FurtherReading

 

The book Language and Culture byClaire Kramsch investigates the close relationship between language andculture. Do reading about parts of the book.

 

Passage 1

The passage below discusses the issue oflanguage learning.

LearningLanguage

Language is arguably the most important component of culture because much ofthe rest of it is normally transmitted orally.  It is impossible tounderstand the subtle nuances and deep meanings of another culturewithout knowing its language well.

 

Young childrenare inherently capable of learning the necessary phonemes, morphemes, and syntax as theymature.  In other words, they have a genetic propensity to learnlanguage.  They come into the world as eager learning machines, andlanguage acquisition is a major aspect of this learning.  How childrenactually learn a language is not entirely clear, however.  Most linguistsbelieve that they do it primarily by listening to and trying to communicatewith adult speakers.   Initially, this means that they imitate thephonemes.  Later they begin to learn grammar by imitation as well.

Studies ofaverage American children show that there is rapid learning of language in theearly years of life.  By age one, typically, they use about three wordsconsisting of single morphemes (such as  eat, mom,and more).  By six years old, they use about 2,500morphemes.  Simple sentence construction (such as "moremilk") usually has begun by about age two.  However, in theearly stages, children may start by creating a vocabulary and grammar largelyof their own construction.  They are trying to systematize and regularizetheir own simple speech.  Parents often encourage this "babytalk" by imitating it.  This provides positive reinforcement to the childto continue learning.  However, some parents continue todo use this "baby talk" with their children longafter it ceases to be useful because they think that it sounds cute.  When children begin to learn standard grammar, they tend to overregularize it.  That is, they learn a general rule and use it in allsituations.  For instance, the past tense of 97% of Englishverbs is indicated by adding the suffix ed, as in worked.Youngchildren will often apply it to irregular verbs also.  Give becomes gived, take becomes taked,eat becomes eated.  Unfortunately for children in English speakingsocieties, their language has about 165 irregular verbs that must bememorized.  Compounding the problem is the fact that the 10 mostfrequently used verbs in English are irregular (be, have, do, go, say, can,will, see, take, and get).  The irregular verbs are very old words inEnglish.  Changes in their conjugation have been resisted because they areconstantly used in common speech and most native speakers are comfortable usingthem.

Becoming Multilingual

Learning asecond or third language is easier in early childhood than later.  It isparticularly important to learn correct pronunciation as young aspossible.  At any age, learning by constant contact with native speakersin their own society is the quickest and best way.  It is superior totaking foreign language classes because it forces you to concentrate on it allof the time.  In addition, you are immersed in the culture and learn itsimultaneously.  This immersion approach can be psychologically stressful,but it is an effective way of getting the new language patterns into long termmemory.  Young children learn their native language in just this way,since they are surrounded by parents who essentially speak a "foreign"tongue.

Learning asecond language can be affected by the patterns of the firstlanguage. This is referred to as linguistic interference. There canbe some blending of phonemes. For instance, most Americans who learnFrench in high school or college pronounce French words with a distinctiveAmerican accent. Grammar can also be affected. English speakers wholearn both French and Spanish sometimes combine grammaticalrules of both when speaking either of them. Linguistic interference can also bea problem in learning and using another dialect of a language you alreadyknow.

Idioms are oftentranslated literally as a result of linguisticinterference.  For example, the Spanish phrase "en este momento" becomes "in or at thismoment" (the literal translation) instead of "now" when somenative Spanish speakers talk in English.  Some idioms are more difficultfor non-native speakers to learn because they don't make literal sense. This is the case with the following idioms in contemporary American English: 1)Drive down the parkway and park on the driveway. 2) Chop the tree down and cutthe pieces up. 3) His nose is running and his feet smell.

People tend toperform mental tasks with the language in which they learned them.  Forinstance, some bilingual French Alsatians living near the border with Germanyreport that they count in French and do algebra in German.   This isbecause they learned their counting skills and simple mathematics in French atprimary schools and abstract algebra in German at secondary schools.

Second languages learned as adults areoften quickly forgotten if not used regularly.  However, they usually comeback quickly with a little study and practice when needed again.

 

Passage 2

The passage below discusses the roleculture plays in verbal and nonverbal communication styles:

CulturalInfluences on Verbal & Nonverbal Communication Styles

When peoplespeak to people in other cultures, sometimes language is one of the barriers tocommunicating. However, even when people are speaking the same language,cultural differences may affect the way they communicate. These differences maybe seen in people’s verbal and nonverbal communication styles.

 

Facial Expressions

Culture canaffect the facial expressions that people use as well as the way they interpretthe facial expressions of others. In the United States, for example, smilingcan indicate that people are friendly and approachable. In Japanese culture,however, people are expected not to smile because smiling at strangers is seenas inappropriate -- particularly for women.

 

Context

The way peoplespeak may be determined by whether they are a high context culture or a lowcontext culture. In high context cultures, people explain everything thatthey’re talking about and assume that others don’t have it any information on acertain topic. In low context cultures, on the other hand, it is assumed thatpeople understand what’s being said to them and as a result, they do notexplain everything that they’re talking about.

 

Eye Contact

Eye contact canshow an interest in another person and attentiveness to a message. In somecultures, making a lot of eye contact conveys honesty, while avoiding eyecontact is seen as shifty and dishonest. Other cultures, however, have theopposite view of eye contact. These cultures believe that making a lot of eyecontact is insulting and a sign of aggression; people in these cultures willshow that they’re paying attention to another person by glancing at them onlyoccasionally.

 

Formality

Speaking can beformal or informal depending on cultural norms. Informal cultures assume thateveryone is equal, so people in these cultures speak the same way to everyone.In more formal cultures, it is assumed that there is a hierarchy among peopleand they are expected to a follow certain protocols depending to whom they aretalking.

Touch

The way peopletouch one another may depend upon whether they are a contact culture or a noncontact culture. In contact cultures, people are expected to touch each otherwhen they’re speaking and stand close to each other. In non contact cultures,this type of touching is seen as inappropriate, pushy and aggressive. In thesecultures, people rarely touch one another and tend to stand farther apart.