Culture, Language and Education

Introduction

 Culture richness of human being is a matter of constant worrying and subject of continuous investigation and expansion. Not only this, trying to understand each one and taking in account otherness has been a difficult topic to discuss and research about.

The aim of this kind of projects where you investigate and learn about broad and diverse culture makes, is not making you feel small and tiny, but to compare your knowledge with the knowledge you did not know and expand it.

Human being reflects its beliefs and superstitions through fable and storytelling. It creates a universe to pour and mix his limited understanding of it (the universe and world that surround us).

Understand and accept that other being can have similar or distinct beliefs is cause of troubles and it has been the root of many conflicts among tribes and countries, to show whose truth is authentic truth, or which one is closer to it.

Even blood has been spoiled and wasted, for one’s beliefs and ideas (e.g. America’s conquering era, Australian colonial period, British occupation of India, etc.), to show the rest of the world who is in command and who is correct.

The lack of competences to understand the ideas and differences is the algid point where people start arguing and not cooperate for common ideals. Upon ideas and troubles such these, is where countries such ours (Colombia) built up his community and tried to coexist and share the space, but nothing in life is perfect.

Understand and know where and why the differences is crucial to build a better world, and this is also task for a teacher.

 

Task 1: Mind map

Task 2: Cultural investigation

I chose the following countries to investigate much part of their folklore and culture which had any o some influence upon English language: Australia, Canada, and England.

Australia

Aboriginal mythology and culture can be tracked to as far as 30.000 years ago. This influenced largely the first colonizers of the continent by around 1788 when the first British settlers arrived at the Sydney bay, where Governor Arthur Philip put the British flag, as a meaning of the colony foundation.

Soon, the colony members started to feel an own identity and a difference in the accent, mixing with the mutually intelligible Irish dialect, Cox, F. (1999), but Australian English (the new born dialect) is relatively new compared with other, with around 200 years of history.

These newborns grew up mostly in the southern part of London, receiving a wide variety of accents, and when arriving to Australia, received new influence of aboriginal word, terms and stories to tell. This influenced a new kind of storytelling and created an inner idiosyncrasy and identity.

Here, is listed a non-exhaustive list of some influences Australian people did to English language, by more than creating a new accent with aboriginal and islander words (Torres Strait Islands), including tales, riddles, fables, myths, legends, or poetry:

Tales

The dreaming: Part of Australian mythology. This term was originally used by Francis Gillen for referring to cosmovision of Australian Aboriginals. From this story, dreaming now has something to do with the creation itself. Now, it has also a totemic meaning referring to person itself, is related to animals and destiny path of person and culminating in a single path that has been walked since the times of the ancestor’s times,  The dreaming (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2013).

Dinewan the emu, and Goomblegubbon the bustard.

            The first part of the tale is written as it is originally found on Langloh Parker, K. 1896, Australian legendary tales.

“Dinewan the emu, being the largest bird, was acknowledged as king by the other birds. The Goomblegubbons, the bustards, were jealous of the Dinewans. Particularly was Goomblegubbon, the mother, jealous of the Diriewan mother. She would watch with envy the high flight of the Dinewan, and their swift running. And she always fancied that the Dinewan mother flaunted her superiority in her face, for whenever Dinewan alighted near Goomblegubbon, after a long, high flight, she would flap her big wings and begin booing in her pride, not the loud booing of the male bird, but a little, triumphant, satisfied booing noise of her own, which never failed to irritate Goomblegubbon when she heard it.”

Australian jokes

1)      How many Aussies does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Three. One to hold the bulb and two to turn the ladder.

2)      What do you call an Aussie in the finals of the World Cup?
A referee.

3)      Q: What is the difference between Cinderella and the Melbourne football team?
A: Cinderella wanted to get to the ball.

4)      Your taxi driver was a surgeon before arriving in Australia.

The term “Aussie” itself is a funny or familiar way to call Australians by themselves and is used to show friendship and comradeship.

Another common way to show this is by using a sort of nicknames or diminutive forms of names with no insulting intention on it. Examples include Hargrave → Hargie; Wilkinson → Wilko; John → Johnno; David → Davo; Hogan → Hoges; James → Jimmy → Jim → Jimbo.

Retrieved using way back machine of the Web Archive technology: https://web.archive.org/web/20190327180426/http://blogs.brisbanetimes.com.au/rhymeorreason/archives/2007/04/nicknames_you_d.html

The following cannot be cited or have any authority support, since is a personal experience that I wanted to show about the self-experience with anything from Australia. Since Steve Irwin, the “Crocodile hunter” became famous in Colombia due to his violent death because a stingray, and also for his documentaries, many students came to me asking for his “weird” accent. In times, I had to explain that Steve is Australian, and his accent differs from what they know about American or English accents.   

Canada

The land of the maple leaf, the most iconic symbol around the world, maybe. Perhaps is famous for having two spoken languages coexisting together (with zones of influence), English and French. Canada was inhabited by indigenous people, until the first explorers/colonizers came, around 17^th century.

The French came first, and then, by mid18th century the British wanted their part of the “new” land, too.

After the war of 1812 (1812-1815), hard times forced to many Irish, English, and Scottish to travel and settle in the British Canada, with unprecedent numbers. Later, the British government smashed two rebellions and unified the two Canadas (French and British), Powell, John. Encyclopedia of North American Immigration (2005).

After these times, much water has flown and this iconic country has built itself as a promised land for immigrants of several countries, stated by government policies, and now the country is known for its multicultural tolerance and coexistence.

Notorious works in Canadian culture that influenced English

Canadian Wonder Tales by Cyrus MacMillan (1918), book that solely gathers a big amount of Canadian Native American tales, such “How Raven Brought Fire to the Indians”, tale about a white sea-gull which lived near Canada.

Margaret Atwood is recognized as a notorious writer of a diverse kind of books such Cat’s eye, about controversial painter Elaine Risley, that reflects her writing style on non-fiction and vivid descriptions.

Canadian poetry by the other hand, is traced till the discovery age, when these lands were totally new for mainly English-originated settlers. By 18^th century and while English poetry was developing, Canadian poetry began to appear on newspapers, before books.

            The first Canadian poetry book will not come until confederation times (circa 1897), Dreamland by Charles Mair, but formal author associations can only be tracked until around 1862, (Simpson-Housley and Norcliffe, 1992).

 

England

Perhaps, the most difficult country to define through its culture, since this is one of the older (if not the most) well-established kingdom with a heritage of centuries (maybe millennium), with an influence through also a vast amount of countries in many aspects, from language, to food or novels. Home of notable scientists and brilliant minds such as Sir Isaac Newton, Alfred Hitchcock, the famous Queen Isabel I and the new most long queen in charge Isabel II. Home of famous sports such as cricket, football, tennis, influenced many other cultures such as Indian culture, founded countries thanks to his voyagers, USA, Australia, New Zealand for citing some examples, tracing the influence and importance in English language, cannot be done without talking about England.

Since the Anglo-Saxons times, were the England kingdom were founded, the literacy in English started with Old English in as far as 450 B.C.

Beowulf is one of the oldest examples of antique and unique poetry in English language, circa 1000. Many writings of this era are based on war, conquest, and bravery.

The old English prose was developed around 9^th century, mainly influenced by Latin language and its rich content of stories, poems, legends, etc. We can pick the notable work of King Alfred which consisted in compilations and translations from Latin, but his work lacked originality, but were more intended for educational purposes (Asser, John, d. 909, 1983).

Middle English can be tracked to 1066 until 1500 era, The Norman conquest of England in 1066 traditionally signifies the beginning of 200 years of French occupation in English letter, so, for example, in modern English we have word such as “parlor” with a simplified spelling version to American English.

Next, we move to the English renaissance, 1500-1660, when the Tudor dynasty is instituted but the renaissance ideas were slow to penetrate in England, visit the Puritan period without “unity and soul” as stated by Long, circa 1948. It would make this brief text too long and complex, defining and detailing each period, so let us just mention restoration, 18^th century, romanticism, Victorian literature, modern literature, post modern literature and finally, contemporary literature in English media.

Notorious works in English

As before mentioned, one of the very first works in English language was Beowulf, but we can mention other notorious works.

·         The greatest poetry work of Geoffrey Chaucer.

·         The masterpiece of English language, The Canterbury Tales.

·         The legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the round table.

·         Sir Francis Bacon with his philosophy work.

·         Never forget to mention William Shakespeare, and his relevant work to the development and spread of English language.

·         Metaphysics by John Donne.

·         John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” epic poem.

·         The novel in English language is born in 18^th century, with Daniel Dafoe’s “Robinson Crusoe”, Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver travels”, and Henry Fielding’s “Tom Jones”.

·         The romantic Lord Byron who “patented” the name Vanessa in his work “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”, 1812.

·         Sir Walter Scott added his titles Waverly and Rob Roy.

·         The classical, translated to many languages: Pride and prejudice by Jane Austen.

·         Another classical, no necessary introductions with a title that tells almost everything about itself except for his author, “Frankenstein”, by Mary Shelley.

·         Classic of all times, nourished the “kid’s tales”, Charles Dickens gave us Oliver Twist and the well-known “David Copperfield”.

·         Robert Louise Stevenson wrote another classical of all times, brought to almost all of us to the cinema and TV, “Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. This one, has received a lot of parodies, versions and reimaginations to be brought to the big and small screens.

·         Oscar Wilde must be mentioned, with his literary works.

·         Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave us “The hound of the Baskervilles”

·         Agatha Christie did the same with his novels and her prolific writer career.

·         H.G. Wells. Sci-Fi literature is mentioned to be born with his novels, The war of the worlds and Time machine.

·         Brave new world influenced thousands of people since 1932, with cinematographic adaptations and music influences or dedicated to the topic.

·         Another favorite of all times, became famous again in 2001 with its cinematographic adaptation by Peter Jackson trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien, founded a new school of epic novels and bravery, this work and his universe, influenced musicians, painters, novel writers, Sci-fi producers, and a long etcetera.

·         C.S. Lewis had his own Multiverse with Narnia Kingdom and prior stories of Chronicles.

·         In contemporary literature, is difficult to define since the boundaries are blurry thanks to globalization process and American influence. Now we witness new medias such Manga and Speculative fiction, so is hard to show or tell any notorious contemporary work.

Many novels influenced traditions in other countries, such “Christmas carol”, which served as a point of reborn in Christmas traditions on foreign countries.

A notable phrase in British English, to show that you do not like something is by saying “that is not my cup of tea”.

Thanks to the English broad reach on contemporary time, and by American influence too, is that we can say that English has become the lingua franca. This means, that now we can have a common language to discuss and share through culture and language barriers or writing systems, "as a global means of inter-community communication" (Seidlhofer 2016: 20; Murata, 2015).

Reflection

Oral communication can be considered as one if not the oldest method of communication with intention, among human beings. So, by this, humans transferred knowledge and expertise via this method to the new generations. Thus, it was difficult to rewind in knowledge to look for any point of facts or methods, so new ways of preserving information was necessary. This process finished (almost), with the creation of written method and supports or materials used for this, having evolved till digital editions and so on.

But oral tradition has not died, it is alive just like when the first awakens of human being, and it is necessary to communicate ideas in clear and quick way, even faster than written or iconic ways.

One way to access to new knowledge and expertise is via learning another language, so oral communication is nearly the most important competence to develop that you can talk with others and being aware of their own experiences and ideas. Dialogue lies on important competences such Intercultural Competence (Byram, 1997), but if you are going to teach languages, you also teach culture. Then, the next topic of discussion is born, and now we have to talk about Intercultural Communicative Competence, by this, you not only understand the people of your own culture, but start to meet and agree (or disagree) with individuals or groups coming from a different context of yours and take into consideration the social context in which their lives take place.

            To be successful communicators with people coming rom different countries or culture where language can be (or don’t, as in Latin-American countries), a barrier to effectively communication, one needs an Intercultural Communicative Competence to be a capable person who is able to understand and accept otherness with understanding.

This competence is understood and defined by Chan, 2015, as “where the relationship between language and culture is crucial. Someone who is engaged in intercultural communication where there are different languages involved need then to be interculturally competent (IC) and have communicative competence (ICC), and latter includes the former.

By saying this, Chan tell us that every person needs to develop the feelings and brain constraints to make a contrast between former knowledge and compare it with the new which is being showed to the interviewer, no matter the context they are found

So, mutual understanding and respect for traditions is necessary, while comparing and adapting with contemporary world. Do not forget where you come from but understand and accept where you go now.

Conclusion about the importance of the course.

I chose this course because it offered me the opportunity to swim down in more complex topics about culture and the way it is transmitted. Now, I understood that it is no only a matter of transmission but of learning and accompany during the growing up process of the individual and the adaptations suffered throughout the time.

Thus, culture richness is out there, available to be explored and  understood, as a matter of contents and creations by humankind, which makes us different from the rest of animals and at the same time a part of this world that we share.

References

Cox, F., & Palethorpe, S. (2007). Australian English. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 37(3), 341-350. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/44526466

English renaissance, retrieved from: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/britlit1/chapter/english-renaissance/ by Lumen learning is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Kumiko Murata, English as a Lingua Franca in the International University: The Politics of Academic English Language Policy, ELT Journal, Volume 68, Issue 2, April 2014, Pages 205–207, https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccu004

Paul Simpson-Housley; Glen Norcliffe (1 September 1992). A Few Acres of Snow: Literary and Artistic Images of Canada. Dundurn. p. 51. ISBN 978-1-55488-050-8.

 

 

The relationship between language and culture and culture

Task 1 Initial activity: Essay

Culture and language have been bonded through all humankind history and today, they cannot be separated one form the other. They have a better meaning and work, when working together.

This can be easily accepted by mostly anyone who is interested in language but defining each of these terms is a task that is not faced by anybody. One must read tons of academic literature and even doing this, one cannot find a single concept or well defined idea, the provided articles you can find on the net, demonstrate bunches of lists and lists made by diverse authors that hardly can agree in one or two same ideas. A sieve must be done with the amount of definitions you can find about these concepts, so you build up a sum of well-defined ideas in mind.

Let’s cite the beginning of the reference article “Culture in Language Learning: Background, Issues and Implications”, with the first definition of culture given by Kramsch (1993): “culture refers to ‘membership in a discourse community that shares a common system of standards for perceiving, believing, evaluating and action’”.

This means that people with similar ideas and beliefs system can be called culturized. They share a common culture. Now, check the concept of language.

Kramsch (1993) defines language as “the principal means whereby we conduct our social lives. When it is used in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways (p.3).”

Standardized ways of communication in the same community can be called or named as a “language”.

It is time to face the big question, do we teach language through culture or, do we teach culture through language?

It is good to try answering this question through an analysis of school systems and how humankind have transmitted the knowledge to children, from parents. School system as we know t today, took a long way to be developed and have had a large amount of criticism from every aspect of its functioning. Nonetheless, is one of the main and biggest budget needs when politicians and governors of many places round the world, defines how much is going to be spent on education, this includes not only teachers but maintenance of buildings and other personnel.

But culture and language are not only taught through school, it is also taught by our parents and in an indirect way while we grow up in the environment. People learn the dos and don’ts through interaction with people and sharing experiences during the life.

So, can we separate the two terms pointed above? Maybe no and must not be done. Culture is a big load of knowledge and the to be transferred is only through language. Language, as said, includes not only speech and spelling, it also includes other ways of communication such as corporal “language”, visual conveys and a compelling set of other indirect rules learnt through growing up.

An example of this can be seen on Colombian costumes such as pointing with lips to things. This has been demonstrated to be very particular and only doing in this context, when a Colombian tries to point a thing to a foreigner, he/she may not understand the gesture and instead would think that the person is trying to offer a kiss. Examples of this kind can be found in different cultures and the point of this is to show that culture and language cannot be separated.

Even with all of this said, serious bibliography such Swiderski (1993), points that language learning has the aim of teaching the culture.

In a personal context, English has opened door to a wider variety of knowledge that could not be achieved in any other way. So, learning another language is good for learning in general, but, the best way to do this, must be done through culture, with small bits of culture you can get more content than the one you could get from a single reading of a dictionary. Of course a good dictionary is a great tool to have at hand, but, culture can only be learnt through itself, watching programs or movies with heavy load of target culture, so the answer, the big answer is that none of the components can be separated (language and culture), and always remember that a second or third language is better learnt with culture.

Task 2 Collaborative activity

Step 2: Powtoon link

https://www.powtoon.com/s/dgidG0WwajB/1/m

Step 3: Link to the video interview

https://youtu.be/qgSkQPiunrU

Step 4 Video transcript

Topic of the interview

The role of the culture in the process of learning English

Date and time, it was performed

Saturday 27^th, 2020 at 8:20 a.m.

Place where it was performed

We did the interview through zoom platform; my interviewed was at home because of the lockdown.

Interviewed name

Cesar Augusto Miranda Morales

Profession

English professional teacher and professor. Graduated from Santiago de Cali University as Bachelor’s degree in Modern Languages: English and French. He also speaks Portuguese.

Courses in charge:

He teaches to 6^th and 7^th grades at the same institution I work, Central School, here in El Cerrito – Valle. He also works for “Modern English Classes”, English institute. Works at Academic School in Buga – Valle.

Summary of the answers and comments

·         What do you think is the relationship between language and culture?

The teacher says than both things can exist separately, even though, one needs language in order to transmit and communicate culture. This includes traditions, customs, ways of thinking and manners also. This includes of course music, habits, etc. In our case, our mother tongue is Spanish, and we have different topic to express and ideas.

·         What is the influence of culture in the process of a foreign language process?

As an English teacher he has to use both, language and culture to give the ideas, the knowledge that is necessary to transmit and teach the ideas of the target culture. Making understand different people the wide variety of cultures is pretty difficult to do. The moment and the case are tied with the appropriate use of culture process. If you want to teach the language you need to teach how the people behaves and thinks in the target language to get a better understanding of context and culture itself.

·         Which cultural expressions do you know countries have through language?

Teacher said he is not the kind of person that would sit down and search for tons of idioms and phrases or any other punctual cultural expression such these, he would convey in searching or learning or using the appropriate language and expressions that are necessary to be understood, instead of a lot of different weird phrases and regional expressions. He talked about the traditional English teachers’ methods of memorizing and verb list to get a proficient level of vocabulary.

·         Why do you think is it important to have an oral tradition in a country?

It is one of the ways we can share the knowledge to different people from different country or places. If we want to know the customs of another department or country, one has to appeal to oral tradition to have access to things the are not written down in anywhere. To know properly a different culture or even the own culture, oral tradition is necessary.

·         What do you think, do we teach language using culture or do we teach culture using language?

Teacher thinks that this process is mostly personal, every teacher has its own way of teaching, and as English teachers, language teachers, our job is to teach culture, so we have to use the culture too. We understand better a language if we know that culture too. And explanation of this is necessary, such in the case of teaching the seasons for example.

·         Do you take into account culture in the strategies you use in your English classes? Can you give me some examples?

Teacher says that this question has been already answered by discussing the previous questions. He discusses about the use of seasons and puts and example of a friend of him that were talking about seasons in Colombia and how likely expressions have different meanings according to culture and context.

 

REFLECTION ABOUT THE ANSWERS OF THE INTERVIEWED

The previous speech with the teacher we did our initial discussing was really nurturing, since teacher Cesar has already a lot of experience teaching in a wide variety of contexts and populations. He had talked with foreigners and native speakers, discussed with them topics related to culture and language, so he was the best choose for this exercise. Learning is a very complex process, when it comes to language and culture acquisition, the complexity is even deeper because of all the nuances in the diversity of topics, ideas, customs, food, ways of expressions, manners, recipes, and so on. Discussing this with a more experience teacher is rewarding to know what to expect in the future development of the profession, the teacher profession. It is still difficult to define both terms, language and culture, but every day we discover new things related to those topics.

REFERENCES

Chan, W. M., Bhatt, S. K., Nagami, M., & Walker, I. (2015). Culture and Foreign Language Education: Insights from Research and Implications for the Practice. Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. (pp. 1-19). Retrieved from http://bibliotecavirtual.unad.edu.co/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1045353&lang=es&site=eds-live&scope=site

Lantolf, J., Thorne, S. L., & Poehner, M. (2015). Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Development. In B. van Patten & J. Williams (Eds.), Theories in Second Language Acquisition (pp. 207-226). New York: Routledge. Retrieved form: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313795407_Lantolf_J_Thorne_S_L_Poehner_M_2015_Sociocultural_Theory_and_Second_Language_Development_In_B_van_Patten_J_Williams_Eds_Theories_in_Second_Language_Acquisition_pp_207-226_New_York_Routledge

Conclusion about Unit 1

As future language teacher, I have not reflected upon my duty of teaching culture attatched with my mission of forming competent people in a second language (even a third one if II learn another one), I have not reflected on the fact that I have to teach the language through its culture, and once you are on the path to learn another languange, you learn the whole cosmovision of its people, their costumes, their food, their way of life, everything is melted down in the concepto of the language itself.