After reading Silva's article, he highlights the differences in NES and ESL writing in classrooms. After reading the differences, the results seemed blatantly obvious. Of course ESL students were going to fall short in nearly every category of writing. It only makes sense that a person still in the process of learning the English language would struggle more lexically, morphologically, and semantically. After looking at this study, I realized the most important part was to highlight these differences in the classroom. While it may be obvious that an ESL student may not perform as well in writing as a NES, a future educator must realize this in his/her classroom. It is paramount to understand that ESL students need special attention in areas they may be lacking.
After seeing the dichotomy between ESL and NES students, I followed up with Kubota's story of Barbara. While there may be a large learning gap between NES and ESL students, it is important to look past the essentialist view of cultures and work towards developing an integrated environment where both native and non-native students can work. Students should not completely abandon the cultural elements they bring to their education, but rather incorporate that element into their own curriculum. To delve back into the idea of cultural identity, there is no broad identity that can be attributed to students. Every student brings a unique perspective to the classroom. To look at their perspective as indicative of a whole culture promotes a very essentialist mindset.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
Korean-Immigrant Parents and A Step From Heaven
A Step From Heaven was one of the most interesting books I have read in awhile. It was a good read, especially while comparing the events in the book to Dr. Kang's article on Korean-Immigrant Parents. The two works worked together nicely to portray an image of Korean-Immigrant parents, and their outlook on their American-born children's identity.
After reading A Step From Heaven, I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that we were immersed in Young Ju's life from a young age. It was neat to see her development as an American, as well as an English speaker. I just really loved how the writing style developed and became more comprehensible throughout the book's entirety.
When reading this book, I kept on looking back to last week's talks on language identities. It seemed in this book, Young Ju had various identities. She had the narrative of not only a Korean adapting to American society, but a Korean woman. It was interesting to see how this narrative was both inhibited and facilitated through her mother and father's view of gender roles. As I kept reading, I also noticed how easy it was to forget about Joon, who was also living a very interesting narrative. He was a male who was growing up with his Father's standards (being seen as a more useful human, with more capability) and feeling inferior to his sister who was getting better grades. While we only see into his life a few times throughout the book, we see that he is going through some turmoil, especially in his later years.
After reading Dr. Kang's article, there seems to be some linkages to An Na's novel. The article looks at what drives a parent to maintain their child's mother tongue. Three of the motivating factors are parent experiences with language barriers , socioeconomic opportunities, and, most prevalent in A Step From Heaven, language as an identity marker.
Throughout the book, I did not pick up on much explicit maintenance of the home language through Young Ju. It seemed that she fluently spoke with her parents, mainly in Korean. Her and Joon spoke Korean in the household. This can largely relate to the language barrier having an effect on speaking Korean in the household. Both Uhmma and Apa have a hard time speaking English. We rarely hear them speak throughout the book. By stressing Korean in the household, both Joon and Young Ju have to communicate through Korean.
Throughout the book, the Korean identity often comes up. It may not necessarily come up in terms of language, but there are numerous events where both Apa and Uhmma feel that American culture is infringing on Young Ju's Korean identity. Apa is definitely more radical in his thinking, believing that Young Ju cannot be friends with an American for fear of losing cultural Korean values. We constantly see American values being juxtaposed with Korean values, especially in the realms of education, as well as social obligations (The Parks living with another family until they establish themselves, Young Ju borrowing money from Amanda). The parents certainly stress the importance of staying true to this perceived Korean identity.
Questions for Dr. Kang:
1. Since the study in the article is largely based around parents with careers in higher education, do you think there would be differences in development and maintenance by parents without as particular of an education? If so, how much? I know you touched upon this study belonging to a certain socio-ecomonic status, so would educational identity factor into that?
2. How do you practice maintenance and development of Korean with your child?
After reading A Step From Heaven, I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that we were immersed in Young Ju's life from a young age. It was neat to see her development as an American, as well as an English speaker. I just really loved how the writing style developed and became more comprehensible throughout the book's entirety.
When reading this book, I kept on looking back to last week's talks on language identities. It seemed in this book, Young Ju had various identities. She had the narrative of not only a Korean adapting to American society, but a Korean woman. It was interesting to see how this narrative was both inhibited and facilitated through her mother and father's view of gender roles. As I kept reading, I also noticed how easy it was to forget about Joon, who was also living a very interesting narrative. He was a male who was growing up with his Father's standards (being seen as a more useful human, with more capability) and feeling inferior to his sister who was getting better grades. While we only see into his life a few times throughout the book, we see that he is going through some turmoil, especially in his later years.
After reading Dr. Kang's article, there seems to be some linkages to An Na's novel. The article looks at what drives a parent to maintain their child's mother tongue. Three of the motivating factors are parent experiences with language barriers , socioeconomic opportunities, and, most prevalent in A Step From Heaven, language as an identity marker.
Throughout the book, I did not pick up on much explicit maintenance of the home language through Young Ju. It seemed that she fluently spoke with her parents, mainly in Korean. Her and Joon spoke Korean in the household. This can largely relate to the language barrier having an effect on speaking Korean in the household. Both Uhmma and Apa have a hard time speaking English. We rarely hear them speak throughout the book. By stressing Korean in the household, both Joon and Young Ju have to communicate through Korean.
Throughout the book, the Korean identity often comes up. It may not necessarily come up in terms of language, but there are numerous events where both Apa and Uhmma feel that American culture is infringing on Young Ju's Korean identity. Apa is definitely more radical in his thinking, believing that Young Ju cannot be friends with an American for fear of losing cultural Korean values. We constantly see American values being juxtaposed with Korean values, especially in the realms of education, as well as social obligations (The Parks living with another family until they establish themselves, Young Ju borrowing money from Amanda). The parents certainly stress the importance of staying true to this perceived Korean identity.
Questions for Dr. Kang:
1. Since the study in the article is largely based around parents with careers in higher education, do you think there would be differences in development and maintenance by parents without as particular of an education? If so, how much? I know you touched upon this study belonging to a certain socio-ecomonic status, so would educational identity factor into that?
2. How do you practice maintenance and development of Korean with your child?
Monday, February 4, 2013
Language Identity
The readings this week focused on language, and how it can help for a linguistic and cultural identity. Norton explained concepts of poststructuralism and the idea of language identity. One aspect of this article I found interesting was Norton's explanation of imagined language communities. She states, "An extension of interest in identity and investment concerns the imagined communities that language learners aspire to join when they learn a new language" (355) A language learners perception of the language community could help attribute to their identity. I thought that this translated relatively well with Pavlenko's article.
In her article, she touched upon memoirs of immigrants and their views of language, English, and their American identities. I feel that each of these autobiographies touched upon the individual's imagined language community. Some felt that in their perceived language community, English was most vital. In one case, an immigrant felt his Danish was too underdeveloped, so he adopted English. Another thought that speaking in his mother tongue was essential and of utmost importance. Other immigrants associated English with the American dream. In their esteemed communities, there were particular balances of power. Often times, these balances helped form linguistic identities for these individuals.
In her article, she touched upon memoirs of immigrants and their views of language, English, and their American identities. I feel that each of these autobiographies touched upon the individual's imagined language community. Some felt that in their perceived language community, English was most vital. In one case, an immigrant felt his Danish was too underdeveloped, so he adopted English. Another thought that speaking in his mother tongue was essential and of utmost importance. Other immigrants associated English with the American dream. In their esteemed communities, there were particular balances of power. Often times, these balances helped form linguistic identities for these individuals.
Learning and Culture
After this week's readings, I feel that I learned a lot of terminology surrounding the vague entity of culture. What struck me in particular were the sociological issues highlighted in Kumar's Chapter.
I felt he did a great job describing individualism/collectivism and otherization, but it was the section on Orientalism which truly helped clarify some of Kumar's explanations. Kumar is describing individualism and collectivism as ways to define certain cultures. He said these terms are mainly used in sociology, but can often act as more of a continuum or as a representation rather than a realization of particular cultures. I found this to be a little problematic since it somewhat labels cultures. It says culture x tends to act this way, which certainly eliminates an individual element to culture. Otherization built on this by showing how stereotypes build by looking at cultures in such generalizations. This brought me to my favorite part of the readings: Edward Said's Orientalism.
Being a history major, I found myself drawn to this section because I have had to read Orientalism for several classes on Middle Eastern history. I came across a fun fact when looking up the background of Orientalism : Orientalism derives from the comparison of the Orient and the Occident. The Orient means "the rise" in Latin, where as the Occident means "the fall." This tid-bit of knowledge is great in understanding the superior western view to eastern culture. I found so much interest in Orientalism because it provides so much insight on the world today. There is obviously so much political, sociological, and historical friction between the United States ( and much of the Western world, for that matter) and Southwest Asia, which can be linked to a misunderstanding of culture. I will not get into specifics or strong political opinions, but I truly believe that U.S. Foreign Policy and American perceptions of the middle east have been built largely out of ignorance.
After some outside reading of Robert J.C. Young's Postcolonialism, he provides some interesting insight and criticism of Orientalism. As I read Said's work, I do believe that it is easy to view cultures too generally. Young states, "The Occident is just as much of a construct as the Orient is.…the structure of Orientalism is nothing more than a structure of lies and myths, were the truth would be told, would simply blow them away.” Basically, I feel that it is the West's perceived superiority that is driving this discourse. It can be seen as contradicting to generalize one group at the cost of another. This leads me to my final point.
I felt he did a great job describing individualism/collectivism and otherization, but it was the section on Orientalism which truly helped clarify some of Kumar's explanations. Kumar is describing individualism and collectivism as ways to define certain cultures. He said these terms are mainly used in sociology, but can often act as more of a continuum or as a representation rather than a realization of particular cultures. I found this to be a little problematic since it somewhat labels cultures. It says culture x tends to act this way, which certainly eliminates an individual element to culture. Otherization built on this by showing how stereotypes build by looking at cultures in such generalizations. This brought me to my favorite part of the readings: Edward Said's Orientalism.
Being a history major, I found myself drawn to this section because I have had to read Orientalism for several classes on Middle Eastern history. I came across a fun fact when looking up the background of Orientalism : Orientalism derives from the comparison of the Orient and the Occident. The Orient means "the rise" in Latin, where as the Occident means "the fall." This tid-bit of knowledge is great in understanding the superior western view to eastern culture. I found so much interest in Orientalism because it provides so much insight on the world today. There is obviously so much political, sociological, and historical friction between the United States ( and much of the Western world, for that matter) and Southwest Asia, which can be linked to a misunderstanding of culture. I will not get into specifics or strong political opinions, but I truly believe that U.S. Foreign Policy and American perceptions of the middle east have been built largely out of ignorance.
After some outside reading of Robert J.C. Young's Postcolonialism, he provides some interesting insight and criticism of Orientalism. As I read Said's work, I do believe that it is easy to view cultures too generally. Young states, "The Occident is just as much of a construct as the Orient is.…the structure of Orientalism is nothing more than a structure of lies and myths, were the truth would be told, would simply blow them away.” Basically, I feel that it is the West's perceived superiority that is driving this discourse. It can be seen as contradicting to generalize one group at the cost of another. This leads me to my final point.
While this blog post may have a rather heavy analysis on the smaller portion of Said throughout the reading, I feel that a very important conclusion can be reached. Cultural roots have been developed in each individual in some particular way. They have unique experiences that shaped their well being. While looking at whole cultures' responses and cultural contact zones may provide insight onto how societal misbalances of power happen, understanding each individual's cultural roots can help provide some cultural homeostasis. By understanding cultures through a non-essentialist lens at an individual level, maybe these understandings can be transferred to a societal level.
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