LANGUAGE IN INDIA

CULTURE IN SECOND AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Mohammad Ali Robatjazi, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.

Definition of Culture

It is appropriate and vital that the second/foreign language teachers talk about the significance of culture in second language teaching situation and what exactly we mean by culture? For instance: Is culture the way an Indian serves the dish to a guest, a da Vinci handsomely reposing in the marble hallways of the Louver, or a technique using which a craftsman produces a rug in a hamlet, or a style a writer composes his literary work in? Or is it only the way an Indian peasant leads his way of living?

For sure, none of these understandings of culture would satisfy one’s desire to deeply grasp it. This frustration experienced by the early researchers led them to survey and investigate to find out more about culture.

Influence of the Anthropological Definitions of Culture on Second Language Learning

There have been several attempts on the part of the researchers and experts to define culture, but anthropologists first proposed the most comprehensive definition. They reasoned and believed that culture was what their science was all about. So it was obligatory to define and elaborate on the term with a different and more profound look. Accordingly, two very well known anthropologists, Kroeber & Kluckhohn, initiated to examine nearly 300 definitions in a study entitled Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, cited by H. Ned Seelye, 1972. However, they couldn’t come to a solid conclusion about the definition of culture. What they ultimately extracted out of these varying definitions was stating and formulating culture with capital “C,” which referred to the fine arts and literature of high-scope writings, not in detail including all the ways a people adopt to lead their life.

Hence, language teachers and educators tried to follow this definition in their career and neglected the reality that culture is not merely with capital “C”.

Capital “C” Culture

What one could find out in the capital “C” culture were the ways big shots and myths lived their lives, which were not, in general, considered to be communal and communital; however, small “c” culture approached itself so close to the community comprising the majority by stating that a community does not consist of only the minority but majority.

Small “c” culture is supposed to comprise the real culture or deep culture. It is added that culture is what a people thinks of and acts accordingly.

Brooks (1965), linguistically speaking, elaborates his idea on culture by stating that “speech and act”(ibid) do not individually exist, rather one other component supports them, and that is nothing but thought, then coming to this chain: “Thought, Speech and Act”. It is what that can be referred to as “culture”. So culture is the manifestation of inner and outer realities.

A Comprehensive Definition

To sum up the definition of culture, we would refer to the definition proposed by the National Center for Cultural Competence in America, which defines culture as an "integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thoughts, communications, languages, practices, beliefs, values, customs, courtesies, rituals, manners of interacting and roles, relationships and expected behaviors of a racial, ethnic, religious or social group; and the ability to transmit the above to succeeding generations" (Goode, Sockalingam, Brown, & Jones, 2000).

It is worth mentioning that, embedded in those patterns, kinesic behaviors develop to their own true nature to facilitate communication, which are basically culture-influenced. This means that language is not only part of how we define culture it also reflects culture. Thus, the culture associated with a language cannot be learned in a few lessons about celebrations, folk songs, or costumes of the area in which the language is spoken. Culture is a much broader concept that is inherently tied to many of the linguistic concepts taught in second/foreign language classes.

Communicative Competence

One of Dr Sam Mohan Lal’s students from Iran narrates his cultural conceptualization as following:

When coming out of Mumbai Port, I was awfully shocked at the understanding of the Rickshaw driver of what I asked him. I spoke the few Indian words and expressions I knew with the driver and, through his facial expression which was so similar to that of an Iranian, when one fully understands something, I judged that he fully understood what I told him: ‘Will you take us to the main Bus Stand? We want to go to Pune’. He shook his head from side to side (intercultural similarities and differences).”

As in the summation of the definition of culture we mentioned right above regarding gestures and bodily signs as a very crucial componential element of culture, this student had interpreted the driver’s headshaking as ‘NO,’ since the same shaking of head from side to side in Iranian culture expresses absolute ‘NO’.

“I passed,” he continues, “on to the other driver, and he did the same, adding to my surprise why they were ignoring me. The third driver came to me on his own and spoke with me accepting to take me to the bus stand, while making me understand their gesture as indicative of ‘YES’.

Similar kinds of culture specific gestural incompatibility can be seen in the behaviour of the people from North Eastern part of India. In their case also the horizontal nod mostly expresses ‘Yes’ and the vertical nod express ‘No’.

An Essential Condition for Successful Communication

Successful communication rarely takes place unless a Foreign or Second language user has, if not completely but mostly, adopted and acquired the culture of the language he/she uses. He must be not only linguistically but also culturally competent in the F/S language. One’s meaningful cross-cultural communication depends on the acquisition of abilities to understand different modes of thinking and living, as they are embodied in the language to be learnt, and to reconcile or mediate between different modes present in any specific interaction. This mode of understanding can be labeled as “intercultural communicative competence.”

Cultural Component in Bi- and Multi-lingualism

Broadly speaking, bilingualism or even multilingualism requires the foreign or second/third language learner to pick up the cultural component to help the process of becoming a bilingual or multilingual which may load a heavy burden on him. In order that he/she can witness a successful establishment of connection, he must increase his cultural awareness and competence in the milieu. What is particularly interesting is learner grows in his or her self-culture awareness through being exposed to the second or foreign language culture (Michael Byram and Michael Fleming, 1998). They may seldom question the way they live since they take it for granted, and this cross-cultural awareness seems a very noble innovation in many nations picking another language and its culture.

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