Blogs

Milica and I saw a popular 2005 Serbian comedy titled "Mi Nismo Andjeli 2" (We are Not Angels 2). The three-part series is basically about an angel and devil fighting each other as the conscience of a rocker playboy named Nikola. In this film, his daughter, whom he birthed after unintentionally impregnating who would become his wife, is in her adolescent years. He has some serious issues accepting these changes. Because he cares so much for her, and because he knows himself so well, the very thought of her dating other guys instantaneously evokes the image of her as a whore. He has tremendous anxiety as she begins to dates other guys and seeks regular help from a psychiatrist. For years, she had been into guys stuff and participated in activities with him such as paintballing. After her mother introduces her to (makeover) female clothes, style, etc... she begins to attract the attention of guys. Basically, the father becomes extraordinarily jealous. By the end of the movie, the daughter is still loyal to the father, but is dating another guy. The father is at ease with the knowledge that her daughter is responsible, can be trusted, and respects him.

I thought the movie was incredibly funny and bizarre. I'm not sure what to take from the film culturally. I gather that Serbs generally do not think highly of Americans, have a rather pessimistic view of sex, value family relations, care about morals, and drugs are bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdysgk7rRQ8&playnext=1&list=PL0800231113D0F33D&feature=results_video

When a community loses its language, it loses a part of the culture such as songs , myths and history and the effects can be culturally devastating. The article "Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction" talks about an American Indian language, the Siletz, that was once on the verge of extinction (in the 1950s) but now has its own online dictionary. Siletz used to have only about five speakers left.

There are other 12 dictionaries that have been financed by a nonprofit group called Living Tongues Institute. This same nonprofit group helped start the Siletz dictionary in 2005. One of the tribe members Bud Lane has been working on the online dictionary for about 7 years. As the article says he recorded almost 10 000 audio entries himself. The tribes of Siletz Indians now have about 4900 members who speak Siletz and the language is taught through the sixth grade at the public school in Siletz and they are planning to have a teaching program in high school language where students will be able to take Siletz as a foreign language. 

I learned ~20 vocabulary words in these last two weeks. Milica and I spoke about Trebinje, a beautiful city located south of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I learned that a very famous poet by the name of Jovan Ducic, an actress named Natasa Ninkovic, and a pair of famous basketball players named Dejan Bodiroga and Milan Gurovic were born in Trebinje. It's really close to some of the most gorgeous beaches in Eastern Europe in Montenegro. The local soccer team is Leotar and this city as particularly known for its bridges. We also, as usual, drilled reviewed the vocabulary for the week.

I also finished reading a chunk of Rebecca West's massive travel book called Lamb and Grey Falcon: specifically the sections titled "Bosnia" and "Herzegovina." It gave me a far more sympathetic view of the Serbian perspective of the tensions between Orthodox and Muslim populations. I will attach a review in "Artifact 4" shortly.

Culture shock

I first experienced a cultural shock when I was studying at the United World College in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Even though I was still in my own country and only 6 hours away from my home, I experienced a cultural shock because I was living and studying with students from 30 different countries and everything was so new for me. I remember my first days at UWC very well, I was so overwhelmingly positive and excited about being a part of this high school that I did not even think I would go through a cultural shock phase. However, after the “honeymoon phase” I started experiencing a cultural shock. I realized that i had to speak in English all the time, and at that time I barely spoke English. This was extremely hard for me so at the beginning I would just hang out only with Bosnians because I was comfortable speaking in my language rather than trying to speak in English. Then, another problem I encountered was related to academics. Writing papers and delivering presentations was something absolutely new for me. For example in my previous school we would never write papers, or even less likely give presentations. We heard in the video from several students at the University of Richmond that they had similar experience as me. They were so lost when they had to write papers because they had not done it before. It was especially hard for me to understand what the professors really wanted from us. I was constantly asking myself if it was the right decision that I had chosen to came there and expose myself to all that stress.

My real cultural shock actually happened when I came to the United States to attend the University of Richmond. This was something completely different. I was not 6 hours away from home anymore, I was living on another continent. My first days at the University of Richmond were not as they were at UWC. I spent first days of my time in the US sitting in my room and crying my eyes out. I just wanted to go home. I did not feel this was what I was expecting and hoping for. People were just... different. Even though I already had experience living and studying with students from different countries, this was much more intense. I did not have my people there, I did not hear my language spoken anywhere I would go and any friendship I tried to make with Americans would just fail. At that time I started hanging out with other international students, and even today I mostly hang out with internationals.

Another problem for non-native speakers is speaking up in class. I believe that any international student who comes to study in the US has at least some trouble participating in class discussions. Just as shown in the video, the international student at the U of R was not comfortable participating in discussion, neither was I. This might be because we are initially afraid that we are going to make so many mistakes in grammar and pronunciation that we rather remain silent. Also, we might be afraid that we speak so slowly when speaking in English and that other students just get so bored listening to our slow/broken English.

I really liked the part of the video where an Asian guy talks about “What’s up?” Every time I heard it from anyone in the US, I did not know how to respond. I was wondering if they only wanted to hear me say “Not much, how are you?” At first, I would literally translate “What’s up”  to my language which means “tell me what is new?” At first I thought that those students who asked me this question really wanted to hear what is new in my life, and wanted me to tell them how I like U of R. Honestly, I did not even have time to respond back to their question because they would already pass by me. It was really awkward for me at the beginning but as the time passed by, I understood that it is just a common saying such as telling someone “Hello.”

Experiencing a cultural shock is nothing to worry too much about. It just happens when you change your well known environment. It might be hard in the beginning, but people get used to it after a while. Speaking from my own experience, it was extremely hard for me in the beginning, I found myself in an unknown place, I felt like an alien and did not know what to do. However, when you start exploring the culture, you get to understand why certain things are the way they are, and eventually you start appreciating them. What is more interesting, you get surprised when you yourself start using something that seemed so weird and awkward to you in the beginning (in my case What’s up?) I believe that international students should explore the culture to which they are exposed and try to make friends with native speakers. Thus, not only will international students learn English better by communicating with them, but also understand the culture better and faster.

Family is an essential part of the Turkish culture. Turkish people usually spend a lot of time together. Even if they are busy with their work, they will always find some time during the day to spend with their family. Turkey is a collectivism culture, not individualistic. Family is valued, relationship between family members is highly important and spending time with each other is one of the crucial aspects of this culture. When I was in Turkey, I stayed at my friend's house and I can say that they spend a lot of time together. Even though her parents are working, and the children go to school, they still meet at least during the evenings and especially for dinner and spend some time together. Very often they would attend events together, or go to the theater/cinema together! Especially during weekends, they would spend a lot of time together. And this is not only one case that I have experienced, almost all of the Turkish people that I know are so connected to their families. For example, my former Turkish roommate would spend several hours a day skyping with her family.  I asked my Turkish friends how important their families are to them and they all said that their families are one of the most important things in their lives. When I asked why, one of them answered that family is the only unit that will always want the best for you. For them, family is someone who they can trust completely.  

According to my research on this topic, there are two types of families in Turkey:

- a big family where in one house you can find several generations living together, for example grandparents, parents, children (married) and their wives and grandchildren all living together. However, such families are less common now days and they are usually found in rural areas. Father of such extended families is considered the leader and holds the utmost authority.

- a small family is another type of families in Turkey  where in one house you can find only parents and children. When children want to get married they form their own family and live separately from their parents. This is the most common type of families in Turkey! When sons get married they usually get their part of inheritance to be able to start a new home with their new family, and live separately from their parents. Usually, the youngest son gets the family house.  

Respect in the family is extremely important. Father is recognized as the head of the family just as in majority of the cultures in the world. Elderly family members are always respected, and are never interrupted by younger family members. All in all, family is very valued in the Turkish culture, and family members usually love to spend as much time with each other as possible. 

I personally value family a lot and think that family is one of the most important things one can have in their life. Therefore, I like how family is such an important part of the Turkish culture and how family members are so attached to each other and trust each other. 

According to Dell Hymes, 'cultural competence' is that aspect of our competence "that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts." It is a "dynamic, interpersonal construct that can be examined only by means of the overt performance of two or more individuals in the process of communication." 

The four components of cultural competence are as follows: 

1. Grammatical competence

2. Discourse competence

3. Sociolinguistic competence

4. Strategic competence

I tried to gauge my own cultural competence based on the four components in Korean. I am still not even remotely grammatically competent. My discourse competence similarly low, as I can pass with simple spoken conversation but I would falter with lengthy written texts like news articles. Regarding sociolinguistic competence, I think I this kind of competence can only be increased if one is in the society of the target language since it deals with an understanding of the social context. As such, nuances escape me when I watch Korean dramas; even if I understand the words, the gravity of the words or the humor of a scene escape me. I think I am strongest with strategic competence out of the four components. I view the fourth competence as something more inherent in a person as it is "the competence underlying our ability to make repairs, to cope with imperfect knowledge, and to sustain communication through 'paraphrase, circumlocution, repetition, hesitation, avoidance, and guessing, as well as shifts in register and style'." It is something that informs all communication strategies. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE0PSghLvPU&feature=youtu.be

Week 8: Progress to date

For the last few weeks, we have covered quite a few grammar lessons. This semester is very different from the first semester since I have more experience in learning the self-directed language. Before, I did not have a good direction of how to carry out my lessons and learn my tasks. This semester, I have a solid plan with specific tasks that I would like to learn. I feel much more organized and more productive when doing my lessons with my partner. She explains things well when I have questions and tries her best to help me understand everything. So far, the lessons have been sufficiently effective because when I hear dialogues and speeches, I can distinguish words and phrases much better than I was able to before. Being able to express what I like and what I don't like or what I have and what I don't have makes conversation go a bit smoother. Knowing a few grammars also helps with sentence construction but grammar is definitely not the easiest part of learning the language. There are many rules and exceptions that are different from the English language so sometimes it is a little frustrating but that comes with learning any new languages. I hope to keep up with the work and keep learning for the rest of the semester. 

Week 9: Fourth Bi-weekly Post:

For week 8 and week 9 (spring break), my language partner and I weren't able to meet due to scheduling problems conflicting with studying for midterms. Instead of doing a new lesson, I looked over the last three lessons and tried to increase my reading speed while memorizing the vocabularies more. During spring break, I spent majority of my time watching a korean drama called "Dream High 2" which is the continuation of "Dream High" that I watched last semester. From watching the series with the subtitles, I was able to hear some phrases from different voices. I could hear the actors saying common phrases such as I'm sorry, thank you, are you okay? where are you going? and etc. It's good to hear the different formalities being used in the scenes because during our lessons, I am more focused on using only the formal rather than the informal language used within people of the same age. 

Learning activity: 

One of the tasks I completed was to tell directions/locations. In this learning activity, I will create a worksheet with pictures of buildings which will have a blank line under each building to be filled in by the person doing the activity. There will be a word bank of the vocabularies that the person can refer to but the vocab will be introduced to the person beforehand. In the middle of the page will be another fill in the blank sentences that needs to completed with the correct locations. Example: _______(a building: bookstore) is next to _______(another building: cafeteria).

This will be a little tricky because you would need to also include grammar when creating these sentences. An object marker must be used after the first building before expressing the location and the correcting ending from lesson three must also be used to complete the sentence.

Although the article was fairly difficult to read, it had important ideas when learning a language. The concept is revolved around the fact within certain moments or contexts allow people to say what we want. During this moment of speech we can interpret the messages, which can be pertained to certain contexts. One of the more interesting things from the article was gendering influencing how one learns a language. Although I have learned Japanese myself, I never did realize this. There are certainly words which are used more frequently with females, while others are more used with males. Some of these words are

うまい      美味しい    Delicious

すげー      すごい      Amazing

かっけー    かっこい    Cool

The words on the left are more used by males, and females use the words on the right more. Although I am currently studying Korean, I have yet to learn the words that are used more by females. 

110 Aromi's Learning Plan

My second artifact is a transcription of one of the songs in the Kdrama "Protect the Boss," A Pink's sickly-sweet and infectious "Please Let's Just Love." 

I first listened to the song and tried to understand as much as I could without looking up any words. This song isn't that difficult since I was able to understand most of it, the majority of sentences, actually. I was surprised that the song lyrics were quite pertinent to the drama because usually songs in Korean dramas are general, talking about lost loves or the various trials and tribulations of love, or fate, etc. However, this song perfectly sums up the love-hate relationship between the two main characters of "Protect the Boss." 

My wrist cramped up while writing this:

Here's the video in case the embedded video below doesn't work. 

*Korean pop song lyrics sound much better in the original language. 

I consider myself very punctual and get a little bit upset when I have to wait. Ever since I know of myself, my parents taught me the importance of being "on time". For example, if a meeting starts at 3pm, I would always come to the meeting at least 5 minutes earlier. I follow the rule "Better early than late!" When I was in Turkey, I was very surprised how Turkish people are so relaxed and laid back. Simply, they do not pay too much attention to whether they are going to be late for an event or not. I remember when I was at my friend's house in Turkey, we called over some friends to come for dinner at 6pm. When it was around 5.30pm I asked my friend when are we going to prepare dinner because our friends are coming in only half an hour and we basically did not prepare any food. My friend told me not to worry, and that we have enough time because even though our friends were invited to come over at 6pm they were not going to come until 7pm. And she was correct! Our friends came around 7:30pm! They were late for about an hour and a half I was even more convinced about this Turkish culture when I met some other Turkish people at the University of Richmond. I can say that majority of Turkish people that I know and am friends with are always late, no matter whether it is for a meeting, class or an event. All in all, I can only say that they are very relaxed and laid back and they find it normal to be late. This is very interesting and in a way similar to my country's culture (I am an exception to this rule) where most people are always late. For example, a Bosnian friend of mine who lives in Richmond got married last year. She had two types of wedding invitations. One type of invitations was only for Bosnian where it said that the wedding starts at 5pm, and the other type of invitations was for Americans which indicated that the wedding starts at 6pm. They knew that Bosnian will take 5pm as if it was 6pm and will be at least an hour late. However, Americans are generally very punctual and therefore the correct time of the wedding was written on the invitation. When I told this to my Turkish friend, she told me that a similar situation happened when her cousin was organizing a birthday party, and the party started at noon, but he sent out the invitations to his Turkish friends indicating that the party starts at 11am. 

Another interesting fact that I learned about Turkish culture and its people is that time actually does not mean much to them. For example, when Turkish people take a coffee break, which would take us 5-10 minutes, such breaks last at least 45 minutes to them. I talked about this with my language partner and several more Turkish people that I know, and they all said that majority of Turks are like that. When they go for a coffee or Turkish tea, they usually stay so long that it basically should not be considered a coffee break but a lunch break. 

We read an article, in Professor Nuray's class, that there are some cultures, such as Turkey, in which people think that so much time is given to everybody and that people do not have to rush with anything because they have so much time, while other cultures believe that time is limited and should not be wasted. It just depends on culture as well as on individuals how they perceive time and what their attitude towards time is. Speaking in general, I can definitely say that Turkish people tend to be more relaxed when it comes to meeting deadlines, coming to an event at time, and being on time. I say this based on my experience, conversation with Turkish people and research I have done regarding this topic. 

I like the notion of looking at language as an interactive communication among individuals, each with a sociocultural identity. Given my minor in WGSS, I was particularly drawn to the segment titles, "Language and Gender." As an American english speaker, I don't find it odd that gender is considered a pragmatic factor in affecting the how well someone grasps cultural competence of a language. The examples given referencing gender differences within the American context is familiar, however the remarks on Japanese differences has me intrigued. Prior to reading this, I didn't know that there was a difference between how men and women spoke - well so much so that it could make or break a business deal in addition of the expense of an individual's dignity. 

Given that Persian is a genderless language, I wonder how or if this is relevant? I would think that the differences between men and women would come up in some respect to cultural competence. If not directly in the language, then perhaps in gestures or non gestures.  

My first artifact was a screenshot of a cellphone conversation I had with my Korean friend about the weather. I will continue to use technology in future artifacts. 

The next artifact will be a voice recording of such topics as greetings and cooking-related dialogues, as it will be another way to efficiently memorize pertinent vocabulary. 

Since I listen to Korean pop music nearly every day and music is an essential part of a culture to me, I want to do something with it. Unfortunately I am unwilling to record myself singing along with songs so I'm not exactly sure what form this next artifact will take. I may record the lyrics in Hangul to work on my writing skills and post the song and translation for others to follow along. 

Whether knowledge of a language's history is helpful in learning the language is debatable since it largely depends on that particular language's unique history. In the case of Korean, I think it is important because Korea has exceptional pride in its written system, Hangul. For example, they are perhaps the only country in the world to have a holiday to celebrate the development of its writing system. But this is by no means an isolated view--indeed, legendary University of Chicago linguist James McCawley was famous for holding Hangul Day celebrations ever year and for championing the holiday as an international celebration for linguists everywhere. In an interview shortly before his death in 1999, McCawley noted that "Hangul is the most ingeniously devised writing system that exists, and it occupies a special place in the typology of writing systems." He adds that it is "the only writing system in the world that divides sentences not only into words and syllables and individual sounds, but also articulatory features, and the achievement of its creators in the 1440s was really amazing. They were doing work that would qualify as excellent linguistics by the standards of 500 years later." 

The history of Hangul is the story of Korea's struggle to nurture its most important cultural product, a struggle mirroring Korea's efforts to create an independent, strong, and prosperous nation amid aggressive powers (for one example, consider Korea under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945, during which the use of Korean was prohibited). Hangul began as the invention of King Sejong for a country unified beyond class lines, only to languish as a second-class writing system for centuries. It was rediscovered by newly awakened nationalists who sought to adopt Hangul as a symbol of Korea's independence from China. 

In general, I would say that learning the language's history alongside the language itself will allow one to make better sense of it, to be more aware of the weight behind the language's growth, and to be informed of the intimate relationship between a language and its speakers. 

I wanted to teach Turkish numbers to my friend Tayang. I personally think that learning numbers in any foreign language can be a lot of fun! I decided to teach Tayang how to count in Turkish, because he saw me once studying Turkish and asked me to count in Turkish for him. He liked how it sounded and asked me to teach him some Turkish. I planned out a learning activity and decided to have a class with him when he had some spare time. I used one of the study rooms in the library with the whiteboard so I could write the numbers in Turkish. This gave us an atmosphere of a "real class." Then, we used flashcards to help him memorize the numbers more easily. I also brought coins so we used them as a tool to count and practice numbers. At the end of the class, I gave him a short quiz to find out how much he learned. He actually got an A+.  He also had trouble pronouncing some Turkish letters such as ğ, ü and ö. Practice makes perfect so I advised him to just repeat numbers in Turkish and practice, practice... He liked the learning activity and now he knows how to count to 10 in Turkish. I have included a picture of our class. This is Tayang working on the numbers.  

Reflecting on my work, I can say that I am extremely happy with my progress so far. My language partner is great and really helpful. When we go to dhall together, we talk about food, when we are in the library we talk about school. I learned so much vocabulary. For example, I learned that in Turkish when you are full you can say either that you are "doydum" or "tokum". You use doydum when you are eating and cannot eat anymore, it means that you are full at that time, but you would use tokum when you have not eaten for some time but still feel full (the state of being full).

Me and my language partner listen to Turkish songs together and we are planning to watch my favorite Turkish soap opera "Dudaktan kalbe". I really like that we always do something else so our classes never get monotonous. I also learned present continuous, I cannot say that I perfected it, but I am very comfortable using it. I have learned many words and verbs so far, so that is a huge plus for me as well. I am still not very comfortable with telling the time, I do not know why I find it sooo difficult, but since now on whenever I look at my watch I am going to tell myself the time in Turkish and if I cannot recall how to say it, I will have to check it in my notes. I really do not want to make any changes to my current learning style, because I find it very interesting and I never get bored. Also, the material is sometimes challenging and I always try to do more than I set out to  reach. The teaching and learning style is very effective and I will definitely stick with it!  

In addition, I am very happy with my second artifact. This is actually the first time that I used software "Camtasia" to record myself and add text to the video. So, not only did I create an artifact, but I also learned how to use this software. My language partner said that my artifacts are creative, and that I am very funny!! 

One of the most significant ways knowing the history of a language is helpful is that is can link help us better recognize or understand connections between the language being studied and the language(s) already known. As the article uses the example for mother and how similar it is in other languages from the same family. 

It's also interesting to start to consider the sharing of terms, and the distinctive alterations that the terms may or may not undergo. As far as Persian is concerned, there are quite a few words that have been taken from Arabic, an afro-asiatic language, such as 'salaam' in stead of 'dorood' for greetings and behtar which, interestingly enough is very similar to the english better. 

Week 6: Second Artifact

artifact2.pdf

Week 7: Third Bi-weekly Post

For these weeks, we did one lesson with the objectives of learning how to express impossibility and negation. We also covered the expression of past events and some grammatical markers such as -il, -rul, and -aeso. In order to complete these tasks, we decided to continue with the strategy of the last lessons. We practiced listening to dialogues dealing with the given objectives and also did a reading lesson. These dialogues included new vocabularies and grammars so Brigid went over the rules and gists of the grammar lesson in order for me to have a better understanding. Because this lesson was a bit more extensive, we decided to stick to only one large lesson for these two weeks. She taught me to the adverbs "do not", "want to do but can't" and the markers "at/in" and "from". There was also the objective marker (-il and -rul) which is attached to a noun to indicate the direct object of a transitive verb. One is used after the a vowel and the other is used after the consonant ending. Lastly, we learned the pre-ending'-았/었/였-'. This was the most confusing for me which is why we spent more time focusing on this section of the lesson. We did a practice fill in the blanks to make the learning more efficient. Overall, I felt like we got a lot done and accomplished a lot. The strategies of doing listening and reading along with grammars seems to be working out well so far so again, we will continue doing this probably for the rest of the semester.

Hangul was created for both social and linguistic reasons. For social reason, it was easier for common people to learn and become more literate only people in the government and upper class were able to learn Chinese. And anyone that knew Chinese was automatically assumed to be in the upper class, especially due to the fact common were not able to learn Chinese. Classical Chinese was known as Hancha. During this time period, Chiense characters was common amount all of North East Asia. The creation of a easier language would make an equal status for everyone.

The other reason were linguistic based. The two languages during the period were both Chinese and Korean. Chinese characters were not able to express the language of the difficult of the translating form Korean to Chinese. The separation between the languages was not appreciated either. And the most relatable for the people was that common people did not have the resources to learn Chinese. Like mentioned in the Turkish presentation, only the upper class was able to learn Chinese.

So who created Hangul. The person that created Hangul was King Sejong. He was the only king was that was given the title “the great king” except for two other kings that were given the title of being “great”. He was also famous for his influence in technology, military and humanitarian work. During the creation of Hangul he made a 28-letter alphabet for the Korean people. Each shape of the letter resembles from the olden-day Tenji, which is a style of writing when brush was used.

Hangul was created in the secret because of the resistance from the aristocrats. Each of the letters in Hangul is a shape that is based on the configuration of the articulators in the making of the sound. Although this is more then the original version of Hangul, there has been changes made since Hangul was first created.

Hangul was first designed for the reader to easily to distinguish and for the writer to have a simple writing system. The designers were familiar with the Chinese phonological theory, and to some had an understanding of Tibetan, Mongolian, Japanese and Jurchen. Another set of knowledge that was used was Buddhist scriptures. All of this knowledge led to the creation of Humminjeongeum, which means instructing the people in the correct sound. 

Humminjeongeum is the explanation of the completion of creation alphabet. The word means to teach the correct sounds to people. This meaning was given because Hangul was made to replace Chinese character that were used to point of period. Scholars during the period had to learn classified Chinese first to order to write. It was made to make education easier for everybody. But initially it was not accepted by scholars, therefore did not become effect until after World War II. There are two versions of Humminjeongeum, one is a seven page manuscript in the Hancha and Chinese. And the other is a 36 manuscript that has both Hancha and Hangul.

Knowing all of this information and much more gives me knowledge about Korean culture and the reason behind their pride. For anyone that is Korean, I can now understand not only is their spoken language an important part of their identity but their written one has more history behind it. Koreans scarified so much so they can have a system that gave themselves identity, and not use the language of another country. They truly fought for their language after the Japanese occupied Korea, where many started to gain nationalist pride with Hangul. This pride stuck around until current day because only very few places actually use and teach Chinese or Hancha. 

Second Artifact- Turkish