Stephen van Vlack
Sookmyung Women`s University
Graduate School of TESOL
Developing Bilingualism
Fall 2007
Week 9 - Answers
Hamers and Blanc - Chapter 8: Social psychological aspects of bilinguality: culture and identity
1. What is the nature of the relationship between language and culture and how does this relationship affect language development and change over the span of ones lifetime ?
Language and culture are so tightly interwoven that it's really hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Simply put, language is a component of culture. We know the culture is composed of many different elements including values, beliefs and norms. Language is interwoven into all of these different things. Language is a product of culture and, like culture itself, is transmitted from one generation to the next via personal contact. At the same time language is also the primary vehicle by which culture is transmitted. Following this, we can see that language and culture really have a kind of reciprocal relationship.
Social identity differs from cultural identity in that the former is principally internal while the latter is principally external. One achieves social identity by knowing about the society they belong to itself. Social identity is achieved by belonging to a particular social group and analyzing the norms, values, and meetings of that social group. Cultural identity however is attained only when one becomes aware of different cultures in the outside world. In this respect culture identity is something which may awaken earlier or rather late in life depending on the experience of the person.
Ethnicity is defined by the beliefs that a community holds in relation to and defining a certain social group which is perceived as being recognizable in the community. Ethnicity is something that is external. It is based on how an individual group is perceived by the outside community. For example, if a person has certain racial features, a particular accent, or eats certain food, for example, they may be perceived as belonging to an ethnic group. Ethnicity is an interesting idea because it changes depending on where you are. In Korea, Koreans are not perceived as being ethnic, but as soon as they leave Korea their ethnicity comes into play. That is, Koreans, as a group, are ethnic only out of Korea, where they exist in contact with other groups. People often have little real control over their ethnicity as ethnicity is as much a branding as an internal decision-making process. `Ethnic` individuals may try to hide their ethnicity and depending on the features of that particular ethnicity, they may or may not be successful. Culture, on the other hand, is internal. It is something that maybe others cannot see, but it is something a person feels as long as they are outside their cultural realm. It may even be more important to an individual than ethnicity as it is chosen, sometimes consciously.
Various cultures are diverse in different ways. Obviously some cultures share similar values while others fail to do so. Literature on culture talks about cultural distance, both real and received, and we know that culture spreads across human populations and geographic areas in much the same way that language does. As mentioned above, language is one component of culture, or at least it may be component of culture. In societies where there is linguistic diversity that can be linked to different ethnic groups, language seems to be one of the great determining factors in how people perceive themselves. That is, when it is present, language becomes the outward token of ethnicity. It seems that language is arguably the most salient of all cultural attributes. As we mentioned above, language is the purveyor of culture. Just bear in mind that language does not have to be one of the components of culture. Many of the early immigrant groups into the US or even native groups, for example, have lost their ancestral languages, but the cultural attributes have remained relatively intact and dynamic.
There are several processes which come to play in internalization of culture in individuals. The first of these processes is called enculturation. Enculturation is the process by which a child becomes culturally competent. It is through the process of enculturation that children learn the rules of their culture. They need to learn how to behave; what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. It is possible to enculturate into two or more cultures provided this is done simultaneously. Acculturation, on the hand, occurs when a person comes in contact with a new and different culture and has to get used to its ways and means. It is the slow and often painstaking process a person or society must go through in adapting to a new culture. Acculturation necessarily results in systematic changes of behavior. In reality almost all cultures today are in a process of acculturation. Acculturation is a constant process. Like in language acquisition, correlations have been found between the level of enculturation and the level of difficulty found in acculturation. The process of acculturation can lead to deculturation, which is a loss of the behaviors associated with the primary culture (the one where enculturation occurred).
The processes of acculteration are well researched and equally confusing. Different models have been proposed based on the strength of the perceived connections an individual has with their own `group`. Linear models see the process as being quite straight-forward, while non-linear-models see the process of acculturation, as well as deculturation, as being much more messy and prey to greater levels of diversity. Different modes of acculturation have been identified which include; assimilation, separation, deculturation, and integration.
Ethno-linguistic identity starts with the child having to identify herself or himself with a particular group. This obviously occurs, at least initially, in the home environment. Identities are not fixed and some individuals will change their ethno-linguistic identity as they are exposed to more and different cultures and other groups. This generally occurs as the child starts to go to school and is exposed to more diversity. As they are exposed they will make constant comparisons and assessments of the culture they belong to in relation to the ones they are exposed to. This interplay between groups causes the child to foster and solidify his/her own ethno-linguistic identity, which seems to come into its own by the age of six.
Bilingualism plays an important role in ethno-linguistic identify. Bilingual children have been shown to have stronger ethno-linguistic identities than mono-lingual, mono-cultural children when the family situation was right for this development. That is, the parents needed to valorize both languages and use the ethno-language in reading and literacy development. If, however, the family situation is not conducive to this, and an additive to formal bilinguality is not allowed to develop, then the child might have a very weak ethno-lingustic identity. As we can see from this, bilingual development and the development of an etho-linguistic identity seemed to go together. Children only develop an ethno-linguistic identity if they believe that it is useful for them and if they believe that this identity is dynamic.
Anomie is a feeling of loss. People in a state of anomie really do not know where they belong. Often they don't know how to behave because they feel they don't have enough knowledge in either culture in order to behave and deal with both cultures that they might have formed some sort of allegiance to. For many years anomie was thought to be a general condition of bilinguality. People believed that all bilinguals were permanently stuck in this kind of state of anomie. This of course is not true. Anomie may be attributable to a bilingual state, sometimes, but the cause itself is actually outside the condition of bilingualism. It is caused not so much the bilingual experience as by social factors affecting the bilingual experience and is usually attributed to minority groups or foreign language learners in the TL environment who are unable to cope with negative pressure. Whether someone falls prey to anomie depends to a certain extent on the societies that they belong to and how these societies conceive of and therefore treat bilinguality.
The host society plays a tremendous role in that the development of bilinguality, or at least the type of bilinguality that will development, is the direct of the norms in the host community. Using terminology is hopefully familiar to us by now we can simply say that certain societies fail to valorize the state of bilinguality highly while others may even attach a very negative value to bilinguality. Obviously how a whole society relates to bilingual individuals will affect how bilinguals will behave and develop. In Korea, for example, balanced bilinguality is really not acceptable. Yes, while Koreans want other Koreans to speak English fluently, they certainly do not want them to have allegiance to other states outside of Korea or behave differently from other `regular`Koreans. Koreans need to stay primarily Korean. Surprisingly, this seems to apply to ethnic Koreans both in Korea and out of Korea.
As a non-Korean living in Korea I'm often shocked by certain TV shows that follow up the successes are failures of `Koreans` who live abroad. In my mind, if a person comes from an immigrant-based society, that person is not or should not be evaluated under the values of the society they are no longer attached to. These immigrants are no longer Korean. I am, therefore, intrigued when I see Korean TV shows which follow up proudly or sadly the exploits of Koreans overseas who may or may not even have Korean citizenship anymore. It is natural to assume that they are still Korean despite the fact that they might not have been to Korea for 20 or 30 years? This merely shows that Koreans are perceived as being Koreans forever in the Korean mind and that while it is possible for Koreans to assimilate into other cultures and acquire other languages, their Korean state must take precedence over everything else at least in the eyes of Koreans back in the homeland. We know for balanced bilinguals this cannot be the case. Below is a list of some of the cultural/identity attributes of balanced bilinguals.
A balanced bilingual should ......
...... identify positively with both cultural/ethnic communities
...... both languages should be highly valorized
...... should perceive the status of both cultural groups as dynamic
...... perceive a minimal vitality of both reference groups
...... not see a strong contradiction in belonging to both groups
The first comment that maybe should be made about this is that I'm not sure that there is a very strong difference between points three and four. Aside from that, we can see that there seem to be large areas of contention for achieving this type of bilinguality in relation to the Korean setting. First of all, it is certainly possible for Koreans to be able to identify with both cultural or ethnic communities, at least internally. Outward manifestations of positive association with a foreign community are generally not acceptable in Korea. Looking at the second idea we know that English is much more highly valorized in Korea then Korean, at least currently. Looking to points three and four together we again can argue that there's a discrepancy between how English cultures and Korean culture are perceived according to level of vitality. Again, here Korea is perceived as being less vital, at least in general, and is perceived as being much less vital in certain areas, such as education. The last point we talk about above where it is difficult for Koreans to belong to other groups. Based on this we find that this situation for balance bilinguality is quite remote in Korea right now.
The evaluation of individuals comes from a variety of sources including accent, racial features, and socio-structural modes. These are all coindexed with and rated against known stereotypes. Experience would seem to be a major factor which affects how people perceive and evaluate others. The more experience someone has in dealing with other people and in particular other ethnic and cultural groups and the weaker their stereotypical views are going to be. Stereotypes are based on ignorance. Generally speaking, with experience comes knowledge. Therefore, experience will help people overcome stereotypes. Arguably, the bilingual condition is the best way of achieving experience with different cultural groups. Following this we find that bilingual individuals have a much stronger tendency to have weaker views about other national, linguistic, cultural, or ethnic groups. In we could argue that this comes as a result of the fact that bilinguals have embraced the idea of arbitrariness. Bilinguals themselves live between two or more cultures and therefore are much less judgmental.
A set of skills related to L2 acquisition. There are four components - phonemic encoding, grammatical sensitivity, inductive language learning ability, and memory. Language aptitude has been claimed to show a predicting skill for success in L2 learning. Probably it is a better idea for us not to engage in this type of debate. Ideas of language aptitude are not completely accepted and have not been very well studied. Intuitively, still, it would seem that some people are simply better languages than others. This does not mean however that there is such as thing as language aptitude. Simply put, there is no proof that language aptitude actually exists as a special feature of the mind.
In the great motivation debate a tremendous distinction is made between instrumental and integrative motivation. Many researchers, not surprisingly those in immigrant-based societies, have found that integrative motivation is much more useful than instrumental motivation, which they claim to be fleeting and less powerful. That's nice for them, but the rest of us have to live in the rest of the world and the rest of the world is bigger. In the rest of the world instrumental motivation is king. In fact, it really is the only type of motivation. We need to be perfectly honest with ourselves. Koreans want to learn English for specific purposes. They do not want to become Canadians, for example and if they did they want to become Korean Canadians and not Anglo Canadians. Koreans don't want to integrate into places like Canada. They want to go there, make money, get a good education, and get the hell out or if they stay they want also stay Koreans with strong connections to Korea and maybe even stronger connections to Korea than to Canada. Their children, however, have a different perspective on this.
Looking now at integrative motivation we find that even in immigrant societies it is not as common as some researchers would lead us to believe. It is only found in dominant groups who are learning languages for fun and who feel that their language and group is not threatened. Speaking frankly, most immigrant groups do not want to integrate. For them integration is death. Integration means the death of the group as an inwardly identifiable group. Of course certain elements can be integrated, but when a group feels threatened, feels isolated and somewhat challenged, then the reaction is to pull yourself further away from the norm. Integration is a luxury or strength and security and it can really only be done by people who do not feel threatened. People integrate for fun, as an intellectual challenge.
The basic idea behind self-confidence is that success breeds success. Confidence does not come from nowhere. It is not something you're born with (maybe). It is something you learn and you learn it from success and encouragement. People develop self-confidence because they are allowed to behave in a self-confident matter. Think of it this way, if you totally suck and everybody knows that you totally suck and you act in a self-confident way people are definitely going to say things to you, such as `you suck and here`s your F-.` The people around you will simply not tolerate you acting in a self-confident way when you clearly suck. You are going to get hit harder and faster and with more repetition than if you just plain old suck. Self-confidence without success is impossible. Success breeds success.
Herdina and Jessner - Chapter 2: Stages in research in multilingualism
1. What is the study that has had an enormous impact on multilingualism research and explain its importance?
Over the last thirty years the number of psycholinguistic studies focusing on the effects of bilingualism, on the intelligence of the child, and on how a bilingual mentally organizes the two languages has increased greatly, and with this the linguistic interpretation of SLA and bilingualism have changed considerably. This change has also affected the interpretation of the psychological and educational implications of each interpretation.
Double Monolingualism Hypothesis
Most research on bilingualism has been based on the view of the bilingual as the sum of two monolinguals in one person with two separate language competences or, in other words, bilinguals being regarded as two monolinguals in one person. Consequently bilingual proficiency has generally been measured against monolinguals proficiency.
More recent findings still tend to confirm, if not the purported detrimental cognitive effects, then at least the linguistic disadvantage of bilingual children- when compared with monolinguals of the same age- which is generally attributed to the dominance in one of their languages.
It can therefore be noted that as long as bilinguals are measured according to monolingual criteria, they appear to be greatly disadvantaged both in linguistic and cognitive terms.
Earlier Models of Bilingual Representation
Hamers and Blanc (1989:8) for instance, argue that for them the distinction has to do with a difference of cognitive organization and not with a difference in the degree of competence, or a difference in the age or context of acquisition although there is a high correlation between the type of cognitive organization, age, and context of acquisition.
Transfer as an Explanation of Linguistic Deficiency
Various explanations have been offered by as to why second language learners or bilinguals have generally turned out to be deficient monolinguals. One reason given is provided by the lack-of-exposure argument, which can be interpreted as follows: as the bilingual's linguistic experience is split between two languages, s/he is insufficiently exposed to either language to acquire full competence.
The second and more frequently presented reason is that of interference or (negative) transfer, terms which are frequently considered interchangeable, should however be distinguished clearly.
Whilst interference also occurs between two equally developed language systems, for instance in ambilinguals, the phenomenon of transfer is obviously more likely to take effect the less balanced the two language systems are. The frequency of transfer will then be proportional to the dominance of one language system over the other, whereas in the evaluation of balanced bilinguals nothing is said about the overall competence of the speaker.
Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis
The more similar the two linguistic systems are, the more likely positive transfer is to occur; the greater the difference between the two systems, the more likely negative transfer is to be observed (e.g. Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991: 53).
One problem with CAH is that it is most definitely out of fashion as it is formed part of a behaviorist interpretation of language learning as habit formation which did not survive the psycholinguistic turn.
The second problem is that the basic tenet of CAH is theoretically flawed as the pair similarity-difference can lead to unpredictable results. As observed by Osgood (1953: 21), greater similarity between two systems can lead to lack of differentiation and increased (negative ) transfer as the systems.
The Idea of Interlanguage
In 1972 Selinker introduced the concept of interlanguage as the transitional stage in the SLA process, that is the systematic behavior of learners of a second, non-native language. Similarly, Nemser (1971) held the incomplete but systematic learner systems in his theory of approximative systems. He claimed that the learner language is systematic but constantly changing to the target language system even though the target language is never attained. That is why DMM draws on the Nemser's conceptualization of learner system. Herdina and Jessner (2002) suppose that multilinguals work with approximative systems of their target languages, which implies that their competence in one or more languages is likely to be restricted. Furthermore, they point out that classification of language proficiency such as ideal speaker proficiency and rudimentary speaker proficiency should be seen as ranges rather than levels.
The Impact of the Peal & Lambert Study
The Peal & Lambert study (1962) was a milestone in the field of bilingual research. Unlike the previous researchers before 1962, they used highly scientific methods to study a wide variety of bilinguals and ensured the validity and reliability of their results and the positive consequences for Canadian bilingual educational policies. What they found are: the positive effect from L2 to L1, and the positive relationship between bilingualism and intelligence; there is a positive transfer between a bilingual's two languages, facilitating the development of a cognitive system, that is verbal intelligence. That is, the positive transfer does not appears to be restricted to language competence, but affects general cognitive skills as well. This study triggers many researchers to investigate the positive factors of bilinguality. As mentioned in chapter 4 of Hamers and Blanc (2000), bilinguals are reported to outperform monolinguals in the various cognitive functions such as reconstruction of a perceptual situation, verbal and non-verbal intelligence and creative thinking.
- Studies that explain contradictory results
1) Lambert : additive and subtractive bilingualism
According to Lambert, additive bilingualism is used to refer to the positive outcomes of being bilingual and is characterized by the acquisition of two socially prestigious languages while subtractive bilingualism refers to the negative affective and cognitive effects of bilingualism. This distinction, which is on the sociolinguistic approach to bilingualism, gives an important implication in that it indicates a move away from a dichotomous classification of bilingualism and monolingualism toward a more complex taxonomy including bilingual subtypes. Also, it provides the basic ingredients for an explanation of individual and societal bilingualism, which have to be seen as linked phenomena.
2) Cummins: BICS/CALP, common underlying proficiency and threshold hypothesis
Cummins (1979) suggested that language competence consists of two separate skill types: basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive/academic language proficiency (CALP). The former is the skills to perform communicative functions while the latter is for cognitive functions This distinction, which is on educational and cognitive perspectives of bilingualism, explains the discrepancy between obvious linguistic competence and the lack of conceptual linguistic knowledge observed in some bilinguals. As an alternative to the traditional view of bilingualism, which is the separate underlying proficiencies (SUP), he suggests a common underlying proficiency (CUP) in bilinguals, which can be affected by the use of either language, that is the linguistic development of L2 can show its positive effects in L1. While the bicompetence model of BICS and CALP is of importance for pedagogical reasons, CUP is for the development of the approach to multilingualism. He also introduces a threshold hypothesis to explain the apparently contradictory results in studies on bilingual children. According to the hypothesis, the effects of the interrelation between the two languages can be explained by two proposed thresholds in the levels of the bilingual's competence as follows:
--> positive cognitive effects are likely to result in a situation of balanced bilingualism.
----- upper threshold
----> with age-appropriate proficiency in one but not the two languages, neither positive nor negative effects are probable
----- lower threshold -----
-----> negative consequences of bilingualism