Week Three Readings

For her article "The Making of an American...", Aneta Pavlenko analyzed several autobiographies by American immigrants from both the turn of the 20th century and from the modern era. Pavlenko compared the topics and rhetoric of these documents and examined them within their cultural context to determine in what ways, if any, the experiences of the two immigrant groups were similar or different. She also sought to determine what effect language acquisition had on the immigrants' cultural identity. The most interesting difference that Pavlenko discovered in her study was that having to do with language acquisition. It seemed, based on the autobiographies under study, that the turn-of-the-century immigrants had much quicker, easier, and less painful experiences with new language acquisition. Many of these immigrants seemed to learn English simply by studying dictionaries and the Bible, and most expressed confidence in their English skills within six months of their immigration. On the other hand, modern day immigrants describe a very stressful, lengthy, and excrutiating experience with English-acquisition. For many of them, according to Pavlenko, it took as much as several years to gain what they considered to be proficiency in the language.

The assumptions that Pavlenko makes as to the reasons for these differences are more interesting than the differences themselves. Pavlenko concluded that earlier immigrants had an easier time learning English for several reasons: many were already multi-lingual, so learning a new language was a familiar process; the types of jobs acquired by these immigrant often required limited English-speaking skills, so they assumed proficiency while really having a basic understanding of the language; laws at the time required the learning of English, so by learning English, they were only doing what was expected of them and what all of their compatriots were doing or had already done. Modern day immigrants have a more difficult time gaining English proficiency because the expectations for "proficiency" are higher, there is a general feeling of nationalism that leads many immigrants to resist formerly common forms of assimilation, and they feel that learning the new language will mean abandoning their own. It is this last assumption that I do not quite agree with, although I know this conclusion is based on what seems to be quite extensive research. I'm not sure I agree because the school at which I teach, while maintaining a generally homogeneous population, did experience for a few years a sporadic influx of Hispanic migrant workers. The experiences I've had with these families reflect more what Pavlenko described of the turn-of-the-century immigrants than the modern ones, particularly with regard to their lack of abandonment of their native language. These families almost uniformly had learned a basic level of English, as their jobs required, yet they maintained a use of both languages when speaking with friends and families. These families did not seem reluctant in the least to learn (more) English, but they also kept a strong hold on their first language.

This is already quite long, so I'll try to discuss the Holliday readings briefly. These readings were valuable particularly because of their function if defining terms that I was last week completely confused about, such as "thick description". I was happy to learn more about this concept. The anecdote about the Iranian woman's peers potentially creating a thick description of her culture was very useful, but I hope it's a made-up story, because the way her peers behaved seemed quite shocking and not any way I would expect most of my acquaintances to behave. At the same time, it made me wonder (if it is a true story) if perhaps the subject of the story was perceiving attitudes that weren't really there. That is the only way I could make sense of such an ignorant display.

As I read about it, I realized that creating a thick description of a culture would be a great way to gather information to educate students about various cultures, but the problem is that this process seems to require actually having experiences with the cultures under study, and those experiences are rarely available to me.

The most interesting part of these readings was the example of the Chinese student generalizing, and perhaps even exaggerating, his country's culture for some unknown culture-shock reason of his own. The suggestion that individuals describe their culture to "outsiders" not as it truly is but as they wish it to be seen is an interesting one. However, I also think that an individual's generalization about his own culture is no different from another's generalization about some other culture; in both cases, I think it's more often just a simplified way of explaining something rather than an intentional misrepresentation - for whatever reason. What would have made the anecdote even more valuable than it already was would be to have asked the Chinese student why he exaggerated his country's Confucianism, rather than just making an assumption.

Week Two Readings

          What struck me as I was reading the first article, “Cultural Globalization and Language Education,” was how directly fashion connected to much of what Kumaravedivelu was saying. The author seemed to want very much to assert a non-essentialist view of culture, particularly in saying that every culture is affected and changed by a variety of other cultures, and this intermingling has been taking place since the first civilizations. Perhaps because of the author’s earlier mention of fasion as a component of culture, I immediately connected this discussion of cultural mish-mash to the cross-cultural influences of clothing. For example, women in America are still wearing Romanesque sandals, toga-like dresses, tiered skirts that were first worn in Mesopotamia, and espadrilles, which were designed in ancient Persia (if I remember correctly). Those are just a few metaphoric examples of the significant impact that other cultures can have on one’s own. [And to be fair, I will mention that I recently saw a program on the BBC about certain Japanese fashions taking after the ancient Roman chiton, a type of female garment.] There were other ways in which I thought fashion complemented Kumaravedivelu’s point of view, such as the use of style by micro-cultures to self-identify, but I don’t want to belabor the point.

            The second article, “TESOL and Culture,” was not as enjoyable to read, largely because I found the review of literature at the beginning to be quite vague. For example, the author, Atkinson, mentioned the use of terms like identity by TESOL scholars to refer to culture in recent years,  but he doesn’t ever explain what this identity theory is. Another example is when Atkinson states that one author under review criticizes ESL teachers for causing their students to rhetorically construct their identities, but doesn’t define that concept for the reader. Perhaps more experienced TESOL students understand these references and terms better than I, but as a novice, it would have been helpful to me to get more information on these ideas. I also disliked the summary of Foucault’s argument that knowledge-power discourses render society inequitable, since lawyers have tremendous legal power and doctors have the same for medicine. Does Foucault suggest, then, that we should all have equal knowledge-power in these areas? Or is this just an over-simplification of his point? Further discussion of the discourse theory suggests that the latter might be the case, as in its broadening to the point that some people are brought up more advantageously than others, but again, as a novice, I can’t be sure.

            I did notice some similarities between the two articles. For example, they both agreed on the problem of Orientalism, a concept that was no surprise to me. They also both seem to come from non-essentialist points of view, as they go into great detail about the fluid nature of cultures and about the effects of “other” cultures. In the last article, I most liked the discussion of Strauss and Quinn’s theory that culture comes from an individual’s experiences. I definitely agree with this, because everyone we meet has a slightly different culture from our own, the substance of which has been influenced by their upbringing, their education, their friendships, etc. An individual’s culture might be more similar to that of one friend than another, but I believe that each individual’s culture is at least slightly different from any others’. I think the author of this article agrees, since he made Individuality the first principle of culture.

Test

Test Post