Topic: Reflection about the "Sociocultural Factors" reading
I really enjoyed the article "Sociocultural Factors," because it further emphasized to me the intricacies of learning about a culture while learning a language, as demonstrated in the quote: "The two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture" (189). Although I agree with the author that it is critical to learn more about the worldviews associated with the culture that one is studying, it is just as important to note that language learners should take caution not to think in terms of stereotypes or overgeneralizing people from the culture they are studying. One way to learn more about this would be for MLC 105 students to perhaps consider stereotypes associated with people from the culture they are studying, and then talk to people from the culture that disagree (or perhaps agree) with what the stereotypes represent.
I really liked learning about anomie, which the author describes as "feelings of social uncertainty or dissatisfaction..a feeling of homelessness, where one feels neither bound firmly to one's native culture nor fully adapted to the second culture." Interestingly, when I studied abroad in Germany, I felt a stronger sense of culture shock and anomie than when I studied abroad in India, where I did not know the language as well as I know German. My experience can also be supported by the author's statement on p. 196: "Lambert's research supported the view that the strongest dose of anomie is experienced when linguistically, a person begins to master the foreign language." Thus, just because a person can speak the second language at an advanced level, it does not always mean that they consider themselves as firmly rooted in the second culture -- it really is a transition.
I also found it interesting to learn about how sociocultural factors influence language policy and the "English only" debate in the US. These debates seem, on the surface, to only be about learning a language, but on a deeper level, not learning other languages often results in the "ultimate devaluing of minority languages and cultures" (208). I also found the topic of framing to be interesting because of the way language is even framed in political debate!
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