Philippine Normal University College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature MLE 501 (Foundations of MLE and Language Acquisition)

cultureandthought
by
alyssaMIJARES

culturalthoughtpatterns

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In the recent years, the debates that link culture, language and cognition have been as controversial as other issues in the field of language teaching and learning.

ESL teachers of composition and reading have been greatly challenged by the diverse thought patterns among their foreign students. These differences in thought patterns have greatly affected the learners rhetoric supply which is far different from the thought organization of native speakers of the English language.

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Gardiner and Kosmitzki (2002) mentioned that the argument on language-cognitionculture link surrounds the question Do people who speak different languages think about and experience the world differently? If so, then it is possible that the structural and lexical differences in language is due to a groups thinking and logical pattern.

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To sustain the notion that the difference in structure results from a groups thinking and logical pattern, Elgin (2000) provided an example. The example is illustrated below: I was riding a horse in English. She asserts that the Navajo translation would result in: The horse and I were moving about. Elgin (2000) explained that the English version portrays the rider (the subject) as the doer of the action and the horse as the object that endures being ridden while in Navajo, the act of riding is a joint endeavor without expressed subjectobject relation.

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In the example, it is easy to conclude that the syntactic structure of speakers vary depending on how they think and experience the world. Gardiner and Kosmitzki (2002) also noted that if peoples thinking is really relative to their language, perhaps we could explain the cultural differences in the languages spoken in different cultures.

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Vygotsky coined the phrase, Talking to Learn which means that as children verbally interact with others, they internalize language and use it to organize their thoughts (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2002). This explains further that language becomes socialized and patterned on a set of cultural values and beliefs (Greenfield & Cocking, 1994).

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These cultural values and beliefs are clear in Elgins (2000) example. The difference between Navajo and English syntax is not merely structural. The speaker of either language employs a thought pattern shaped by what he thinks is acceptable in his society.

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As illustrated in the previous example, the syntactic structure is just a result of the speakers thought pattern. It is also important to note that thought pattern and cognition are shaped by the values and beliefs of a certain culture. Therefore, the sentence The horse and I were moving about may reveal how Navajo-speaking people perceive and value the things around them.

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In the book titled Lives Across Cultures, Gardiner and Kosmitzki (2002) cited a good example of language socialization. A linguistic study by Brooks, Jia, Braine and Da Gracia Dias (1998) examined the ages at which Portuguese-, English- and Mandarin-speaking children learn to distinguish between quantifiers such as all and each in their respective languages. Results showed that Portuguese and Mandarin speakers learned to distinguish between all and each conceptually and linguistically by the time they were five years old. English speakers, on the other hand, were less discriminating in their use of these quantifiers.

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Cultural differences maybe due to differences in cognitive development (Gardiner and Kosmitzki, 2002). This gives weight to the idea that cultural context and experience contribute largely to cognition and language learning. In the study cited above, China and Portuguese can be considered as cultures with more collectivist belief systems (macrosystem) than the United States. Through learning language and using language in social interaction, Portuguese and Chinese children also learn about social relationship that are considered important in their collectivist societies (Gardiner and Kosmitzki, 2002).

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So if language is patterned on a set of values and beliefs unique in a particular culture, it is safe to say that the rhetoric of the first language would undoubtedly interfere in the second language. This statement strengthens the link among language, culture and the reason foreign students fail to meet the standard rhetoric of written and oral communication in English. The full proficiency in the English language does not only depend on the learners mastery of syntactic structure and grammar. The learners rhetoric supply is an equally important factor toward language acquisition.

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Kaplan (1966) said that logic, which is the basis of rhetoric, is evolved out of a culture; it is not universal. Moreover, Kaplan explains that rhetoric is not universal either and varies from culture to culture. And because English language follows a logical pattern and rhetoric of its own, these differences resulted to the foreign students inability to achieve a thought arrangement accepted by the native listeners and readers of English.

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The difference of logical patterns among foreign students is evident in paragraphs they write. A paragraph is generally defined as a group of sentences that develops logically one subject. However, Rooks (1999) emphasized that different languages have different logical patterns. These logical patterns are drawn from the writer or the speakers cultural thought patterns. Asians have different logical patterns from Europeans. What follows is an illustration of Kaplans various logical patterns. The figure appears in Rooks (1999) second edition of Paragraph Power.

REFERENCES:
Brooks, P. J., Braine, M. D. S., & Da Graca Diaz, M. (1998). A crosslinguistic study of childrens comprehension of universal quantifiers: A comparison of Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese and English. First Language, 18, 33-79. Elgin, S. H. (2000). The language imperative. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. Gardiner, H.W. and Kosmitzki, C. (2002). Lives across cultures: CrossCultural human development. Boston, MA: A Pearson Education Company. Greenfield, P. M. & Cocking, R. R. (1994). Cross-cultural roots of minority child development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Kaplan, R. B. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in intercultural education. Language Learning 16, 1-2. Rooks, G. M. (1999). Paragraph power 2nd edition: Communicating ideas ihrough paragraphs. New York: Pearson Education.