Week 7 Blog: Analyzing Cultural Differences in Writing and Speech

The documentary that we watched in class at the end of last week’s class examined cultural differences in writing and gave tips on how to assess and help the writing of international students.  The video began by once again describing Kaplan’s idea of contrastive rhetoric and how students’ writing in second languages is impacted by their primary languages and cultures.  An example of how contrastive rhetoric can reveal cultural differences was demonstrated by the Japanese female student who lost points for describing “extra information”.  She did not describe what she saw as unnecessary or irrelevant information because in Japanese culture detailed descriptions of events are more common and natural than a brief summary.  For example, a student from the U.S. may write “there was a fight between two guys” while the Japanese student provides a detailed description of the event leading to the fight between the two guys.  This is a cultural difference, not a difference in writing ability.  Another reason for the directness of American prose is because in the United States the author is responsible for conveying a message.  In many other cultures, including Japan, it is the reader’s responsibility to determine the author’s message.  Another writing difference between the United States’ culture and other cultures is the use of citations.  In the U.S. citations are of extreme importance because using information that is not one’s own is considered stealing.  This is largely a reflection of the individualistic style of American culture.  On the contrary, other collectivist cultures place less emphasis on citations because information is shared among the public.  Information is not a private enterprise but a shared commodity.  While the documentary highlighted differences in writing between cultures, the two articles for this week analyzed the impact of culture on speech.

            Marra’s article utilized authentic data to research workplace communication.  A large portion of the article describes how research should be conducted and the importance of considering the culture of one’s participants when designing a study.  In my opinion, Marra’s most insightful point on this topic was his statement that “participants are NOT researched on, but researched with” (305).  Allowing participants to actively participate in the conduction of the research is super important because this research and data often leads to critical self-reflection by the workers.  This reflection will likely cause a change in communication patterns and hopefully lead to a more productive workplace.  Isn’t that one of the primary goals of these research studies?  Hopefully the knowledge we learn from language studies leads to practical improvements and more effective communication.  A major point that I took from the article was that importance of having knowledge of a culture before evaluating the communicative practices of that culture.  Marra’s study examined the workplace communication of two different cultures in New Zealand: the Maori and the Pakeha.  If one does not understand the nature of the Maori culture and hears two workers constantly joking around, one may assume that these workers are lazy or unproductive.  However, the Maori culture could be known for having a light-hearted and fun work environment and these could actually be great workers.  As demonstrated in this class so many times before, one cannot judge others without understanding. 

      Baker’s article focused on English as a Lingua Franca.  According to the text, the term English as a lingua franca is ‘‘a way of referring to communication in English between speakers with different first languages” (569).  For example, a native Spanish speaker and a native French speaker who communicate via English would be using the language as a lingua franca.  English has become a truly global language and its use as a lingua franca has become increasingly more common.  English’s prevalence in a wide variety of different cultures demonstrates a fluid and dynamic relationship between language and cultures.  As articulated by Baker, “English is not property of one culture or community” (568).  Many Americans often think of English as being “our” language, but we need to embrace the philosophy that all people should have the freedom to speak all languages.  In a country founded on freedom, it is ironic and disturbing that some people have tried to restrict others from learning perhaps the world’s most influential language. 

I hope Barbara and David ended up together...

Although it saddens me not knowing if Barbara and David winded up together, I still gained insightful information from all three articles.  From Connor’s article on contrastive rhetoric, I thought critically about the difficulties and challenges of writing in a second language.  Using its most basic definition, contrastive rhetoric is the study of how a person’s first language (and culture) influences his or her writing in a second language.  This concept was created based off research by Robert Kaplan.  One of Kaplan’s primary points was that different cultures have different rhetorical tendencies.  Page 219 offers strategies of how to use the analysis of contrastive rhetoric in the classroom.  The strategy that I liked the most--and plan on using--is simply having students compare the organization structures and features of their L1 and L2.   This is a simple strategy, but it will allow students to make fair comparisons between their two languages without making one language seem inferior to the other.  The article gives examples of comparisons and text analyses using the concept of contrastive rhetoric.  Many of the comparisons are between English and either Finnish or Flemish.  In an analysis of letters (In English) to potential employers, the Flemish applicant is much more direct and brisk than his U.S. counterpart.  One of the central arguments of this article is that this is a reflection of the Flemish culture or writing style as opposed to a reflection of the Flemish’s applicant lack of English or weak writing skills.   Many people assume the briefness or directness of a non-native English speaker’s writing reflects a lack of intelligence because many Americans assume that the “Western” style of writing (organization, complexity, etc.) are superior to the styles of other cultures (as detailed on page 233).     

I am in complete disagreement with Atkinson’s belief that “critical thinking is a social practice unique to western cultural traditions (11).  Dangerous assumptions like this are what often limit ESL students and coerces them into negative self-fulfilling prophecies.  As we have discussed in this class many times, each distinct culture is also completely filled with individual differences and variety.  It is simply wrong to say that an entire culture is incapable of critical thinking.  However, I enjoyed reading Kubota’s narrative about Barbara.   Barbara’s story should inspire those teachers that feel they are not “diverse” or have never had an opportunity to travel outside their own culture.  Without ever leaving the country or learning another language, Barbara transformed from a culturally unaware teacher to a complete advocate of multicultural education.  With the help of her colleague Carol and her love interest David, Barbara changed how she ran her classroom.  For example, she phrased questions and comparisons to avoid making American culture seem more sophisticated or superior to other cultures.  Even something as simple as a teacher’s word choice can change the comfort level of the students in the classroom. 

Kubota’s second article dealt with the constructions and perceptions of the Japanese culture.  The concept of dynamic culture once again occurs on page 11.  Kubota cautions that although certain perceptions, stereotypes, and characteristics can be linked to certain cultures, no culture remains static and completely identifies with all of those assumptions and perceptions.  Once again on page 13, Atkinson makes the case that students from Asian cultures are less capable of critical thinking because of traditional cultural values such as obedience and collectivism.  However, I am in agreement with the points that Kubota makes on the bottom of page 15.  He emphasizes “the similarity between cultures, diversity within a culture, and the idiosyncratic and unpredictable nature of learning processes” (15).  Again these views are more consistent with the newer, more dynamic, view of culture.  A concept that intrigued me throughout the article was Kubota’s use of “the Other”.  I believe the point that Kubota is trying to make is that we associate people different from ourselves as “odd” or “abnormal” so that we do not feel that way about our own selves.  In addition, we often assign the “others” the negative characteristics that we would not assign ourselves.  This phenomenon may be more of an example of a defense mechanism than an example of arrogance. 

Week 5 Blog: The Danger of Stereotypes

         Kumaravadivelu's article on cultural stereotypes is extremely useful to me because it highlights the mistakes that I do not want to commit as an educator.  I think the stereotyping of all diverse groups and cultures that appear similar as “Asian” is a perfect example of an unfair generalization made by schools.  For example, I have seen the term “Asian” as an identifying category on state exams and other demographic surveys.  The three major stereotypes identified on page 710 of Kumaravadivelu’s article are that “Asians”: are obedient to authority, lack critical thinking skills, and do not participate in classroom interaction.  To make these assumptions about any single race or cultural group is inaccurate, but to make these generalizations about dozens of unique cultural groups (that simply appear similar) is ridiculous.  Individual differences are completely ignored according to such logic.  However, unfortunately, many older educators were never trained to teach culturally or to think diversely.  So these stereotypes may not seem incorrect at all in their eyes. 

            Stereotypes can create unwanted self-fulfilling prophecies.  For example, treating all “Asian” students a certain way based on previous perceptions or assumptions could result in similar behavior for all Asian students.  This point is summarized by Kumaravadivelu’s point that, “If Asian students do indeed adopt the passive classroom attitudes that are often claimed, this is more likely to be a consequence of the educational contexts that have been or are now provided for them, than of any inherent dispositions of the students themselves” (712).  This quote demonstrates that the attitudes and performances of teachers are what determine the behavior of students or groups of students more than anything else.  My favorite point addressed in this article is at the bottom of page 715 about how all people are victims and victimizers of stereotypes.  For example, a black student who is the victim of verbal harassment from other white students could then go on to stereotype all white students as being mean and racist.  Stereotypes and perceptions of cultural groups really do affect everyone.