Interestingly, all of the participants who already had the experience of living abroad claimed to have experienced RCT as a result of learning English, which makes it plausible to suggest that immersion in an ESL context plays a central role in experiencing reversal conceptual transfer. This verified Block (2007) who considers the findings from ESL contexts not unanticipated, taking into account the geographical movement and environmental, societal, and to some extent, psychological change of the communities of practice in which individuals participate.
The noticeable conclusion to be drawn from the justifications made by both group is that most of Iranian English-major students feel that they experienced RCT as a result of learning English.
It could be concluded that most of the students experienced RCT as a result of learning English. Some of them, instead of being attracted to the western culture, continued to be attached to their own local culture, in addition to acquiring a deeper and a more assured belief in their own culture. According to Pishghadam & Sadeghi (2011), language learners may appreciate or depreciate their own cultural values after a cultural contact and subsequent reflection. In this study, both appreciation and depreciation of the home culture was observed among the participants' comments.
When the participants were asked ‘if they had constructed a new identity as a result of learning English’, surprised by the nature of the question, most of the participants (91 out of 110) considered English learning simply as a course or means of communication, which has nothing to do with formation of a new identity and reported that they are not someone else while communicating in English and that both languages are o...
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From this study, which aimed to explore Iranian English-major students' identity construction as a result of learning English, invaluable conclusions were drawn. If we think that the participants' English learning experiences reflect those of many English-major university students in Iran, it would be fair to conclude the following:
Most of the Iranian English-major students think that, they are affected in terms of world view, but they are not someone else when they communicate in English.
The results did not confirm the findings from similar researches conducted earlier such as Jabur (2008) who conducted the same study on the Omani women's identity/s and experiences to see whether they are affected by learning English and writing in English as a second language. She found that her participants changed aspects of their identity, besides, all participants
Teaching world languages is a very specific, extensive field, and it should be noted that the texts presented here are only a small sample of what is available. Though it has long been known that language, culture and identity are interwoven, and extensive research to this effect has been presented, there exists an enduring trend to teach language solely as language. The texts presented within this annotated bibliography make it obvious that, as language is the main conveyer of culture, opportunities are being missed to help students develop their cultural understanding, and thus, their own identities, through the acquisition of second, or subsequent, languages.
“I think my mother’s English almost had an effect on 5) limiting my possibilities in life as well. Sociologists and linguists probably will tell you that a person’s developing language skills are more influenced by peers. But I do think that the language spoken in the fa...
Language is a means of communication and it varies from one community to another. Everyone has a mother tongue which depended on the family’s upbringing. A second language can be learned along the way. There are also instances where a person is born in a community that speaks two languages and therefore, had to learn both languages. The quality of the languages learned will be affected by how well the community speaks both languages. This can later develop into a new form of language. The essay describes the frustration of the author who felt rejected by different groups for speaking a different form of language. Her essay aims to gain sympathy from readers by seeing the issue from her point of view. Anzaldua attempts to achieve this in her essay by raising issues on identity and discrimination. She wanted to highlight that language is not determined by a country’s physical borders.
Johnson and Newport used 46 native Chinese or Korean second language learners of English who were students and faculty members at an American university. The subjects were presented together because of their native languages dissimilarity to English and lack of difference in the results of two groups. The subjects' ages differentiate between 3 and 39, when they first arrived in the US and they had lived in the target language culture for between the age of 3 and 26. According to their age of arrival in the US, t...
The rapid technological evolution and the growth in the population around the world are playing considerable role in creating new levels of intercultural communicate both locally and globally. People now can get the information from any spots on the planets easily through many televisions channels. Also, gaining huge amount of knowledge from every part around the world is provided by computer networks. Computer networks facilitate the communications as well. Beside create new opportunities, technological and demographic evolutions provide significant challenges to the people. Communicating successfully in another language depends on shifting the frames of reference, norms, and assumptions (Kinzer, 2003). In other words, when individuals use another language effectively, they must adopt new perspectives about communication and language and not just focus on the structure and vocabulary. Reading, writing and discussion of texts will help learner to understand another way of thinking. Actually, there are needs to embrace issues of cultural identity and for an inclusive process in how reading and writing are being taught. In this regard, language appeared as one of the most essential aspects of culture and social being. Language is not the only mean which individuals create activities and identities. Also, language is not enough to be recognised in a specific community or group. Person must behave and act in ways considered right among this community or group.
My mother would occasionally take me to work with her at the nail salon while sitting at her station I would notice how rudely customers would treat her due to her lack of English. At that point, I realized that my mother did not sacrifice everything to be ridiculed all because she could not speak English. A sense of determination washed over me. With the aid of my ESL class, in addition, to listening to other people’s discourse of the language, I gradually became fluent in the glorious English language. While learning English, it sent me on an unforgettable journey each step I took felt like I was paving my own pathway to success. After years of feeling un-American, I was committed to teaching and changing myself with knowledge, soon enough, learning the English language allowed me to adapt to my environment. Growing up as an immigrant kid, I lusted for eloquence and fluency after discovering the significance and strength of communication.
Language is an important part of who we are. It influences the way we think and behave on a great scale. However, sometimes it is forced upon us to go in different directions just so we can physically and mentally feel as if we belong to the society in which we live in. Just as we see in Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez’s “A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, both authors faced some challenges along the way by coping with two different languages, while still trying to achieve the social position which they desired.
From the second we our born, our lives begin and are instantly shaped by our parents. The language that is spoken by our parents is instantly the language we learn to speak and in my case that is English. We define our identity as a set of characteristics in which we have. And although there are several different
Most people who grow up with a foreign language spoken in there house grow up with an advantage in society. This advantage can only occur once the individual learning that foreign language also learns the dominant language spoken in that country. Once both of these languages are learned and mastered, the individual has now placed them se...
Learning a language is quite possibly one of the most difficult and time- consuming endeavors a person could ever undertake. Therefore, it comes as no surprise, that a limited number of second languages are taught in schools across the western world, and languages are sometimes failed to be passed on to children growing up in a different country than their parents did. Even in Canada, an officially bilingual country, only 15% of Canadians speak English and one unofficial language (Statistics Canada 2008) and in America, only 21% of the population is versed in two languages (Logan, 2003). It has become apparent that there is a need for Canadians and Americans to learn a second language. For a country to survive, it needs to rely on other countries as there is no one country that can produce within it’s borders all the means to meet the needs of it’s people. Furthermore, with the threat of international terrorism, the economic crisis and environmental ruin looming above countries all over the world, governments and organizations need to work together to come up with solutions. These cross culture collaborations would not be possible without the ability of even a few people present to speak each other’s languages. Conversely, by remaining monolingual, skills and knowledge will become concentrated only in certain countries and as the transfer of knowledge will cease the rate of human advancement will slow. This report intends to discuss the interpersonal and personal benefits of learning a second language, and investigate different ways of learning. To accomplish this, I have conducted secondary research into the interpersonal and personal benefits of learning another language. These particular areas of research were cho...
I am interested in the link with language and identity, I find it interesting that most native English speakers are generally not multilingual and people that are multilingual most likely have English as their secondary language. I find that this may be why native English speakers don’t learn a secondary language because they don’t feel they need to. But some people may have mixed heritage, for example my heritage is predominantly English but I have family from the Basque region of Spain, so when I am asked where I from or what my heritage is I say English and Spanish, however I am not completely fluent in this secondary part of my heritage, though I don’t know if my brothers feel the same way but I do have a better grasp of Spanish than they do, I would consider myself a receiving bilingual, meaning I can read Spanish and understand it when spoken to me, but I do struggle more with the speaking of it. This led me to wonder if my better proficiency in this second language gave me stronger ties to this part of my heritage. So it led to me to the overall question of “Is there a link between language and cultural identity?” My readings however have made me realise that I was talking about a single persons view of their own personal cultural identity so my question has now changed to; “Is there link a link between language and one’s cultural identity?”
This research was prepared by Rashid Ahli for the English Language subject, taught by Mr.Abass Abdulsamad.
There are many differences between a person’s home culture (the main culture of a person) and the local culture (the culture of the person’s destination), whether it is the speaking of a different language, different customs, different social structures, or simply the different way a person says hello. None of these differences are wrong in anyway, however they are different from a person’s home culture and therefore can become hard to accepts and overcome. The differences in cultures, although expected, are some of the hardest challenges a person entering a new culture will ha...
Every time, I was writing in my identity journal and each time it seems to help answer the question of how do I identify who I am. This course gives me an opportunity to learn and deep reflect in all my Identities. All the identities that we covered in this course; such language, immigration, ethics, gender Language, religion. Each of this Identity identified who I am. In this essay, I am going to reflect on two very important and the way it has informed my practice in developing a positive learning environment. This paper I will specifically look into two identity development theory models that we discuss in the classroom that relates the story of who I am today. The two identity theory developments are Erikson's psychosocial theory and
I chose to pick the TV show scene “How I Met Your Mother,” Season 8: episode 23. All throughout the show, Ted, the male character, had been relying on the universe to give him signs about the future and his future love life. Robin, the female character, had always thought Ted was dumb for looking for signs. Robin lets herself find her our destiny. In this scene, Robin and Ted are at the park where Robin is looking for her locket. Years before she had buried her locket in the park for when she got married. When she was finally engaged, she looked for that locket for hours and asked for Ted to help but they cannot find it anywhere. Robin finally gives up and states that maybe it is a sign from the universe telling her not to get married. This scene has five important intercultural communication components; identities created through communication, identities created in spurts, identities of different cultures, gender identity, and national identity. It has identities created through communication because Robin knows how to identify Ted, as a believer in the universe and destiny, through their friendship. Ted identifies Robin as a skeptic. Identities created in spur are in this excerpt because Robin finally realizes that maybe she had been wrong all along and should believe in signs from the universe, especially considering something as important as her wedding. The scene incorporates the identities of different cultures and national identity because Robin as a Canadian and