Culture and spoken discourse: Analyzing talk through interactional sociolinguistics

Summary: Mckay chapter six gave a brief overview of interactional sociolinguistics and provided three examples (ELF research, code switching, and language attitudes) where sociolinguistics has produced valuable information. The chapter also touched upon the concept of English as a lingua franca. Baker’s study explored the relationships between languages and cultures. Marra’s study explored the challenges of obtaining accurate interaction in Maori workplaces.

Interactional sociolinguistics interested me during the readings because this is the first time language learning theories have been mentioned the readings for this class. I wondered how the different theories (Nativist, behaviorist, interactionist, etc) correlate with and influence our subject material this semester. It seems that some theories are more essentialist or non-essentialist than others are, but others appear to pick a side more arbitrarily. For examples, the Chomskian view of language as an entity set in stone would be more essentialist, the behaviorist theories could be used to reduce people through culturism or to account for their various influencing discourses, and the Interactionist theories would be more non-essentialist. Then again, perhaps the theories of language learning cannot be/should not be classified in terms typically reserved for theories of culture.

Language is typically taught through its relation to culture. Students learn the formal and informal languages and how to perform certain cultural tasks with the culture’s language. At least that is always how it has been taught to me, and the only way that I have heard of it being taught. Consequently, Baker’s summary of Risager (2006) caught my eye. Risager’s study apparently “questions the perceived inexorable link between language and culture that has become a part of second language pedagogy. Risager claims... languages and cultures can be separated.” Given the standard “you have to know their culture if you want to speak their language” discourse of my L2 courses this came as a surprise. However, as Baker alludes too, Risager isn’t really arguing that teachers should separate language and culture, but that teachers should move from a generic sense to a differential sense. To put it another way, that teachers should move from the essentialist/generic view of language as the “embodiment of culture” to a non-essentialist/differential view that examines specific languages, like English, which can take on new cultural meanings with new contexts. Risager’s concept of languacultures, where languages take on new meanings because of the individual speakers of the language, that give “no identifiable culture to which a language is inseparably tied” (571). I like this concept because it reinforces a multiplicity of discourses over a monolithic English speaking culture.

Finally, I feel as if I should write about the conversation extracts. I think this is a really cool way to study language and discourse, but am slightly skeptical about its effectiveness. People act differently when they know they are being recorded or may be recorded. Even the conversation in an everyday settings, like a Maori workplace, would change if knowledge of information gathering was announce to the workers. This presents a conflict between authentic conversation and personal privacy. Although I believe that collecting and analyzing conversation and speech is integral to the field of TESOL, the tension between authentic conversation and recorded conversation has not yet been resolved.

Culture and Written discourse: Intercultural Rhetoric, multilingual writing

Summary: Kubota’s article from 1999 spoke about the false dichotomy between the west and the east that exists in the minds of many people in both the East and West. He refutes this mindset by giving counterexamples to standard perceptions of Japanese in community. According to his article, many, if not most, Japanese schools actually emphasis creativity, self-expression, and individuality.

I have always found the claim that Japanese schools promote communal and patriotic values while Schools in the US promote critical thinking and creativity to be ironic. I certainly don’t own the US public education system for promoting and garnering my ability to be creative and think critically because it did nothing of the sort. In fact, my experience with public schools is that they do the opposite. Classes promoting creativity (art, band, creative writing, etc) are typically the first classes to be cut if a school is short on funds. Classes teaching critical think usually consisted of memorizing everything the teacher said and regurgitating it on the test. Even literature and composition classes, which should garner both creativity and critical thinking, were reduced to standards. For instance, the five paragraph essay where every aspect of the essay has to line up with the “rules” of writing.

Personal educational experience aside, I agree with Kubota’s claim the “East” is represented in certain categories. Said referenced Flaubert as an example of Orientalism in the interview last class which I found interesting. I have read Flaubert’s memoirs and they do epitomize Orientalism. Every person from the near East or Africa is portrayed in a certain way. The ‘bad guys’ from the East, in the memoirs they are mostly from Egypt, are either savage brutes who live for violence or subtle con men who live for money. The ‘good guys,’ or tame savages, who help the Westerns are characterized as kindhearted but emotional, irrational, and dependent. The women, good or bad, as usually characterized as exotic and stupid, exotic and deceptive, fat and stupid, or fat and deceptive.

This brings to mind Kubota’s point about Orientalism being intentional in the political sphere. Although most cases of Orientalism in the education field can hardly be called malevolent, their are instances, especially in political rhetoric, that are premeditated. During the Iraq war, the US’s reason for staying was that the Iraqi’s were dependent on US soldiers for order and stability. Many of these same claims were used by the European empires of the 19th and early 20th centuries to justify continued presence in their colonies.

I thought Kubota’s critic of Rhetorical pluralism was well founded. It seems that much of what is called pluralism is only another name for indifference and another platform for Culturism. Teachers are aware of different “cultural cultural traditions,” but they stop there. When this happens, the quality of the ESL student’s rhetoric becomes irrelevant because it is explained by their culture. There isn’t a good or bad essay, but an essay written by a Chinese student, an Argentinian student, and an US student. The story of Jeremy and Jabu from last week correlates well with this point. Jabu’s academic successes and failures were explained away by her culture rather than her ability. As a result, any feedback was to help her acculturate rather than improve her craft. This can easily happen (and does though often to a lesson degree) in many educational settings with ESL students.

Identity and language learning: Discourse, culture and identity

Summary of B1.4: An explanation of a ‘discourse approach’ to culture is given in this section. Which, in short, is “the position that in any instance of actual communication we are multiply positioned within an indefinite number of Discourse” (Holiday 111).

Summary of Social Identity...etc: Peirce argues that theorist have not a complete understanding of social identity, and therefore fail to understand how language learners interact in the world.

Summary of Hall, K.: The article problematizes the idea of a language as a homogeneous and fixed entity in which people operate. Instead, it presents how people interact in their language as multifaceted and varied.

Summary of B1.3: This section of the book explains how people use narrative to represent their social world and to “establish themselves of members of particular groups” (Holiday 101).

I found section of the reading touching on identity found through narrative to be the most compelling topic, so I will, as a result, comment on it. On page 101, Holiday writes, “people do not possess one identity related to the social categories to which they belong, but rather they present and re-present themselves... in accordance with changing social circumstances and interlocutors.” This concept of identity as something we perform is counterintuitive because of our tendency to think of ourselves as of a unity. However, how we act in the midst of different people can be radically different. How one acts in front of their boss hopefully varies considerably from how one acts with their sibling. The people who surround us, and the environment we are in have the ability to change how we present ourselves to others and to ourselves. For instance, if I go to an event underdressed, how I act is generally vary different than than if I show up at an event overdressed. Many other examples could be given as to the environmental factors that change behavior.

I thought it was interesting that the text presented this information in the context of identity narratives. Holiday quotes Stephenson (2000) who writes, “Our sense of self is achieved through our capacity to conceive of our own lives as a unity and this in turn is a result of our capacity to tell the story of our lives” (Holiday 101). The desire to tell the “story of our lives” and what story we tell is directly correlated to our identity (Holiday 101). Naturally, if a person’s narrative includes them in a particular social group or excludes them from others, the person will act differently in these groups. I think many narratives, because of the desire for a coherent unity, are essentialist by nature. It is easy to think in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’ in every condition rather than me and you in certain situations but not others. The partiality and fragmentation of human knowledge is frightening for most people, and this fuels the desire for security. Hence, the desire to write endings for all of our beginnings which causes people to fabricate protagonists and antagonists where none exist. (At least not in boundaries so distinct) While being aware of this tendency is perhaps the first step to resisting it, I believe it is a trait so intrinsically tied to being human that we could not function without creating tailored narratives to construct a unity out of a fragmented life. Of course, the question that now must be asked is this:

How do we gain a sense of unity without essentializing or marginalizing a group of people?

Also, if our identity is constantly shifting, can it be said we have identity, and if so what aspects make up ‘our’ identity?

and...

Is our tendency to change how we ‘perform’ our identity actually us shifting our identity merely a change in behavior?