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    o- - THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN SECOND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY THOMAS SCOVEL San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, USA Just as the influence of intralingual overgeneralization and linguistic universals is now acknowledged in contemporary second language acquisition research, this anicle attempts to argue for the importance of overgeneralization and universals in helping to explain the impact of culture on second Ianguage learning. Research from applied linguistics, as well as examples of the various effects of culture on the language acquisition process, are presented from the following four perspectives: people, language. cognition, and emotions. INTRODUCTION Culture and language are so frequently linked together that they are often used as virtual synonyms. For example, Lado’s (1957) classic introduction to contrastive analysis is called Linguistics across Cultures, even though it deals almost exclusively with contrasts between ‘wo languages: only the final chapter deals with “How to compare two cultures.” Second Tanguage teachers frequently mention how language teaching also involves, to varying degrees, the teaching of culture, and, consequently, it ts probably not so surprising that the ‘concepts. culture and language, are intermingled by teachers of second or foreign languages. ‘To begin with, I think itis important to identify the relationship between the two. As defined by anthropologists or anthropological linguists, culture is “all learned behavior which is socially acquired” (Nida, 1954: p. 28), or, even more tersely, culture is viewed as the man- made part of our environment (Herskovits, 1948), Culture is the social cement of all human relationships: it is the medium in which we move and breathe and have our being. Thus defined, all languages are proper subsets of all cultures, and since languages are a part of ‘culture it is easy to understand why some people might perceive the two as indistinguishable, Note, however, that to do so would be the same mistake as equating learning the vocabulary of a second language with learning the language itself. As we can see in the frequent confusion of these two notions by the public. second language acquisition (SLA) is much more than just the learning of a new vocabulary. I would suggest, therefore, that itis necessary for us to maintain the anthropological distinction between these two pervasive terms of culture and language if ‘we are to glean any useful insights about the role of culture in second language pedagogy. And ‘one final note about the definition of culture: it should be obvious that, broadly defined in its ‘anthropological sense above, I am not using the word in its more limited, sophisticated meaning as in the sentence, “My friends who are ESL teachers just seem to have a lot of culture.” 6 THOMAS SCOVEL The goal of this article is to introduce and elaborate on a framework which will help to describe the various ways in which SLA relates to culture. Specifically, I want to list some of the cultural implications for four different aspects of SLA instruction: relationships between people, between languages, between cognitive patterns, and between emotional reactions. [ will then conclude with a brief suggestion for one direction to be taken for furure research into this vast and complicated area of SLA pedagogy. ‘The framework which I would like to use through which to view the impact of culture on SLA is one which I have shared with students and colleagues in Japan and the United States and Which was presented most recently at the San Francisco TESOL convention (Scovel, 1990). Although Ihave gone so far as to call this framework a “model” of SLA (Scovel, 1989), given that my ideas lack the theoretical rigor necessary for an effective model (McLaughlin, 1987) and that there are already probably too many models of SLA flooding the market [Ellis (1985) listed atleast 7), the framework | am proposing is actually an outine of variables. Seen in this way, it falls more under the category of a taxonomy, somewhat similar to the much rote detailed and comprehensive work by Spolsky (1989) who has described 74 conditions for satisfactory second language leaming. The framework suggested here is encapsulated by the acronym PLACE; that is, any “place” in which SLA is attempted must include five People—the people trying to leam the second language and those teaching or using i [Language—the mother tongue of the learner and the second or foreign target language; Attention—of the learner to all aspects ofthe learning environment; Cogaition—the thoughts and thinking which the learner brings to the SLA situation: and finally, Emotions—the feelings and reactions which are engendered by the entire SLA enterprise. — aN © Note that, just as A is the central letter of the acronym, Attention is central to the entire process of SLA and, for that matter, t0 any form of learning. Atention is the learner's window to the world; it is the neuropsychological mechanism that promotes or prohibits acquisition Note too that the first two variables, People and Language, represent SLA components which are extemal to the leamer: they constitute the environment or nurture. By the same token, the last two variables, Cognition and Emotion, represent aspects of SLA that are personal and “THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN SECOND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY 7 internal: they constitute the individual or nature. Seen inthis way, Artntion is crucial. because it acts as the central axis of communication between the very public world of people and languages and the very personal world of thoughts and feelings. Ths framework can be simply depiced as a series of intersecting circles (Fig. 1) and, using this framework. I think four observations are justified. First, all four variables surrounding Attention are important in SLA. and all interact with one ‘another. One can actually view them as four spheres, all equally intersecting each other so that ‘Attention in language learning is captured or influenced by all parts of each of the four intersecting spheres, if we view Fig. I three-dimensionally, Second, although all four variables are important, my suspicion is that People and Language. the components that are external tothe learner, are not as important in influencing the course ‘of SLA as Cognition and Emotion, the rwo internal factors. Additionally, it seems to me that tne of the major reasons why “researchers” and “teachers” frequently share different views and agendas is that the former are primarily interested in the exterals (e.g. sociolinguisties and linguistics) whereas the later are essentially concemed with the intemals (e.g. How can T help Mariko remember the third person singular -s? How can I get Juan to participate in my ESL class?).[f my claim and observation are both correct, pechaps it is important for all of us to devote mote time listening to teachers than to researchers, a recommendation that Clarke (1991) has argued for quite intently ‘Third, between the two pairs of external and internal variables, I believe there is also a relative priority. The category, People, seems to influence a great deal of what constitutes Language. In the same manner, Cognition appears to play a dominant role in the determination of Emotions. Evidence from the sociology of language, sociolinguistics. pragmatics. discourse, ‘and speech acts theory all seem to suggest the former, whereas recent psychological research ‘on emotions [summarized, for example, in Strongman (1987)] argues persuasively for the active and salient role of Cognition in defining and channeling human emotions. Finally, to repeat a theme already introduced, the key area in SLA or in any form of leaming appears to be Attention, for it represents the nexus of all of these four factors. Attention also neurologically and psychologically explains the ways external stimuli enter (or are blocked from) the mind and the way the mind shapes (or does not shape) an individual's perception of the people and the languages that make up the surrounding environment. ‘To conclude this introductory description of my overall framework, I might add that 1 am open-minded about all of the many theories and models which have been promulgated about SLA, but my bias is toward ideas that are framed within a larger psychological vision of how the human mind operates (e.g. McLaughlin (1990)] and those promulgated by people like Spolsky (1989) who advocate models of language leaming that are not based on dualistic categories (e.g. SLA is influenced by either X or Y) but on multiple categories (e.g. SLA is influenced by A, B, C, D, and so-on). ae THOMAS SCOVEL PEOPLE. Given what I have just claimed, People play a much more important role in determining environmental influences on SLA than Language, and, when we are looking a the relationship, between SLA and culture in particular. it becomes almost tautological to stress the importance ‘of People and social factors. Culture is people; it is a synonym for all social variables Economics. ethnicity, politics, religion, and tadition determine language. not the other way around. To cite a personal example, when I spent a year teaching applied linguistics in the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1979, 1 could sce that my linguist preoccupation with contrastive analysis, universal grammar, and psycholinguistics was of insignificant ‘consequence in terms of effecting cultural change in EFL in China. These Language issues were dwarfed by the enormous impact of politics. economics, and traditions on English teaching in the PRC as clearly documented by Scovel (1982). Although there are many ways in which the People variable defines, distinguishes, and demarcates the role of culture in SLA, 1 will iit my discussion to thee ‘The status of English as an international language (EI) ‘This is a new and popular topic in TESOL and embraces a range of opinions about the people and cultures which use English in today’s world (Kachru. 1986; Davies, 1989). At one extreme of this range would be the belief that if English is used fairly extensively in a nation, say Japan, it should not be viewed as a second or foreign language but as a legitimate dialect.” Based upon this view, the pronunciation of English idiosyncratic to Japanese speakers is not a “foreign accent” but simply a dialect variation. Accepting this view then, given the indisputable fact that native Japanese are far more knowledgeable about the People aspects of Japan and Japanese society, and assuming that they can be considered native speakers of one dialect of EIL, then, to arrive at the logical inference. by far the best English teachers in Japan are Japanese who know the language well and not English teachers whose first language is English. In some ways. I think that this claim is defensible. Because they are bilingual, Japanese EIL teachers can resort to Japanese when necessary for classroom ‘management, explaining the structure of the second language, translating difficult words, or anticipating avoidance due to mother tongue interference. Unless “native” English speakers know Japanese well. they are prevented from employing these effective ways of using the ‘students’ mother tongue in the classroom. In terms of culture, Japanese English teachers have ‘an additional advantage, for they know much more fully than their foreign counterparts the various social situations in which Japanese leamers of English will be forced to use the language. And because. nowadays, leamers of EIL tend to use English more with other ETL speakers than with “native” speakers (i.e. more Japanese use English to talk to Korean, German, Indian, Saudi, or Spanish speakers than with Australians. Canadians. Americans, oF people froin Great Britain), the Japanese themselves have a clearer sociolinguistic perspective of their own English usage than do expatriate teachers who, by and large, are not culturally ‘cognizant of the use of EIL by Japanese people. However, there is another perspective to EIL. and this would be the more traditional interpretation with which I find myself overall more sympathetic. Granting all of the above, { still find a great deal of legitimacy and value in basing English teaching on the norms of “native speaking” cultures and on the linguistic competence of “native speaking” people. First {THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN SECOND LANGUAGE FEDAGOGY 208 ofall, there are still many non-native speakers who study English, especially those in intensive programs or those who choose it as their major field of university study, in order to prepare for ‘work or study in “native speaking” countries. This is especially tre in East and Southeast ‘Asia, but itis also a valid observation for South Asia, Aftica, and Europe. For these people then, it is important that their models of language and culture be focussed on their ecupational and educational needs. When I reflect on the many programs I have visited recently in Japan and Thailand which are designed for this specific purpose it is quite natural to find native speakers are most frequently the EIL teachers, the materials are largely designed for English as a second language (ESL) situations, and the classroom activities and curricula ‘more closely mirror classrooms in the United States or Britain than Japanese or Thai classrooms. The necessity for a native speaker approach to the teaching of both language and culture is even more obvious when we consider the SLA needs of the large number of {immigrants and refugees to English-speaking nations like Australi, Canada. and so on. Ifthe best EIL teachers for Japanese users of English in Japan are Japanese English teachers, for the same linguistic and cultural reasons the most appropriate EIL teachers in these ESL. situations are native-speaking Australians, Canadians, or others. Note then how the cultural influence on SLA can vary quite dramatically even though the target language, English, remains ‘unchanged. Although there may be some variation in pronunciation, vocabulary use, or other rminor dialectal changes. the language remains constant; however, the cultural differences can be quite great in EIL situations: Thais and Japanese in Asia can converse with each other in English and still completely maintain their respective cultural identities; when Russian or Hmong immigrants move to reside in the United States, however, their cultural identities are ‘assimilated, in varying degrees, ito the culture of the native speaking population of their place of residence Cultural content ‘My general sentiment is that the range of topics, issues, and approaches provided for in EIL. ‘materials needs to be broadened. Contents Which are deemed important and/or interesting to ‘American and British textbook writers may not be so valued by students in EIL classrooms. Ecology. marital relations, sexual equality, and drugs are all serious issues in many English- speaking nations. but they tend, in my view, to assume a universal stature in the minds of native speakers, whereas I think it is more pradent first to consider specific cultural situations before deciding upon topics like these for SLA curricular content. Certainly a subject like ‘ecology is of value, but ecology as a topic for discussion in an EIL classroom may not be a5 ‘culturally appropriate as what Jocal crops should be grown or what study techniques might be helpful for passing university entrance exams. And. what I think often happens when students in either EFL or ESL situations are studying an ecological issue and are asked to negotiate their thoughts about this issue in English, the students find it difficult to deal with the issue seriously since they know that there is a certain “correct” answer; that is, we must all protect the environment and anything that is man-made which destroys the environment is repugnant, ‘A topic like test preparation, pedestrian as it may appear to native speakers, might encourage more interpersonal interaction, hypothesis testing, and communicative activity than an issue which is not as culturally relevant. I believe Brumfit (1980: p. 105) is making the same argument when he writes: “The model of teaching which tells the foreigner to adopt our ‘system is both untruthful . .. and unhelpful, because it implies that he cannot communicate without adopting our position unnegotiably: 210 ‘THOMAS SCOVEL, ‘Another problem I see in terms of the content of SLA curricula is the occupational cethnocentricity of most EIL professionals. Quite naturally, people in our profession tend to have a humanities background with training in literature, foreign languages. history, or related subjects. Because of this, the materials we write, the topics we select for conversation and ‘composition. and the very way We construct the culture of our classrooms reflect @ humanities ‘bias. Humanism, as Stevick (1990) has so carefully defined and described, pervades language teaching, But the majority of the EIL learners around the world are studying the language not for “humanistic” reasons but for the instrumental goal of technology transfer, and this technological bias does not predominate only in EFL. situations; I think it represents most ESL. students in English-speaking countries, especially at the post-secondary level. Here I sometimes see a real clash of cultures. It is almost amusing to see ESL students in Californian universities who are largely business, engineering, science, and computer science majors struggling with topics in their ESL classes like, “What are the best ways to leam a forcign language?" or “Should California support “English Only" legislation?” (Yes. say most of these emergent yuppies, much to the dismay of their humanistic ESL teachers!) Co-operative learning strategies A final example of a People perspective on the influence of culture on the teaching and learning of English is cultural differences in the use of co-operative learning strategies in SLA. Faerch and Kasper (1983) list and describe these as the ways native and non-native speakers, interact with each other when the latter are tying to learn or use the target language of the culture. In my many trips to Asia over the years, and most recently during an opportunity 1 enjoyed to return to Thailand on a Fulbright grant, I have accumulated some participant-observer accounts of my interactions with native speakers of Japanese, Chinese, and Thai when I have attempted to use those second languages. I returned to Thailand for a 3-month period of almost constant immersion in Thai and was pleased to find that I was pretty much capable of picking up where I left off some 15%; years earlier, when I had resided in the ‘country for 7 years. I kept a simple error log of mistakes that | made—most of them lexical— and recorded both the error and the social interaction which transpired. | discovered that, quite consistently, the Thai native speakers with whom I was interacting adopted a very beneficial ‘co-operative learning strategy with me. It is interesting to note that the majority of people who adopted this strategy with me were not academics or language teachers but the working-class public whom I met daily on the street (e.g. a girl at a photography shop, an older woman selling ice cream, the driver of a motorized pedicab). When I made a significant error in Thai, they gave me exactly what Vigil and Oller (1976) specified as optimal conditions for effective SLA suppor: positive affective feedback but accurate linguistic correction, “Not phan,” the ‘woman atthe dry cleaners corrected me with a smile the size of a coat hanger, “but suan”, she said gesturing broadly with her hands as she provided me the verb for “to pass each other going in opposite directions” instead of the incorrect "to pass as to overtake” form which I had ‘mistakenly used, [left her store remembering both her compliments about my SLA prowess and, just as importantly, the distinction between phan and suan. One of the major reasons why T was able to resurrect my Thai and use it effectively was not any particular ability or language learning strategy | employed, but, rather, the effective use of this co-operative learning strategy by many of my native speaking interlocutors. My impression is that cultures differ in the ways in which they provide affective feedback and linguistic correction to language leamers. During my several visits to Japan when I have had ‘THE ROLE OF CULTURE DY SECOND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY a occasions to interact with native speakers in restaurants, department stores, and railway stations, I tend to be given a great deal of positive affective feedback-—smiles and ‘encouragement—but very litte linguistic feedback. The co-operative learning strategy which I appear to receive in Japan probably accounts for both my overconfidence in attempling to use Japanese and the abysmally poor level of competence I actually possess in the language. In the United States, it is my estimation that the majority of Americans provide neither positive affective feedback nor linguistic correction. Unlike the Thai in the first case, Americans tend to assume that everyone should know English, so it is unnecessary to compliment people for possessing linguistic skills assumed to be universal. Like the Japanese in the second case, Americans generally are too polite to correct the English that non-native speakers use in public. If these comparative observations are accurate, the impact of culture of SLA in terms of co-operative leaming strategies can be significant. Thailand is an ideal culture for SLA. Japan is neutral to the language learner, and the United States provides a less than ideal culture. LANGUAGE Although the People category represents the most obvious and direct way in which culture interacts with SLA, because Language is the substance of language learning and is the medium used to describe itself as well as all other variables that affect SLA, this category plays a significant role in the relationship between culture and language teaching, Although several topics come to mind when one views this relationship through linguistic lenses, two in Particular are worth mentioning: one new and one old, but both somewhat controversial Linguistic relativity ‘The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Whorf, 1956), or, more properly, the theory of linguistic relativity (Slobin, 1979), is the belief that because language, in general, influences thought to some degree, and because individual languages differ from each other, they therefore must shape different patterns of thought. Consequently, for a Spanish speaker to learn English, the Jeamer is not only acquiring a new linguistic code, but is simultaneously being introduced to a ‘new pattern of cognition. Linguistic relativity was popularized by European philosophers and philologists of the nineteenth century, but it became prominent in the United States through the research on Native American languages by Sapir and his student and colleague, Whorf Despite the lack of any compelling evidence in numerous experiments undertaken by anthropologists and psycholinguists during the past 35 years, linguistic relativity is such a popular framework for discussing cross-cultural differences that itis universally assumed to be true. It does not defy belief; it defies incredulity, In a paper I presented at the Japan Association of Language Teachers annual convention and. Published in the JALT Journal (Scovel, 1991), I attempted to present a succinct case against language relativity, citing the lack of experimental evidence. the feelings of most linguists that Janguages are much more similar than they are different, and the potential problems that adherents to linguistic relativity present to successful foreign language teaching (e.g. the fear that becoming too bilingual will deprive leamers of a second language of their mother tongue a THOMAS SCOVEL Weltanschauung). Although I am not an anthropologist, I sense that most contemporary scholars of culture share the same universalist positions espoused by linguists, and, if this is so, the general thrust of both modern linguistics and anthropology seems to be toward universals and the notion that humans share a great deal in common, Because the Sepit-Whorf hypothesis grew out of a philosophical tradition that was more behavioral than cognitive. and ‘more descriptive than generative, it is easy to see why present-day linguists feel uncomfortable about claims for language relativity. Add to this disquiet the consistent lack of experimental evidence for language differences affecting thought and perception, and considerable evidence going in the other direction, you can understand why I conclude that contrasts between language structures do not necessarily ereate contrasts in perception or thought. Culture, the ‘man-made par of our environmental upbringing, obviously plays a salient role in influencing cognition, and it may even do so indirectly through language, but ths is a different perspective from linguistic relativity: Sapir and Whorf claimed that it was the structures themselves that affected thought. I believe that we can enjoy a much more lucid and effective understanding of hhow culture intervenes in SLA if we dispense with any claims for linguistic relativity and look directly at the relationship between culture and language teaching. Markedness and linguistic universals In contrast to the Sapir~Whorf hypothesis, which accentuates the uniqueness of each language, ‘a more recent perspective through which to view the relationship between culture and SLA is ‘the universalist position. The notion of Universal Grammar (UG) was originally conceived in varying versions by linguists like Greenberg, Chomsky, and Comrie, but it has now been applied to SLA (White, 1989). There is considerable debate over the effect. if any, that UG has on SLA (see. especially. the entire June 1990 issue of Studies in Second Language Acquisition). Obviously, the belief in the existence of UG and the fact that it may play a role in SLA, even in the acquisition of a second language by adults, severely vitiates a belief in language relativity or the notion that linguistic relativity may play a role in SLA. Irespective of the complicated issue of whether or not UG exerts a direct effect on SLA, intertwined with this universalist position isthe idea of markedness: linguistic structures that are closest to UG. sre “unmarked” whereas those that stray furthest from UG are “marked.” Several SLA researchers have investigated the relationship between markedness and ease of acquisition (Eckman, 1985, 1991; Gass and Ard, 1980) but no one, to my knowledge, has pointed out the ‘general tendency for English to contain many “marked” structures. Put tersely, it is highly ironic that English, the “universal” language of international communication, is arguably the most marked and non-universal language in our contemporary world! I will cite examples from three different levels of linguistic analysis (phonological, morphological, and syntactic) to buttress this claim and then draw at least one cultural implication from this marked bias of English. Phonologically, English violates several universal features. Linguists claim that the basic syllable structure for languages is consonant vowel (CV). More marked variations tend to be limited to a single consonant for a final (CVC), and, if consonant clusters appear, they tend to be initial rather than final (CCVC). English syllable structure is marked in two different ways: first of all, it has a propensity for consonant clusters of two, three, and sometimes four ‘consonants, and, secondly, these clusters frequently come in syllable final position. Thus, there are highly marked words like “sixths” which contain a final cluster of four consonants {THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN SECOND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY an Jsickses/, To compound the problem further, English places a great deal of semantic and syntactic weight on word final position (e.g, contrast “six,” “sixth,” and “sixths”). This is just ‘one of several examples of how English is a highly marked language phonologically, Morphologically, despite the fact that English is not as heavily inflected as its Indo-European contemporary cousins (in fact, it is more an “isolating” language like Chinese than an “inflectional” language like Spanish), it does maintain a great deal of Indo-European derivational morphology, largely through Latin and Greek loan words (Chomsky and Halle, 1968), These patterns, unfortunately, afe not very productive and are restricied to words of classical etymology (e-g. “fortune-fortunate” but not “tune-tunate”, etc.) For that matter, even derivations of genuine English words are highly restricted (e.g. “deep-depth” but not “steep-stepth"). English morphology appears to violate two tendencies of UG: it tends to rely ‘on complex pattems of derivations, and it tends to be imegular and non-productive ‘Syntactcally, English also appears to be more marked than many other contemporary world languages. The English modal system is especially complex and irregular, and differs from the ‘more universal tendency for simple embedding. “I may go” fits this universal tendency for ‘nesting, but contrast “may” with other modals: “I ought to go. He ought to go. He has to £0." where, in the last case, the modal is inflected with the third person singular -s. Gass and Ard (1980) have demonstrated in their research on the acquisition of relative clauses how the English system is strongly marked because it not only relativizes subjects and objects. a fairly ‘universal tendency, but also indirect objects and even genitives, which is a highly marked and non-universal pattern. Contrast the relativization of a subject in (1), which is unmarked, with the relativization of a genitive in (2) which represents a highly marked structure (0) Tis ithe eat that ate the et, (2) This ete cat whone eyes ae diferent colors, ‘What is the implication of this proclivity for marked structures in English, especially in terms of the impact of culture on SLA? Reduced to its most simplistic form. the answer is that when ‘we ask people to Team English, and here we can include infants acquiring it as their native language along with EIL students of any age, we are asking them to go against the natural expectations of human culture: we are requesting that they violate the ordinary working of the hhuman mind. English is hard to learn, not simply because it differs from ous students’ mother tongues: itis difficult because it differs markedly from UG. From the Language perspective, English imposes special demands on leamers, and I think it is instructive for EIL teachers, ‘especially native speakers, to be aware of this hidden difficulty that the language poses ‘Certainly it is not an unsurmountable problem—the universality of English as the language of communication demonstrates its learnability, but it is sobering to realize that, from the ‘Language perspective, English is far from ideal as an international language, and the pervasive ‘problems of fossilized structures like the third person singular -5 tell us much more about the ‘markedness of English than it does about the motivation or intelligence of our students a ‘THOMAS SCOVEL ‘COGNITION ur biological name underscores the prominent role which cognition plays in human life: we are Homo sapiens, the “thinking” Homo, ot, perhaps more accurately. the “Homo capable of thought.” In a book which examines certain biological foundations for human speech (Scovel, 1988), I traced the evolutionary differences between human brains and the brains of other snimals, and, when one examines all the ways in which the human brain differs from those of even highly “evolved” species like chimps and dolphins, they are so great as to be classified as, contrasis in kind and notin size. Mainframes to abacuses would be one analogy. ‘A popular and significant new arena of TESOL is learning strategies (Brown, 1989; Oxford, 1990), and, as soon as we delve into this area of cognition, we obviously confront the question of culture: are we talking about individual leaming preferences or are we discussing culturally conditioned proclivities? It is probably impossible to distinguish between the two. In an ‘experiment which I conducted in Thailand and was recently published there (Scovel, 19896), I discovered that my Thai EFL students were much better at “paradigmatic” learning of English structures than their native speaking counterparts, but that, conversely, American native speakers were far better at “syntagmatic” learning than the Thais. { have no way of determining whether the differences were due to culturally based leaming styles or due to contrasts between “grammatical” and “communicative” competence, but the consistency of the contrast between the Thai and American responses strongly suggest that learning strategies are greatly influenced by culture. CONFUCIAN SEMICONFUCIAN._NONCONFUCIAN Thal mexican be accurte. beaccuzat fluent be accurate fe uent any ete take ike wher sae take aks elusive deductive &inductive deductive & inductive product uct brachial Finite nonfdeareheal cooperative cooperative competitive “competitive groupcenteredaiy groupeetered—_indvidual-centered feidindependent aly field dependent fly ald dependent introverted oxrovered ‘atrovened Fig. 2, Contrasting learning sutegies and cukual stereotypes. Closely related to learning strategies are personality characteristics that reflect differences in learning styles, and this too is an area of legitimate and popular interest in TESOL (Brown, 1989; Kral, 1991), Again, it seems to me that many personality characteristics are culturally conditioned, especially in terms of what is valued or devalued in a particular culture. I believe that both learning styles and personality characteristics are part and parcel of cultural norms. and, 10 a large extent, we can classify these cognitive qualities into generalized sets which generally typify differences among cultures. Based purely on my anecdotal and impressionistic ‘experience living in these cultures. I present the following contrasts (Fig. 2) as one example of hhow we can make generalizations about the influence of culture on learning strategies and personality types. “THE ROLE OF CULTURE ' SECOND LANOUAGE PEDAGOGY as It follows from these sets of perceived differences, of other sets of cultural contrasts similar to the above, that we should pay particular attention to the cultural foundations for differences in learning styles and personality characteristics. Are we, for example, asking non-American EIL students to become “American” if we encourage certain strategies or behaviors in our classes? If teachers believe. as Ido, that a certain amount of “risk taking” is pedagogically beneficial. if ‘our students’ mother culture strongly discourages risk taking. especially in the classroom. 10 what extent are we asking our students to betray their cultural instincts? T value the recent research on cultural differences and their possible effects on learning strategies and/or success in SLA (Hansen-Strain, 1987; Tinkham, 1989). I believe that we must balance out enthusiasm for introducing a range of learning strategies to our EIL students with a keen awareness that here, more than in perhaps any other aspect of our teaching, are we dealing most directly with the impact of culture on SLA. This particular issue also unites what I previously identified as 2 point of dualistic tension in approaches to SLA, for both the researcher's concern with ‘experiments on the effects of People and Language on learning on the one hand, and the Teacher's devotion to what is happening inside and among her students in terms of Cognition and Emotion on the other, are central to the resolution of this question, We must challenge our students with a wider and more effective range of learning strategies and approaches: at the ‘same time, We must respect and affirm the cultural beliefs and presuppositions which our students bring to our classrooms. Garrott’s (1991) recemt research on Chinese EFL students’ autitiudes toward leaming and teaching styles is an example of the kind of initial data we need in order to achieve the lofty goals I am promoting. EMOTION Despite the popular lay belief that emotions are largely independent of thoughts and frequently ‘can override them, from the perspective of cognitive psychology, emotions are largely influenced and channeled by cognition (Strongman, 1987). This is not to deny the existence or the importance of affect in human behavior, and is a noteworthy development in SLA that ‘more and more research and attention is directed toward the relationship between emotional factors and successful language leaming and teaching. One excellent example of this direction is the recent anthology examining the role of anxiety in SLA by Horwitz and Young (1991). ‘Two areas of how affect affects the impact of culture on SLA are the effects of individual differences in emotion and the effects of culture shock on language acquisition Individual reactions in emotional reactions ‘There have been very few published studies which examine the effect of emotional differences ‘on SLA inespective of cultural background. One of the earliest and most illuminating pieces lof research in this area as Kleinmann’s (1977) classic study of avoidance behavior. Kieinmann Was able to demonstrate that ESL students would often avoid using structures in English which ‘were different or absent from their native languages. He demonstrated, for example, that ‘Arabic students who had no passive in their mother tongue tended (o avoid using the English passive: Spanish students, however, who employ a passive in Spanish virtually identical to English did not avoid using the passive in their second language. Of secondary interest to Kleinmann's work, but of central focus here, he also gave all his ESL students a psychological test which measured their degrees of facilitating vs debilitating trait anxicty. After doing so, he discovered a significant correlation between these emotional types and patterns of avoidance, 25 ‘THOMAS SCOVEL irrespective of the cultural differences of the students. Students who scored high on debilitating anxiety exhibited the classic examples of avoidance: they were the Arabic and Spanish students who almost never attempted to use English structures which differed from their native languages. In the opposite manner, students who were ranked high on facilitating anxiety were usually the rare exceptions: they were the few Arabic and Spanish students who actualy tried to use difficult English structures in contrast to the majority of their ESL peers. ‘What this study rather neatly demonstrates is that individuals do vary in their personality characteristics within any given culture, and sometimes, the emotional characteristics of the individual will have an impact on the course of language learning behavior. It would not be appropriate to go so far as to suggest that facilitating anxiety always heips SLA while debilitating anxiety is constantly detrimental, but we have here some confirmation of the hunch, that many EIL teachers entertain, that “risk taking” allows students to attempt and to practice second language structures which most students usually avoid, and although this, strategy may initially create errors, it probably does more to help than to hinder the ultimate sucess of the student. The example just cited is, 1 believe, one effective way of dealing with the challenge with which I concluded the previous section on Cognition: it encourages teachers to promote certain individual emotional approaches in the SLA class without, uestioning or violating the students’ cultural foundations. Culture shock Another way to look at the effects of emotion on culture and SLA is to view the emotional changes which learners undergo as they acculturate to the new SLA environment. Because this process of acculturation is often unpleasant, especially for adults who find themselves as refugees or immigrants in a new environment, this type of acculturation is often referred to as, culture shock, and itis an area of recent interest and study for anthropologists and sociologists. Furnham and Bochner (1986) provide detailed descriptions of the variety of acculturation experiences and their varying impacts on people's behavior, but, unfortunately, they, like many sociologists, fail to discuss the impact of culture shock on SLA. This impact is described to some extent by applied linguists like Larsen and Smalley (1984) and Brown (1987), but f believe this is a rich source of future research. especially in countries like Australia, Great Britain, and the United States, where hundreds of thousands of non-native speakers are immigrating and are attempting to learn English at the same time as they are experiencing. ‘culture shock, Specifically, itis important for us to learn if there are differential effects on the rate and/or the ultimate SLA success from the different stages of acquisition. For example, if we look at acculturation as comprised of four stages: (1) initial delight, (2) shock and ‘depression, (3) stress and anomie, and (4) assimilation, there is some inferential evidence [e.g the research on perceived social distance by Acton (1979) that leamers experience their most rapid rate of SLA during stage (3) when there is a pervasive feeling of rootlessness. Certainly this important nexus of culture, emotions, and second language learning progress is worthy of further scrutiny and contemplation CONCLUSION It is instructive 10 look at the history of the explanation for errors in SLA as a way of suggesting directions for the future examination of the role of culeure in language teaching and learning. Initially, most errors were seen to be caused by the interference of the frst language ‘THE ROLE OF CULTURE DY SECOND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY m fon the second: this “contrastive analysis” view was very popular in the fifties (Lado, 1957). It ‘was replaced, of, more correctly, added to, by a broader, “error analysis” approach which argued that errors were caused both by contrastve interference from the mother tongue and by ‘overgeneralizaton or simplification of pattems in the target language itself: this approach has pervaded SLA over the past several decades (Richards, 1974; Robin and Schachter. 1983) More recently. SLA researchers believe that. in addition to the effects of the mother tongue ‘and the second language itself, there is also the impact of UG on the acquisition process (White, 1990). Although opinions differ as to the relative influence of these three main effects. there is general agreement that all three play a role in SLA When [ look at our approach to the effects of culture on SLA. am struck by the fact that. by and large, the approach taken is based largely on 2 contrastive analysis position—that is. the culture of the mother tongue is seen to be largely different from and interfering with the culture of the second language. One example of this contrastive approach is exemplified by several recent studies on alleged cultural interference on the process of ESL composition leg. Hinds (1990)], Few have considered altemative or additional explanations forcultrally-based leaming difficulties; however, Yates (1991) has shown that different writing styles are not necessarily prompted by contrastve interference between the mother and target cultures; they may very well be caused by overgeneralzation from a variety of composition pattems solely within the target culture. Isee this as a compelling analogy to the changing role of applied linguistics in SLA just discussed above. That is itis important for us to look beyond simple contrasts berween the mother and target cultures; we must also consider contrasts within the target culture itself, Furthermore, we must look at cultural universals and the possible ways ‘cultures differ inthe degree to which they may vary from an underlying universal culture. As Jong as we remain preoccupied with simplistic cross-cultural contrasts between societies (ike the impressionistic contrasts I drew among Chinese/Japanese, Thai. and American societies), 1 440 not believe we will gain much insight into the relationship between culture and SLA. What wwe need are approaches which begin with these contrasts, but include variations within the target culture and the ways in which both the mother and target cultures vary from cultural universal. ‘With this broader perspective and with an open-minded focus on the varying effects of People, Language, Attention, Cognition, and Emotion on the way in which culture affects SLA, we will not only enjoy a better understanding of our students, we will achieve a deeper understanding of ourselves. REFERENCES ARON. W. (1979) Second language learning and perception of diference in aiade: Unpublished doctra

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