Blog Post #1

Two main ideas in the readings stood out to me this week:
1. Culture is dynamic and amorphous.
2. Language and culture are connected, but not inextricably.

I have experienced life in various international and American communities, and I strongly agree that culture is always changing and difficult to capture. There are so many perspectives and nuances of culture! As Holliday, et al suggest, we must embrace a complex view of culture in which diversity is the norm (54). I believe that maintaining this view will allow us to not only develop solid relationships with students based on true understanding of their individual personalities (individual cultures!), but it will also help us avoid stereotypes that could isolate a student as “the other.” As Atkinson says, “knowing students individually also involves knowing them culturally” (643). Just this morning, I met a student at ELI who is a Brazilian of Japanese ethnicity. She was quite talkative, and I found myself surprised at her outgoing nature. Without consciously realizing it, I had stereotyped her due to her Japanese heritage and assumed that she would be quiet and reserved. (Ironically, I didn’t even consider any stereotypes associated with Brazilians!) Even though I recognize the flaws in the essentialist view of culture, I realize that this view influenced my first impressions. This experience reminded me of Atkinson’s third principle that “social group membership and identity are multiple, contradictory, and dynamic” (643). Everyone belongs to a variety of social and cultural groups, and it is impossible to pigeon-hole someone based solely on his/her membership to a single cultural group. I think that we, as both educators and learners, need to foster this idea that the concept of culture is dynamic and somewhat amorphous. That being said, I agree with Kumaravadivelu’s assertion that culture exists outside the bounds of definition; however, I also believe it still exists within the bounds of description. I think the trick is being able to describe patterns of behavior in order to talk about culture without perpetuating negative or limiting stereotypes. Believing that culture is diverse will allow us to build meaningful relationships in the classroom and take away limitations we might have due to cultural (mis)understandings.

In Chapter 2 of Cultural Globalization and Language Education, Kumaravadivelu shared information about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that language determines thought and vice versa. Until my reading of this chapter, I had basically agree with this idea; however, Kumaravadivelu points out that if this theory were true, people would not be able to successfully translate languages or use English to communicate information from a variety of sociocultural perspectives (22). I also recognize that people who are bilingual are able to think and function effectively in two different languages without fundamentally changing their opinions or self-identities. So after learning about this information, I feel it is safe to say that language and culture are linked, but they don’t determine each other. Atkinson mentions that “language…cannot be developed without…developing knowledge of the sociocultural contexts in which that language occurs and for action in which it exists” (647). As an educator, I think it is important to teach students about the cultures of English-speaking communities insofar as it is useful for communication, but I do not need to pressure them to adapt their individual cultures to fit the expectations that some English speakers might have.

Question: All this discussion of culture got me to thinking…how much should we, as educators, directly engage issues of culture with our students?