cold white stuff" (Scovel 1999:1).

     Another popular misconception about language and cognition came from Whorf's (1956) claims about the expression of time in Hopi. Arguing that Hopi contains no grammatical forms that refer to "time," Whorf suggested that Hopi had "no general notion or intuition of time" (Carroll 1956: 57). The suggestion was so enticingly supportive of the linguistic determinism hypothesis (see below) that gradually Whorf's claim became accepted as fact. It is interesting that several decades later, Malotki (1983) showed that Hopi speech does contain tense, metaphors for time, units of time, and ways to quantify units of time!

   A tantalizing question emerges from such observations. Does language reflect a cultural world view, or does language actually shape the world view? Drawing on the ideas of Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), who claimed that language shaped a person's Weltanschauung, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf proposed a hypothesis that has now been given several alternative labels: the Sapir-Wborf hypothesis, the Whorfian hypothesis, linguistic relativity, or linguistic determinism .Whorf (1956:212-214) summed up the hypothesis: 

The background linguistic system (in other words, the grammar) of each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas, the program and guide for the individual's mental activity, for his analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental stock in trade. Formulation of ideas is not an independent process, strictly rational in the old sense, but is part of a particular grammar and differs, from slightly to greatly, as between different grammars. We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significance as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds through our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees.