Politicking Politicker Politicky-tacky

What holds together and defines a community?

We often discuss ideals and rules which define groups of people, but without language acting as a binding agent, the different members of communities are not able to communicate ideals and rules.

Linguistic choices play a part in defining communities through phonetic differentiation in dialects, word choice, and varying syntax.  Such is also true of the classroom environment.

In choosing linguistic norms for the classroom, teachers and education policy makers define the language policy of the learning environment.  These norms refer not only to linguistic value but also to underlying political and social goals which the educational community use to influence the behavior of the speech community.  The chosen linguistic norms hold value as the official language of the classroom while perhaps devaluing other linguistic choices.  In breaking the language choices of the classroom versus 'other', the teacher and policy makers create a dichotomous relationship in the wider communities, separating those who are able to conform to the classroom linguistic choices versus those who either do not have access to the classroom or who value their external communities more highly (and may consequently see conforming to classroom language policy as a denial of their culture).

How can the H-language of education and official policy not create cultural conflict?

How can, as Auerbach (1995) discusses, language in the classroom not create tension as a dynamic of power and domination?

Is it true that a common language unifies whereas multiple languages divide?  Or only mostly true?

While I personally see the value in uniting a people through language instruction so that in day-to-day activities we comprehend one another, I do not see official national policy as the place to dictate which languages should be excluded from the classroom.  It is true that common language unifies.  Given this fact, I see the debate moreso as needing community/township discretion.

If in schools the students are regularly introduced, through bilingual education for example, to more than one language, they are bound to become more unified with their peers and the larger community.  When introduced to new community members or visiting relatives, the students will be able to draw on more than one language and linguistic form in order to accommodate for the linguistic characteristics of the new members creating further unification!  If new members are pushed away due to linguistic differences, there will never be the sort of unity which policy seeks to administer.

Don't talk of the Highs and Lows, talk IN them

Kubota and Ward (2000) and McKay and Bokhorst-Heng (2008) align thoughts through discussion of diversity in the world of Englishes.  English is spoken around the world as an official language, of government and enterprise, in many more countries than those of the 'inner-circle', and it is pushed as a second (foreign/international) language in dozens others.  The growth and spread of language through globalization and access to media meas that fewer and fewer clearly monolingual communities exist.  It is not to say that the average American community contains a majority of bilingual participants (being that the average American is generally impoverished when it comes to exposure to second/foreign languages), but imagine what we find at any grocery store on food packaging:

Ingredients/Ingredientes
Calories/Calorias
Flour, Sugar, Salt
Harina, Azúcar, Sal

We expect to find Spanish options on packaging, on the phone when calling Comcast or T-Mobile, on credit card applications and at the car dealership.  We do not expect to find Spanish spoken by the principals of our elementary schools, by the deans of our universities, by our politicians and policy makers and CEOs of multi-million dollar corporations.  We, and the communities and countries discussed in the article and book, live in a diglossia.

English is the language of power, the high language in relation to the other languages spoken in diglossic situations.  English is empowered by those in the upper classes as well as by the mystic role it plays in the minds of the lower classes as the key to upward movement.
However, even when a person learns English and adapts it to his voice and style, making it his English, he may not be accepted:


Asian: eighdy fie sen.
D-Fens: I can’t understand you . . . I’m not paying eighty-five cents for a stinking soda. I’ll give you a  quarter. You give me seventy “fie” cents back for the phone . . . What is a fie? There’s a “V” in the word. Fie-vuh. Don’t they have “v’s” in China?
Asian: Not Chinese, I am Korean.
D-Fens: Whatever. What difference does that make? You come over here and take my money and you don’t even have the grace to learn to speak my language . . .
(qtd. in Lippi-Green 101–102, from Kubota and Ward)

The discriminatory character, 'D-Fens', is somewhat justified in saying that 'Asian' does not speak HIS language, they speak Englishes in different registers, with different lexicon, and towards different purposes.  However, 'Asian' is still classed into using his English as a low language being that his accent causes others to discriminate against him.  Through this lens we see that English being a key to upward movement is somewhat a myth to stand guard against.  'Asian's English may have allowed him access to life in a different country, but is he a white-collar worker?  Does he own his business?  Is he a doctor? lawyer? engineer? professor?  No.

The myth of English as a springboard to success accompanies another hard pill to swallow, but this time from  the other side, the NES side.  Many Americans are not aware that they speak an English or that they speak with accents.  This leads to such problems as that expressed above, as well as in depressing speakers of low languages in a diglossia.  TESOL professionals, as well as all concerned instructors in the humanities, need to make students aware of themselves on the global scale which they so regularly access.  When newscasters, film, and tv speak with a midwest accent, and these clips travel the world around, the midwest American is reinforced with his thinking that he is the norm and everyone else is 'other'.
Instructors have to guide students through the realization of self as other, as well as recognizing the pressures placed on other cultures through globalization.  Students need to be aware of the role that colonialism and class structure plays in other countries' politics regarding English so that they themselves can become more sensitive to their situation and others' both high and low in the diglossic span.

hun, just say it in PLAIN ENGLISH!

Communication is an act between two or more parties.  Successful communication is based on all parties coming to the communication event with a similar understanding of the item at hand.  Unsuccessful communication can result from the parties involved in the event having different background, life experiences, languages, dialects, slang, wit, humor, grasp of irony and idioms, and even just trouble hearing or seeing.

In the case of two people standing together at a cocktail party, communication begins with a thought in one person's brain which he converts to speech and body language in order to convey the desired message to the other interlocuter.  Once the message has left his lips, the ears, eyes, and brain of the second person gather data and interpret the message given by the first person.  We can imagine that these people are perhaps coworkers who know one another decently well and have a standing rapport with one another, so it is unlikely that the message will be understood with different intent by the second person.

However, if we change the details of mystery man 2, the story changes:
Man 1: 25 yr old, message: "I'm really digging the DJ"
Man 2: 65 yr old, receives: ...he is digging something? and responds: "You were gardening today?"

And another change:
Man 1: 40 yr old, message: "I'm really digging the DJ"
Man 2: 21 yr old, receives: ....  thinks: is that guy really wearing a sweater vest?

Communication breakdown can occur before a message even begins transmission if the interlocuters are not receptive to passing messages due to cultural differences.
In order to be heard, we must first be seen as equals on the discussion stage.  This may mean changing things about ourselves so that we become acceptable matches in the eyes of our interlocuters.  We accommodate in this manner everyday with our choice of dress (work clothes to appear professional, team sportswear to indicate support and camaraderie with other sports fans, etc.).

Kubota (2002) discusses accommodation at a national level through 'Kokusaika'.  Wanting to be a player in the global market, Japan began anglicizing in the late 20th century.  In adopting McD's and EFL programs, Japan placed certain aspects of American society over its own heritage.  At the same time, these became tools for Japan to communicate and claim power in the international community.  This tension built around the promotion of English allows for a growth in nationalism in that national description and support is a larger, more cohesive identity as defined through the lens of the government and international relations.  But with a growth in nationalism, there is a decline in support for domestic diversity.

Going back to the earlier conversation examples, for Japan, the analogy can be made that they are meeting with the Westernized others at the McD's, and everyone has decided not to wear sweater vests anymore.  Each individual is entering onto the communication field with firm footing.

But what does it mean that English should be the most prominent language studied (and as Kubota states, it is the only 'foreign language' in most schools)?  What message is communicated through the Anglicized Center?
Why should a person feel pressured to remove his sweater vest and speak American English ('plain English')?

The power struggle presented through 'Kokusaika' and through this article place U.S. and U.K. Englishes on golden thrones.  Those who are native speakers of these Englishes see themselves as entitled while those learners of these Englishes feel inadequate and lesser world citizens:  there exists a perceived superiority of both the language and its speakers.  And where the article mentions a high percentage of Japanese citizens who travel outside the country yearly, the average midwest American does not even own a passport; we can conclude that as far as Englishes being an international asset, the average Japanese person has more international commonsense than the average American English speaker.

The article, and this gal, suggest that in order to find more equal footing on the communication stage, it is not the concern of only one party to make changes.  Accommodations should be made and cultural information learned and exchanged by every person around the world.  Especially in schools where children are highly impressionable and where we are expected to learn the abilities that will help us succeed in life.  We need to present children at all levels with relevant learning materials that support their individual identities while introducing new concepts, world views, and world languages.

what is it with YOU people?!

What you see is what you get.
I have heard this phrase in relation to many physical items.  I have been told that what my eyes tell my brain is a truth that my brain already understands.
In discussion of an airplane meal that is already packaged, this phrase might refer to the fact that what one sees listed in the in-flight meal brochure is guaranteed to be the meal awaiting the passenger under the heated tinfoil lid.  The passenger reads rice pilaf with chicken, dinner roll, fruit crumble, and steamed broccoli, and the passenger has a vision with expectations as to what s/he will find when the cart rolls around.  The passenger expects that the broccoli will be soggy and unseasoned that the rice with chicken will be drowning in some sort of barely-flavored sauce, and that the dinner roll be a white round roll with a pat of butter on the side.  The passenger assumes that, having flown this airline twice before, the meal will be served with pre-packaged plastic utensils, and that the wine on this international flight will be 'all-you-can-drink'.
And so the passenger may be right.
The meal will arrive in the usual tin-foil-sealed package with the usual bland meal underneath.
However the passenger may be wrong.
The meal may be served in the usual tin-foil-sealed package with perfectly-seasoned chicken and broccoli and with a whole grain triangular roll.

When discussing an in-flight meal, the stakes are generally low.  The hostess will not be offended if a passenger does not differentiate the fruit crumble from those before.  But when we discuss the tin-foil packaging as representing a person, the stakes quickly grow.

What you see is what you get.  This, as discussed Kumaravadivelu (2003), is a slippery slope for TESOL professionals, as well as any teacher or person in any profession.  Stereotyping a student, a customer, a client, a coworker, etc., based on past encounters will lead to mistreatment of each person as an individual.  A person's looks may or may not describe that person's behaviors and thoughts.  While one may pretty safely assume that a student wearing a Lakers jersey and hat is in fact a Lakers fan, one cannot assume that that student will not participate in class discussion just because the last Lakers fan in class never prepared class readings.

The thing that struck me the most, right off the bat (yes, I may be sticking with a sports theme here) in reading Kumaravadivelu this evening, is that I feel completely opposite from the 'Asian' stereotype discussed, which K works to dissolve through each section attacking each of three stereotypes.
I was honored by the presence of three Chinese exchange students in my French class two semesters ago.  Each one had a different style and work ethic (just as my white and black students do).  One of the girls was constantly raising her hand, was always prepared for class, and was the first to catch errors when I would carelessly make them on the blackboard.  She, in contrast to the authority statement in the article, would always ask questions about the material, why do some adjectives come before nouns in French while others follow? why are some nouns feminine and others masculine?  I can't say I always had answers for her questions, but in her quest for perfection with the course material, she was very forward about using all the materials at her fingertips.  I feel she was an asset to every member of the class.
Another of the exchange students was always prepared, sometimes an entire section in advance, but was not as vocal as her peer.  She would always converse with partners and would respond when called-on, but seemed more content to listen to others.
The third Chinese exchange student was always ready to speak and participate when called-on, but was rarely prepared for class.  This lead to some communication breakdown, but never a drop in attitude.  He was cheerful, when he came to class, and always had a story to tell about some weekend adventure to Chicago.

Three students from the same city in China with three different attitudes in the classroom.

Going into the classroom at the beginning of each semester is a blank slate.  Each student bears a tin-foil package which I must see through to understand each individual in order to effectively teach to reach each student and to provide an opportunity to each student to learn.  I have taught brothers (during different semesters) who portrayed vastly different levels of motivation to read and participate, I have taught young students and 'non-traditional' students, white students and black students, theater majors and undecideds.
One stereotype I have learned, is that I can usually count on Theater majors to be more willing than other students to act-out dialogues for the class.

The other thing I have learned, is that what you see is not what you get.  When it comes to people, we can't expect the pre-packaged comfort of an in-flight dinner, expecting to see the same thing each time when we open the lid, and once we see it, already knowing the taste will be the same as the last time.  We have to take each person as a new individual with a completely different background and mingling of cultures which will lead that person to react and to interact in completely different ways with each presented context.

Mirror Mirror

If we are what we eat, than we must see what we eat as representative of ourselves.
The apple pie and turkey sandwich on white bread with the crusts cut off appeal to all mainstream Americans.
Americans may be represented by these food items, and when Americans see these food items, they are pleased.  They are likely to purchase these items and/or order them at a restaurant.
Super markets and restaurants carry items such as apple pie and turkey sandwiches because they know that Americans like these things and they will sell well.
The consumer looks for a bit of him/herself on the plate and is pleased when the reflection is as expected.

A slice of apple pie may be available to all Americans at a price of under two dollars.  However, a language textbook, another consumer item, can cost upwards of $100.  The price of these luxury items means that they are representative of consumers who have some padding in their pockets.

Taylor-Mendes remarks that language textbooks, being the luxury item that they are, represent the goal population:  the top 20% of society.  Those who purchase the textbooks absorb the pictures sprawled throughout the texts as models of the target language-culture.  These pictures speak louder than words in many cases, as the language learners may not have the level to understand the letters on the pages, but can read into the images.  The thousands of words, the values of the pictures, speak to the book users of inequality, racial separation, imbalance of power, and unearned white privilege.

The idea of race being divided by continent is one of pre-colonial, pre-mass travel movements.  Considering someone of Japanese descent who is born and raised in Ohio as marginal and therefore not worth picturing in a textbook as one of the many faces of America is the same sort of false pretenses that certain teachers in the previous chapter of Hinkel use to tell students that their narratives are not appropriate.  That their identity does not count as American because their accent or skin color is judged as being of another continent.  That for these students, the USA is not home, the other continent is their home.

All of this reeks of inacceptance and ignorance.

I feel Taylor-Mendes' approach is very interesting.  Her delving into this critical issue with her select group of students and teachers, with her method of guiding questions, opens the reader to see between the lines and pixels of the widely-accepted textbooks.

Your shoes are really cute!

The opening line to a girl-versation.  It may or may not be what the speaker was thinking, but opens a line of conversation that can be followed-up with any number of other topics.  So why then would someone choose to open a conversation about class work with a statement about shoes?

It may be easier for women to begin communication through a compliment or a communal statement of acceptance.  This can read into all sorts of implicit ideals relating to culture and gender that do not cross the speaker's mind when using such a conversational tactic.

However, as a NNS, such interactive practices are not obvious and may not make sense.  Interpreting such implicature in the culturally-related settings takes time and investment on the part of the multilingual learner.  Just as Norton suggests in her 1995 article on context and language learning, in addition to language classes, learners need support to navigate the social aspects of language use.

Different phrases and formations serve different pragmatic functions:
Whereas, 'nice shoes', may allow a complete stranger friendly access to another speaker in order to talk about more in-depth topics, 'can I help you?' is the sort of statement placing the listener with a certain power to demand information or a table for two and a burger.  Statements carry different pragmatic information and must be learned through practice.

Hall, in a similar fashion to Norton, focuses on the need to help learners notice the differing pragmatic uses of language.  She then proposes methods for allowing structured practice of these paradigms.

Unlike Norton, Hall leaves less opportunity for the student to hold power as the researcher, and I therefore see her method as basic.  It can be useful for limited functions of discourse, but when it comes to analyzing vastly differing or strange results to the same phrase, Norton's Classroom Based Social Research pulls ahead.

Imagine you run into the following situations:

You are in class and someone next to you asks, "do you have the time?"
You look at your phone then reply, "it is 10 o'clock".
The person replies, "thanks".

You are walking down the street and a man asks, "do you have the time?"
You take out your phone and before you have a chance to respond, the man grabs your phone and takes off running.

You (a girl) are walking down the street (in a city in France) and a man asks, "Pardon, quelle heure est-il?"
You respond, "il est 10 heures".
He responds, "Merci jolie, vous vous appelez comment?"

Each of these three situations propose nearly the same question but lead to vastly different responses and situations.  It is due to such great, and somewhat disturbing, differences that the study of  prosaics of interaction for language learners is so important.  It is also due to such great differences that Hall's suggestions of creating classroom set-ups to introduce topics can only be a stepping stone in the right direction.  In order to empower and invest students in a language, they themselves must pose the questions and become the cultural reporters.

Grab your Code Switchers folks! We're going to make a Culture Pie!

People move for opportunity.  America was once, and still is for some, the land of opportunity.  But what happens when the opportunities presented don't align themselves with the goals, beliefs, roles, and attitudes of a person's first culture?  A person might do their best to assimilate.  A person might do their best to cling to pieces of the 'old world'.  A person might find him/herself stuck in the 'old world' while their future generations belong to the 'new world', creating a rift and lack of understanding between cultures.

Caroline: I hate that, that they want to know my baby's sex.
Victoria: Who does?
C: My mom, and Aaron's parents.
V: A lot of people do.
C: But what for?  So they can buy me pink or blue clothes and barbies and cars?  I don't want my baby to be gender stereotyped.
V: I feel you.  Plus people should be buying you white onesies to start... you can wash them on hot with a little bleach after all the vomit and poop!
Silvestre: Yeah, like my aunt and uncle, when my niece was born, they bought her a play set with a broom and vacuum.  Then when she started to play sweep the floor, my uncle commented that her instincts were kicking in!
C: I really hate that!

What we say can really describe a lot about what we believe.  Reading between the lines of Young Ju's father in An Na's A Step From Heaven is that he firmly believed in the roles one was to play in the house.  Korean should be spoken in the house, a man should not cry, a woman should take care of the children and not question her husband's choices.  Young Ju, like my roommate Caroline, believes in the equality that is taught in the U.S. school systems currently.  Also like Young Ju, she speaks another language in the home from that of the language of school and business.  Like codeswitching with language, both she and the characters of this book must use certain aspects of their cultures in certain situations, drawing on different terms and attitudes from two or more different cultures to create and display their sense of self in relation to those around them.

The force behind this striking narrative of a girl, feet on two sides of an ocean, really touched me.  She holds so many roles: daughter, big sister, babysitter, punching bag, student... and although she has come to the land of opportunity, she struggles more than ever for her life and happiness.  She is a dreamer that must uphold the male-led societal honor of her grandparents' country and culture.  She is powerless against the anger of her father who is powerless against the bureaucratic practices of the residency system.

The parallels between Kang's article and An Na's novel touch on a similar topic:  that of language as a carrier of culture.  However, supporting a language through use in the home and enforcing a language through use in the home create very different relationships for the children born into such multilingual worlds.

Acceptance and appreciation of the child for the language in the home means that it will either be cherished and passed down, or neglected and hated, and lost to all future generations.

Today we will have an opportunity to speak with Dr. Kang.  Two questions I would like to discuss with her in relation to this week's readings:

1)  In your experience with codeswitching in the home, do you find that imbedding an English word into a Korean sentence leads to less English in a response from a child than does ending a sentence or providing a correction in English?  (aka, the last word heard prompts a response in that language?)

2) How do you feel emotion comes into play with reception and willingness of children to accept bilingualism?  Do you feel that the family dynamic and positive treatment of bilingualism and multiculturalism are an important factor in a child's advancement in a home language?

2.1) And reading/writing for children over the age of 6... how do you see this as a factor?  Does encouraging bilingual literacy in the home help or hurt children as students of two languages?

What do you mean 'you don't eat no meat'?!

What we say as a representation of who we are.  What we do represents how we want to be seen.  Some people say that actions speak louder than words.  It may also be true that we have a chance to think before we act, whereas words spill out before we have a chance to filter them.

But what of a second language?  How do we express ourselves, and can we even be the same people, in a language that we have not mastered?
In the case of the post title, what if our self representations don't match with a language-culture into which we are assimilating?  (Thinking that we all speak English, but Greek-American, Jewish-American, African-American, French-American... everyone has their own individual cultural vernacular and expectations)

So what happens when we don't fit in to what others expect of us?
Shame.

Borrowed from Pike (2012) - aka me two semesters ago:

            The relationship between the L2 learner and the L2 society and culture is more complicated than a dichotomy of learner and learner environment would suggest.  As each person’s L1 social identity does not include the L2 contexts, s/he must constantly acquire both language and social context to form his/her schemata.  Furthermore, the relationship between the learner and the environment is constantly being manipulated by “power.” This plays a role in guiding the circumstances under which L2 learners will accept and resist conforming to L2 aspects. 

            The author discusses Krashen’s concepts of low affective filter combined with comprehensible input and scaffolding as a means of acquiring a second language.  When anxiety mounts, as could be the case in the first anecdote presented regarding an ELL and a native speaker surrounding the well-known character Bart Simpson in which the ELL was made to feel unacceptably ignorant for not knowing this television persona, a second language learner’s motivation may come second to their emotions and s/he may cut off from the language and cultural interactions.  In such a situation, the native speaker demonstrated a sort of pop-cultural power over her counterpart, the ELL, which became a cause of anxiety rather than a learning moment.  The author, Bonny Norton Peirce, remarks that “the relationship between the language learner and the social world is problematic” (12).  It is for this reason that Peirce proposes that motivation and social context combine forming a student’s “investment”.  She expresses that due to the power of native interlocuters to guide interaction and the power of the L2 cultural context to guide emotions and norms, the L2 learner’s motivation can at no point be viewed as a separate controlling factor and must be taken into consideration with the language learning context.

            The challenges posed to adult immigrants regarding this power struggle involve the adult’s sense of control and dignity.  When faced with the notion that s/he is viewed as lesser or under the control of another adult in a situation, the adult learner’s anxiety and affective filter will rise.  Where children are used to being told how to complete tasks and view events in their environment, adults feel they are past that point in life and need the respect of those surrounding them, otherwise they react negatively.  This negative reaction studied in Peirce’s article is the refusal to use the L2: English.

            L2 learners, including those in this study, are “not only exchanging information with target language speakers but they are constantly organizing and reorganizing a sense of who they are and how they relate to the social world” (18).  This means that when Eva, from the anecdote, feels that another woman is acting negatively towards her, she will in turn feel negatively towards the social world in which she finds herself.  If Eva believes that she is perceived as ‘ignorant’ or ‘lacking’ within her social context, her motivation to practice English will be outweighed by her investment which reduces her desire to speak.  Her investment keeps her in the social context as a learner, but reduces the opportunities that she will be viewed as the lesser power in social relationships, as she avoids producing speech that might be criticized by native English-speaking peers.

            On the other hand, Martina’s story presents another form of investment.  The struggle she faced meant that she could not choose silence in the face of adversity; she had to voice concerns and continue to develop her language skills as a mother, a worker, and a wife to a family which relied on her income and determination.  “Her courage to resist marginalization” (22) meant that Martina’s challenging social context only lead her to further succeed and allowed her to reframe the power relationships in her head.  Rather than seeing herself as an outcast in society, as a powerless adult in dealings with native speakers, she saw herself as a parent who was responsible for her family and her children.  She was the supporter and leader of her household and would not allow herself to be seen as less.  In doing so, she “claimed the right to speak” (23).

I am currently looking at a lot of wedding materials (being a bridesmaid in two upcoming weddings).  Norton (2010) discusses five ways in which the language classroom must come to better terms with all students in regards to identity.

It almost seems as if teachers must be behind the times if articles such as this are only recently being published and read in academic settings (can we say that the average language teacher, over the age of 25 and in an established classroom has read this research?), while mass marketing in the holy and coveted world of the sacred union which is marriage (can you sense my hint of sarcasm through the computer screen?) seems to have picked up on the money to be made in the LGBT world and is catering to more communities than language textbooks!!!

In many ways this is very upsetting: does it need to be about money for the varying identities of the world to be treated as equals?  Or is it just that greed makes this process move more quickly? 

Fight for the right to party: like its 1999? Gangnam-style? Boogie-woogie?

In a conversation with my mother this past weekend we happened upon the topic of teenage weekend activities.  In the 70's, with two older, much older, sisters, my mother was introduced to cigarettes and beer around the age of 11 or 12.  This was just normal.  For me, at the age of 12, I was most likely riding bicycles with my friends, playing video games, or going to summer camp.
At 17 my mother would slip into her bell bottoms and go out to the bars with her girlfriends.
At 19 I would slip out to an apartment party in my skinny jeans.
We both flat ironed our hair, but she actually used an IRON!

We are mother and daughter, Jewish, Americans, feminists... but we are part of different cultures due to our generational differences.  Where we see eye to eye on many things, style of dress and dance is not one of them, but does not rip our family bond apart.

Culture = a means of unification under one 'flag' with a set of ideals that guide our mannerisms, beliefs, creations, and communications
Culture = "power to sow the seeds of dissension between members of a familly, between communities in a nation, and between nations in this world" (Kumaravadivelu, 2010:9).

Are we united and separated under the headings of 'culture' or are do we define and redefine ourselves then choose an appropriate heading?

Kumaravadivelu (2010) goes on to discuss the mindbending notion that it is not that culture is but it is what culture does that is important.  If culture is not a noun, what is it?  Wintergerst (2011) proposes that "culture is a far-reaching dynamic concept" (3) and as a "complex frame of reference that consists of patterns of traditions beliefs, values, norms, symbols, and meanings that are shared to VARYING DEGREES by interacting members of a community" (cited from Stella Ting-Toomey 1999).

Culture does.  Members of a culture share beliefs to varying degrees.  Generations share culture but each new generation incorporates patterns of interaction from those other intersecting peoples and ideas (and here comes mass media as a player! - not to mention youtube...)

Each of these authors touch on culture as an inexplicable entity, and then propose ways to explain it in a classroom!  Does anyone else see this as counterproductive?
The standards for language education propose incorporating "culture/Culture" into the classroom, but there is no way to accomplish student comprehension of what it is to be a part of another mind set without living through certain experiences.  I believe that, as nearly all our authors studied thus far, students should discuss the idea of culture as an iceberg and detail what culture means to them.  In this way, in reading their course texts, they can take all they read with the proverbial grain of salt; hopefully understanding that the small boxes shoved into textbook margins or short online videos featuring the same cast of characters at the end of each chapter is NOT representative of an entire people, its generations, its history, and even its present!

How often do we read something in an English textbook (TESOL professionals) that is so outdated that we have no idea to what it refers?  Or perhaps the English textbook is British English or Australian English and we haven't a clue as to what certain vocabulary items mean?

This goes to show that there is so much more to a people than what can be demonstrated in reading a textbook and in 50 minutes of instruction... or even in 100 hours of instruction.
Language instruction is an opportunity to get a glimpse at the tip of an iceberg that is the studied language.  Language study opens the door so that each student might pass through and learn firsthand what the global perspective has in store on his/her adventure through Wonderland.
Discussion of cultural 'norms' is helpful to students in understanding actions or ways of speaking which they might otherwise view (through ATTRIBUTION) as bizarre or offensive.  Helping students to enter into appropriate conduct during conversations will eventually help them to integrate into other societies without being viewed as the ethnocentric cowboys that most people think Americans are!

Here Lantolf (1999) picks up the baton and runs with the linguistic door-opener: we are not learning language-culture so we can better assimilate, but so that we can better understand ourselves!  Second language learners' "development of tolerance and understanding  of other cultures as well as in the degree to which the study of other cultures enhances cultural self-awareness" (28) shows interesting insight to our opening issue of culture as glue or means of dissent.  Here I think it is important for teachers of languages to realize that it is the tone, manner, and acceptance that they portray while discussing culture in the classroom that will lead students to see other cultural attitudes and mannerisms as either bizarre or as acceptable.

We are mirrors.

I found Kumaravadivelu's discussion on "Culture and Language" interesting, but somewhat obvious.  Our language does not define who we are, rather we define ourselves for the audience on paper (or listeners) through the choices of language we employ.
For me, this means I discuss banking, health, economics, and fashion in English.  I discuss food, cooking, literature, and farm equipment in French.
This does not mean that I have a split personality, it means that my life experiences have lead me to learn certain vocabulary for things, which already touched me personally, in different languages.

So while I dance Gangnam-style, my mother boogies, and my roommate salsas, we all manage to dance, and we all like to party!

Playing in the Background

Is it the soundtrack to our lives?  The rhythm of unasked and unanswered questions which follow each individual's every moment and every action echoes each person's separate and interconnected, hidden in plain sight, cultures.
Morgan (2001) puts a decoder ring in the hands of the reader in detailing how culture is hidden in plain sight and how one may approach each gesture, line of text, song lyric, clothing choice, etc., as an opportunity for anthropological analysis.  It is in looking past the actions, products, and words themselves to the motivation which lies underneath.  These motivations are at the heart of culture.  But there are even further layers to be examined... the actions, products, and words which motivate the motivation of the individual who then performs a task, utters a reactionary statement, or purchases the Toms with the purple zebra print.

For example:

------------------------ surface ------------------------------
What is observed? --- Franklin stops mid stride to bend down and tie his shoelaces.
What motivates the observed phenomena? --- Franklin is wearing shoes with laces and one became untied.
What motivates...? --- Franklin does not want his laces to drag on the sidewalk as he just changed the laces to a sweet checkered pattern pair.
...? --- Other kids at school have similar laces and Franklin has a desire to fit-in with his peers
------------------------deeper----------------------------------
--- A recent marketing campaign for these shoes with interchangeable laces focused on boys between the ages of 12 and 16; this line of shoes under this campaign provided the mall where Franklin and his friends shop with the line of shoes.
--- Shopping at the mall is a common collective activity for Franklin and his friends.
--- Wearing certain items are symbols of status.

The questions one could ask regarding the motivation of any of the above steps in a thought process could go in thousands of different directions.  Rather than asking why Franklin is wearing that particular pair of shoes, we might examine his upbringing in relation to tying shoes?  Is there some sort of connection between socioeconomic status and whether or not a person decides to retie his shoes?  Is there cultural relativity as to whether he starts with one bunny ear or two?

In class last week, when I related culture to water, you (Dr Lisya Seloni) asked me whether or not the water held the shape of its container even once removed.  Thinking on this, and on this week's reading, I would say yes, but only to an extent.  We are like ice cubes, forming since birth within a certain shapely confine: some round, some square, some heart or seahorse-shaped.  Once we are removed from our specific local cultures, like the ice cube removed from the freezer tray, we melt over time.  We may then re-form in a similar, but never quite the same shape, or we may take a new perspective-shape completely.  However, we are still water and will always carry with us the minerals of our source (or in the case of my freezer here, little pieces of broccoli or spinach that we keep frozen for later use and which somehow always finds its way into the cubes).

Morgan (2001) discusses language as a means by which we make that which is hidden, explicit.  We may choose to define ourselves through our choice in words.  Likewise, the language-and-culture which encapsules us from birth forms our perspectives, relationships, self-definitions, communitites, etc.  Language is power.

Whereas the author had the experience of being corrected from 'tu' to 'vous', I have experienced the opposite.  I am a self-corrector and have become very aware of the social constructs around formal and informal language, especially in the presence of my future in-laws.  While spending the summer with them, at the table over lunch, I accidentally 'tutoi'ed Thérèse, only to catch myself and switch to 'vous' a second later. She decided to address this inner battle I'd had with the remark that she likes the feeling of closeness that 'tu' provides and that I could feel free to use it.  Normally, if someone my age were to say this to me, I would use 'tu' from then on.  Being that this is someone of a different generation, and my future mother-in-law, it would be inappropriate for me to make the switch, and keeping with 'vous' honors her as the wonderful person who brought the love of my life into this world.
'Vous' is still problematic however.  It can be used, in my mind, as a means of distancing oneself formally from another party out of either respect or distaste, or the opposite: a means of respecting someone you are very close to.

Morgan discusses using language to unificate and to separate.  We choose words that others will understand so as to show our part in the whole that includes the listeners.  We also choose words that demonstrate our differences from the larger culture surrounding us, or to reach out to other listeners who might engage more specifically with different terminology.

I find the idea that "language is the central means of learning culture in the language classroom" (Morgan, 38) is true, but realize that the extent to what is teachable simply through language is mountainous!  Like the tip of the iceberg metaphor which Morgan utilizes, I believe that what is learned is only the tip.  One must experience the people, products, practices, perspectives, and communities in order to begin to FEEL the cultures available through the language studied.  One has to sit at the table with many generations, experience embarrassment and laugh at mistakes in word choice, and fall in love with the view from a café terrace, or really hate the amount of dog droppings on a particular sidewalk, in order to understand and absorb new cultural aspects.

What is Culture?

Culture is like... water? tacos? donuts? a wardrobe? hiking?

Today in Cross-Cultural Issues in TESOL with Lisya Seloni we discussed our concepts of both Culture and culture.  What we expect of others under views of essentialism and how we might prefer to define ourselves under non-essentialism.