The Connection between Bi-Lingualism and Biculturalism - Essay Example

The Connection between Bi-Lingualism and Biculturalism For Korean students that have worked, studied, and lived in Australia on working holiday visas, I have always pondered the question; what is the connection between bi-lingualism and biculturalism? This question is relevant because I have seen students who have returned to their homeland, after an extended overseas stay, with varied results in the pursuit of their bilingual proficiency. Students who arrived at the same level of competence returned home at significantly different levels. From the point of view of an English conversation teacher the answer was simply that one studied harder than the other. However, since delving deeper in the course of bilingualism, I have come to appreciate the fact that there are other factors at work, which accounts for the disparity. Factors such as the effects of socio-psychological influences and the student’s level of acculturation have a significant impact. But what is acculturation? It is the socialization into another culture. It is someone adjusting behaviorally, or by a language, to a new culture and its environment. A famous linguist once defined acculturation as the psychological changes induced by cross-cultural imitation. In effect acculturation occurs when a person comes in contact with a second culture and he has to acculturate in order to adjust to the new environment. The level of acculturation is important because it will ultimately help to determine the student’s level of bilingual proficiency. So what are some strategies that will ultimately affect the level of acculturation? Some are the students' relationships with their immediate family, friends, and acquaintances. Students also need a willingness to treat the L2 in the new community as an integral part of their life and develop the capacity and willingness to adjust socially. From an observational viewpoint, it’s usually easy to determine who will become truly bilingual. Some students, studying in the new environment, adopt an almost anti-environment stance. Their sole purpose is to learn the language as a vehicle for their upward mobility in their society. They downplay and overlook the value of the L2 culture. Not surprising, this attitude will not fuel much development of the L2 and these students will be marginal bilinguals at best. It’s inconceivable that these students would want to reject the culture, yet want to learn the language. I subscribe to the view that language and culture have a symbiotic relationship. Language helps to shape the culture, just as culture, values, and ideas form the language. I have observed other students integrating as fully as possible in the L2 environment by dating, working and interacting with the culture. Ultimately, this attitude pays dividends and they become functional bilinguals. An additional factor that I think has a connecting link to the level of acculturation is the age of the L2 student. I think that younger students find it easier to acculturate into the new environment. Chomsky opined that by a certain age the LAD is worn out and is no longer available by puberty. Indeed I do agree with this opinion. From my observation, adolescents (and more so adults) have great difficult acculturating in a new environment when the LAD is no longer available. This exacerbates the challenges of learning the L2, and presents the possibility of a poor outcome. PART B Dialect The introduction to socio-linguistics as a course has paid substantial dividends to me. It has widened my horizons and made me come to appreciate the importance of all dialects and languages. I mention this because it relates to the attitude of one writer who believed some languages, such as the various lingua franca, pidgins and Creoles, have marginal status. As a child growing up, I had friends who were Jamaicans. We all spoke the English language, but somehow they pronounced some of their words differently, such as ‘mon‘ for man. On occasions, at home I would imitate some of my friend’s words, but I was absolutely forbidden to speak like Jamaicans. In fact, I grew up thinking that the Jamaican dialect as used by my friends was an inferior form of English, spoken by poorer people with a sub-standard form of education, or who were too lazy to speak proper English. However, on closer scrutiny, the Jamaican dialect development has indeed followed the path of any other dialect. Jamaica, as a country, was at one point controlled by British slave masters and a slave population consisting of Africans. Both masters and slaves spoke a different language and for the development of the trade, a lingua franca was developed. The second stage of the development occurred because there was a need for social communication between the different social groups. Slaves came from different places and spoke different languages, hence the need of another type of lingua franca, called a pidgin. This was a mixture of the native language of the users, and a combination of others' languages. On many occasions as many as three languages would combine to form a pidgin. In other words, a pidgin is usually regarded as a contact language. In fact, when the life of slaves is gleaned from history, their language development is understandable. In many cases, slaves were forbidden to learn to read and write. There was no possibility of learning their master’s language in a formal classroom setting. Yet, they were expected to carry out their master’s wishes, and understand orders in a language to which they were unfamiliar. Out of necessity, they had to learn the bare essentials quickly to communicate. Like other pidgins, their language would reflect the absence of a proper pronoun system, and the obvious missing agreement markers. This way of learning would inevitably lead to a reduced vocabulary, which was similar to the language with which it is associated, but much more limited in its scope. Further, using this method of phonological and morphological simplification would inevitably lead to words assuming somewhat different shapes. As the plantation life developed and inter-breeding among the slaves took place, the use of the pidgin gave rise to the Creole. Creole is different from pidgin in that it became the native language of the users. Understandably children born on the plantations spoke this language. Finally, as the Creole developed it melded with the main language spoken by those in control, which was British English. The Jamaican dialect developed and essentially became a language separate from any other of the mother languages responsible for its formation. Interestingly, a Jamaican radio station has recently decided to give some prominence to the Jamaican dialect. In the future, portions of the evening news will be done in this dialect (Patois). For me, I now understand that there are universally acceptable criteria for distinguishing dialects from languages, and the distinction between the two are often subjective based on the individual’s terms of reference. With this in mind, my attitude has changed. I no longer subscribe to the principle of the supremacy of any variation of the English language, be it Australian, British or American. Finally, this course has opened my eyes as to how my own upbringing had impeded my ability to accept others based on the way they speak. Thanks to this course my horizons have been widened and I have come to accept the Jamaican dialect as a proper tool of communication. Read More