CULTURE IN SECOND AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING

CULTURE 

IN SECOND AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING

Hairudin Rahman
Graduate Student of Universitas Negeri Malang

Background

Foreign language learning is comprised of several components, including grammatical competence, communicative competence, language proficiency, as well as a change in attitudes towards one’s own or another culture. Cultural competence, i.e. the knowledge of the conventions, customs, beliefs, and systems of meaning of another country, is indisputably an integral part of foreign language learning, and many teachers have seen it as their goal to incorporate the teaching of culture into the foreign language curriculum.

The power of language to reflect culture and influence thinking was proposed by an American linguist and anthropologist, Edward Sapir (1884-1939), and his students, Benjamin Whorf (1897-1981). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis stated that the way we think and view the world is determined by our language (Otto, 2006). Through the study of other languages, students gain a knowledge and understanding of the cultures that use that language.

Learning language without the culture framework in which it exists is like cooking ethnic food without the spices of the region. You simply will remove all the flavor from the language. If you are lucky enough to be able to travel or live in the country for a while it is great. If not, try to learn as much as you can by reading books and magazines from the country and watching its television programs so that you can get a feel for how the people think, act, and speak. Don’t just be bilingual, be bicultural.

Therefore, second or foreign language teachers should be foreign culture teachers, having the ability to experience and analyze both the home and target cultures (Byram, 1994). It is hope that this paper would contribute to a better understanding of culture and its importance in the second and foreign language classroom.   

Understanding Culture        

The way in which we understand culture, just as the way we understand language, affects the way we teach culture in language learning. With respect to the definitions of culture as follows:  

1.      Sapir (1956) says that culture is a system of behaviors and modes that depend on unconsciousness.

2.      Rocher (1972, 2004), an anthropologist, believes that “Culture is a connection of ideas and feelings accepted by the majority of people in a society”

3.      Undeniably, culture is learned and shared within social groups and is conveyed by non-genetic ways (The American Heritage, Science Dictionary 2005).

4.      Taylor (1974), an anthropologist, says in his Primitive Culture that culture in a complex definition includes beliefs, arts, skills, moralities, laws, traditions and behaviors that an individual, as a member of a society, gets from his own society. (Mahadi, 2012)

Culture has many different dimensions. However, it can be understood that culture is the totality of learned and socially transmitted behaviors. It is shared and practicing in all societies of the world. Basic elements of culture are language, symbols, norms, values, beliefs, and cognitive elements. Culture is transmitted from one generation to another.

One way in which culture has often been understood is as a body of knowledge that people have about a particular society. This body of knowledge can be seen in various ways: as knowledge about cultural artefacts or works of art; as knowledge about places and institutions; as knowledge about events and symbols; or as knowledge about ways of living. It is also possible to consider this aspect of culture in terms of information and to teach the culture as if it were a set of the learnable rules which can be mastered by students. When translated into language teaching and learning, this knowledge-based view of culture often takes the form of teaching information about another country, its people, its institutions, and so on. Culture is not, however, simply a body of knowledge but rather a framework in which people live their lives and communicate shared meanings with each other.

Understanding Language

Understanding a language should first involve understanding its patterns of sound. All languages have definite patterns in the sounds that the speaker use, how those sounds are combined to form symbols, and how those symbols are organized into meaningful sentences. Douglas (2000) further indicated that each language structure consists of four different areas: phonology (the basis of speech sound), semantics (word meanings and organization of concept), and grammar (include Morphology and Syntax), and pragmatics (the use of language in contexts).

In fact, some languages have similar structural patterns while others are totally different. One of the reasons why some people have difficulty learning another language is often related to language structures. For instance, Chinese and English languages have unique and totally different structures.

Language is a system of signals, including voice sounds, gestures or written symbols which encodes and decodes information. The goal of language is to communicate meaning. When we begin to develop our language abilities, the main purpose is to communicate or interact with others. Halliday (1973, p.10) suggests that the functions of language can be separated in seven areas, included: 

1.         Instrumental function: when language is used to manipulate the environment, to cause certain events to happen.

2.         Regulatory function: when language controls events. The regulations may encounter the approval or disapproval of the listener.

3.         Representational function: when language is used to make statements, convey facts and knowledge, explain or report. 

4.         Interactive function: when language serves to ensure social maintenance, this implies knowledge of slang, jar- gon, jokes, folklore, cultural mores, politeness, and formality expectations in social exchange. 

5.         Personal function: when language expresses feelings, emotions, and personality. 

6.         Heuristic function: when language is used to acquire knowledge and to learn.

7.         Imaginative function: when language is used to create tales, write a novel, poetry, tongue twisters, and etc.

All functions of language lead back to the three elements that are indispensable to the formation of a proposition: the subject, the predicate, and the link between them. Each function has its objective to help us to deal with the necessities of daily life

The Relationship between Language and Culture

Language and culture are intertwined, and one will affect the other. Language and culture have a kind of deep and symbolic relationship. Language stands for the whole culture because language represents culture in the minds of its speakers. Conversely, culture also symbolizes language and is summed in the economic, religions, and philosophical systems of a country.

1.      Language Affects Culture

An obvious advantage of human language as a learned symbolic communication system is that language has infinite flexibility.  This means that the meaning of a word can be changed, and then a new symbolism is created. For example, the English word “Nice” now generally means pleasing, agreeable, polite, and kind.  But, in 15th century “Nice” meant foolish, wanton, lascivious, and even wicked. This simple example reveals that languages can evolve in response to the changing historical and social conditions. As we know, the culture of the United States is made up of many different cultures and languages. Each of these individual cultures is impacting on, shaping, and redefining the American culture. Many new words are being added normal American daily speech. For example, the sentence “long time no see” is not standard English. It was translated from Chinese; others like sushi and tofu also appear in American society. People accept and understand them because these adaptations have already become a part of the “local” culture and blended into people’s lives (Allison & Vining, 1999).

Language is formed to present our ideas or concepts; these can change depending on which cultural elements are dominant at any given moment. Hence, whenever language expands, the culture changes.

2.      Culture Affects Language

Culture can be defined as a learned system of values, beliefs and or norms among a group of people (Greey, 1994). Broad definitions of culture include ethnic background, nationality, gender, disability, race, sexual orientation, and religion. Culture not only changes people’s values and habits, but also affects people’s language and behaviors. Cultural knowledge is crucial in achieving linguistic proficiency, and the culture of a society can be changed depending upon the language used. For instance, some old words remain even when they are no longer used cultural. New words emerge as they become identified with particular cultural activities. The slang words used by our parents were very likely different from those we use today. Different eras often have differing “pop languages”. These languages are mostly likely to be influenced by TV programs, politics or music, and little by little they create their own cultural trend. Examples of this can be seen with the Beatles and most recently in Hop Pop music. In brief, language is always cultural in some respects. Language should be conceptualized an integrated as part of a society and its culture.

In a society, Malinowski believed that a culture meet three sets of needs: the basic need of the individual, the instrumental needs of the society, and the symbolic and integrated needs of both the individual and the society. The responses to these three sets of needs constitute its culture (Stren, 1993).     

Second Language Teaching and Learning is Cultural Teaching and Learning

Culture in language learning and teaching has always been an integral part of L2 learning and teaching. Traditionally, it is aimed at creating in the L2 learner an awareness of and an empathy toward the culture of the L2 community. According to a recent review by Stern (1993), culture teaching has included a cognitive component in terms of geographical knowledge, knowledge about the contributions of the target culture to world civilization, and knowledge about differences in the way of life as well as an understanding of values and attitudes in the L2 community; an affective component in terms of interest, curiosity, and empathy; and a behavioral component in terms of learners' ability to interpret culturally relevant behavior and to conduct themselves in culturally appropriate ways. Thus, as Stern reiterates, "one of the most important aims of culture teaching is to help the learner gain an understanding of the native speaker's perspective". The teacher's task then is to help the learner "create a network of mental associations similar to those which the items evoke in the native speaker" (Kumaravadivelu, 1994).

Certainly, students cannot truly master new language until they have mastered the cultural context in which the new language occurs. This means that understanding a new culture is an important element in achieving the success in second language acquisition. In fact, the learning of language and the learning of culture can be compared with a child’s first experiences with the family into which he or she is born, the community to which he or she belongs and the environment in which he or she lives. When we are infants, we acquire our first language in a natural way because our society, our environment, and our culture continually feed us. Similarly, when we acquire a new language, we also need to ingest the new culture’s nutrients.

The perception that teachers have of a student’s culture may have a positive or negative effect in the learning process of a second language. To be a second language or bilingual teacher, cultural perception and intercultural training is very important. If children are given cultural knowledge, immersed in a culturally rich environment, and exposed to culturally basic material, they may learn the second language with more ease because their background knowledge about the second-language culture will make comprehension less difficult. 

As Lado (1957) stated that if certain elements of a second language differ greatly from the student’s native language, that student is likely encounter difficulties. It can be assumed from this that the learning of second language is facilitated whenever there are similarities between that language and the learner’s mother tongue because languages usually have differences of syntax, pronunciation, and structure. It is perhaps through cultural support and understanding that the diversities of languages can be resolved and students’ learning stresses can be reduced.

Kitao (2000) in Genc (2005) also giving reference to several authors lists some of the benefits of teaching culture, those are:

·         Studying culture gives students a reason to study the target language as well as rendering the study of L2 meaningful.

·         Teaching culture is to conceive of the native speakers of target language as real person.

·         In achieving high motivation, culture classes does have a great role because learners like culturally based activities such as singing, dancing, role playing, doing research on countries and peoples, etc.

Instructional Strategies for Teaching Second/Foreign Language within a Cultural Framework

Second language learning involves a number of different dimensions, including grammatical competence, communicative competence, language proficiency, and cultural understanding (Thanasoulas, 2001). Six proposals for strategies to include cultural items in the second language classrooms as follow:

·         Strategy I       : Provide Culturally Learning Materials

·         Strategy II     : Using Common Proverbs  as Transferred Tool ( Analyze the similarities and dissimilarities of cultures)

·         Strategy III    : Apply the Role Play as Sociocultural Approach

·         Strategy IV    : Encourage Students Search and Present through the Culture Capsules (Objects or Images)

·         Strategy V     : View Students as Cultural  Resources

·         Strategy VI    : Use Computer Technology to Help Student Gain Cultural Information

Therefore, teaching second language is not simply about giving speeches about syntactic structures or learning new vocabulary, but should incorporate cultural elements such as language, symbols, norms, values, beliefs, and cognitive elements. Cultural activities and objectives should be carefully organized and incorporated into second language lesson plans to enrich the teaching context content.

Conclusion

Understanding the nature of the relationship between language and culture is central to the process of learning another language, L2 or LF. In actual language use, it is not the case that it is only the forms of language that convey meaning. It is language in its cultural context that creates meaning: creating and interpreting meaning is done within a cultural framework. In language learning classrooms, learners need to engage with the ways in which context affects what is communicated and how. Both the learner’s culture and the culture in which meaning is created or communicated have an influence on the ways in which possible meanings are understood. This context is not a single culture as both the target language and culture and the learner’s own language and culture are simultaneously present and can be simultaneously engaged. Learning to communicate in an additional language involves developing an awareness of the ways in which culture interrelates with language whenever it is use.

References

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Allison, S. R., & Vining, C. B. 1999. Native American culture and language. Bilingual Review, 24, 193-207.

Lado, R. 1957. Linguistics across Cultures. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

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Genc, Bilal & Bada, Erdogan. 2005. Culture in Language Learning And Teaching. The Reading Matrix. Vol. 5 (1). pp. 73-84.    

Thanasoulas, D. 2001. The importance of teaching culture in the foreign language classroom. (Online). http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue3_3/7-thanasoulas.html. Retrieved on August 15, 2016.