MLC 105 Learning Journal #11: Sociocultural Factors

One particular sentence stood out to me in H.D. Brown’s chapter on Sociocultural Factors – “no society exists without a culture.” While this sentence seems obvious and unextraordinary, it has some powerful implications. The fact every society has a culture that is unique and individualistic means that there are millions of different ways to view the world. Our perceptions of the world are therefore subjective to our origins, and can cause us to view other existing perceptions as strange, incorrect, illogical, and even wrong. We then oversimplify such perceptions and create generalizations about them in order to organize our worldview. This process happens to just about everyone, but it carries an inherent danger for it leads to the thing nearly all societies have a love-hate relationship with – stereotypes.

Due to stereotypes, most people believe there are certain Dos and Don’ts for each culture. There are certain norms which must be abided by and certain attitudes and behaviors deemed acceptable or unacceptable. Now what does all of this have to do with language learning?

H.D. Brown provides the answer, “a language is a part of a culture, and a culture is a part of a language” (189). Language is thus the most visible expression of culture. If we want to immerse ourselves into learning a language, we must understand the roots and causes of its construction. We must re-orientate are way of thinking, feeling, and of course communicating. Such reorientation cannot occur without acquiring a new identity associated with the new language; a process Brown calls acculturation. Acculturation is not an easy process, because it puts us through an emotional roller coaster that includes amazement and adoration, culture shock, and feelings of uncertainty or dissatisfaction. We must learn to decipher the truth evident within stereotypes and to see through their exaggerations and prejudices.

Even once we begin to “master” the new language, we find it difficult to fully define our new identity. How do we find a balance between the culture we were born and raised in and the culture we want to fully understand and immerse ourselves into?

Over the course of my language learning journeys, I have come to understand the fact that learning a language involves so much more than grammar, pronunciation, and syntax. On the contrary, language learning involves learning a new way of life. I believe the more willing we are to fully commit ourselves to the process, the more rewarding we will find it in the end.

So since I’ve been talking about Portuguese and Brazil over the course of the semester, I figured I might as well end talking about the two :). Here are some funny stereotypes I encountered and had to overcome about Brazilians while learning their language…