Within this chapter much of the information that I have already studied concerning culture shock and the marked differences between cultures and its effects were repeated. What I found particularly interesting however, was the introduction of a self-perception element of cultural difference and the effect that it has on language learning ability. According to the author and research conducted on the subject, there is a direct correlation between the perception of social distance or the number and significance of cultural differences between the language learning individual and the people in the society of the target language. The studies showed that the optimal point for language learning lies somewhere between the normal social distance between the two cultures as a whole and complete and total immersion into the target language's culture and lies closer to total immersion. I find this understanding fascinating as it applies to my own experiences immersing myself in other cultures, specifically that in Costa Rica where i was able to obtain fluency extremely quickly. I had previously understood this to be a result of having fully adopted the Costa Rican culture which accelerated my learning of the language past what it could have been otherwise. However, with this new information, I believe that I may have deluded myself into thinking that I had fully accomplished this as in my past reflections on culture shock I recalled the reverse flow of information between myself and the local tico culture. It may have been a possibility that it was my lack of full immersion that perpetuated my fluency rather than my perceived cultural switch. However, I doubt that this is the case since the chapter cited this effect as a result of "perceived social distance" and my "perceived social distance" from the culture at the time was none.
In addition, I found the description of the Anomie state in the chapter to be particularly compelling. The Anomie state is essentially a state of transition in which an individual begins to think and dream in the target language for the first time which is also associated with cultural confusion of assimilating into the target culture. I find the author's description of the Anomie state interesting because he describes how it is a one-time rock bottom occurrence in the transition between cultures. However, in my own exploits i believe that I have encountered this experience multiple times in transitioning into speaking in spanish in multiple contexts. I have always rationalized this strange experience as the "thinking in no language" in between giving up on thinking in one language to transition into thinking in another. I always took this as a necessary transitionary phase to occur when traveling in and out of your native and other cultures, for example, in my travels to Costa Rica, i first experienced this Anomie point in becoming fluent in spanish and then again when coming back to America and having to transition back into english. Each time that I have travelled to a spanish speaking country whether CR or otherwise I have experienced this same event.
I also found the author's argument concerning teaching English as a world language to be counterintuitive. He argues that for a language such as English to be taught in a country such as China it is more advantageous for a native chinese speaker who has learned English in school to teach others the language since they have a greater understanding of what transitional elements lie in switching from their native language to English. An American who is fluent in the chinese language would not have these advantages and would inevitably teach English to chinese children in the way it was taught to him which would not be necessarily as conducive to their particular learning style. However, I believe that a native chinese speaker who taught other native speakers English would not only result in the chinese-English that he describes but would also rob the students from learning the cultural elements of the language as well as the language itself. Without the cultural understandings, the students would essentially be learning vocabulary and grammar rather than a language. Specific cultural intonations to convey emotion, elements of false speech, and other intricacies of the English language would be completely lost to them and the hybrid language that they would develop would not be effective in neither their native culture nor their target culture.
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