BLANCA ESTELA SOTO MEDRANO 10 MAYO 2020

Assignment 1. Reflection
Reflection. How language might affect people’s identity and what are some of the aspects as
teachers,we need to take into consideration in our classes to help students be effective cross-
cultural communicators.

Culture has a very strong influence on how a person behaves, thinks, and views the world
therefore it defines a person’s identity, whereas cultural identity is the total sum of ways of living
built up by a group of human beings transmitted from one generation to another. Language is
intrinsic to the expression of culture, and is a fundamental aspect of cultural identity. It is the
means by which we convey our innermost self, it is a permanent connection between the internal
and external interpretation of our identity. It is through language that we transmit and express our
culture and its values because it defines and shapes human experiences (C.Rovira, 2008)

When immigrants stop using their mother tongue there is an implicit loss of cultural identity,
learning a new language does not mean we have to lose our own language, it is a matter of
enriching our inner world. Although our personal identity will be invariably modified because we
become a sort of world citizen who can share experiences with individuals from other cultural
backgrounds, but we can keep our essence and culture as a central part of our identity.

It is a matter of developing intercultural competences rather than changing cultural identities. In

most cases teachers are supposed to teach nothing but language not considering the fact that
language is not an isolated matter. Part of what means learning someone else’s language is to
perceive the world thought metaphors, the idioms and the grammatical patterns used by the
other, filtered through a subjectivity and historicity developed in one’s mother tongue, cultural
and personal identity get constructed through the obligation to respond to the foreign language,
through dialogue, oral or written. Bakhtin calls “transgredience”, the ability of speakers to see
themselves from the outside, language learners learn not only to use the language correctly and
appropriately, but to reflect on their own experiences. (Kramisch, 2013)

Research in the cultural component of language learning has been deeply interested in cross
cultural pragmatics and the sociolinguistic appropriateness of language use in authentic cultural
context. In foreign language classes taught outside of any direct contact with native speakers,
culture is mostly the practical, tourist kind with instructions on how to get things done in the
target country. In second language classes taught in the target country or in institutions run by
native speakers abroad, culture can also take the form of exposure to debates and issues of
relevance to native speakers in the target country. (Kramisch, 2013)

Culture has become a social semiotic construction, both native and non-native speakers are likely
to see their cultural horizons changed and displaced in the process of trying to understand others,
it is a dynamic discursive process, constructed and reconstructed in various ways by individuals
engaged in struggles for symbolic meaning and for the control of subjectivities and interpretations
of history. (Kramisch, 2013)

It is possible to learn a language through grammar, but in order to create a meaningful learning
environment we can go deeper into cultural issues related to the language. We are usually
BLANCA ESTELA SOTO MEDRANO 10 MAYO 2020
Assignment 1. Reflection
engaged into foreign language teaching, fortunately it is possible for us to access other countries
cultures’ through the internet, another important fact is the fact that we need to know our
students’ cultural background. Another aspect of language that needs to be taken into
consideration is the fact that languages like English have variants all around the world, and that
there is no such thing as the correct English pronunciation or wording, it is important to expose
students to all the different existing accents in order not to create stereotypes or feeling
frustrated by this fact.

From very basic levels, it is important to teach students that sounds, particularly English sounds
may not be replaced by existing sounds in L1, and from as early as A2 level it is possible to use
some idiomatic expressions and slang, so that they start processing the new culture slowly, there
are many expressions that have an equivalent in L1 but there are many others that need to be
explained in terms of cultural differences.

One thing I have experienced myself is that European languages are easier to learn that Asian
languages, and the reason why we learn them is because we share a great amount of culture due
to the fact that we share a common origin, but it is rather complex to learn Slavic or Camitosemitic
Languages, because there are very few similarities, we do not have that much contact with those
languages and most of the times we have no idea of their culture. In order for me to start
understanding their language it was necessary for me to learn a lot about their life, culture, history
and language, after that it was possible for me to remember words because I was able to associate
those words to their culture and I since I was familiarized with the basic rules of the language, then
It was able to start reading following their own rules which are different from ours.

I considered culture an essential part of language teaching, and I strongly recommend, we as

teachers, to take into consideration this fact to create our materials and lesson plans.
i

REFERENCES

C.Rovira, L. (2008). The relationship betweenlanguage and identity. The use of the home language
as a human right of the inmmigrant. Revista Interdisciplinar da Monilidade Humana,
XVI(31), 63-81.

Kramisch, C. (2013). Culture in foreign language teaching. Iranian Journal of Language Teaching
Research, 57-78.