As we approach the 21st century and as the idea of a "global village" is fast becoming a reality, it is vital that we enlarge our worldview and reach an understanding of, and appreciation for, the cultures of the other peoples who share the planet with us. As cultural beings, we are raised with an certain way of giving order to the world around us. Very soon, these "cultural filters," which allow us to make sense of reality and shape it, become fixed, invisible and unconscious; they are part of our worldview which - as unique as we might think it is - rests on the shared values of a particular linguistic community.
This network of basic assumptions which affects everything in our life (love, family, friendship, child rearing, work, sense of community and of our place within it, view of nature, sense of self, etc.) is never put into question until it is brought to our awareness by the clash with another system, different from our own. Language, which is the bearer of culture par excellence, opens the door to the world of the other and gives us the means to apprehend other ways of viewing our common world and our common humanity. Why study Spanish? Beyond the argument just made for the truly cosmopolitan view, there are, for the US citizen, compelling internal and external reasons. First, one has to consider the rise of the Hispanic community within our midst. The US Census Bureau shows that the Latinos residing in the United States total about 27 million people and make up almost 10% of the population.
Projections indicate that, by the year 2050, almost half of the US population could be Spanish speaking. This fact has strong implications for employment, not only in the Southern belt ( from Florida to California ) but also in all major cities of the nation. In the job market, the bilingual employee will increasingly have the edge over other candidates, especially in the service sector. But employment is only part of the picture. The Hispanic community with its pride in its old traditions - native and European - its own cultural diversity, its strong family values, its artistic genius and its rich literature, will make its own unique and distinct contributions to the living cultural tapestry of this nation - today and tomorrow. Learning Spanish is essentially learning to relate to our next door neighbor and, more than ever, this makes sense.
“The Contact Zone”, is defined by Mary Louis Pratt as “the space in which transculturation takes place – where two different cultures meet and inform each other, often in highly asymmetrical ways.” Pratt describes what she calls ‘contact zones’ and elaborates on the pros and cons of these cultural interactions. She sees the contact zone as a place that allows people to exchange cultural ideas and break down the dividing cultural borders. When a contact zone is started, people are able to interact on new levels gaining a new perspective because they are able to collaborate with people from foreign cultures. If you are always with people of the same culture as you, you become used to hearing everything from the same perspective. With a new perspective, you can see your culture from a different point of view and reanalyze the logic behind your cultural traditions. Every ethnic/ religious/ regional/ cultural group has its high and low points, and it is just as important to learn about the low points as it is to learn about the highs. Gloria Anzaldua’s essay, “how to tame a wild tongue”, focuses on the ideas of losing an accent or native language to conform to the dominant culture.
Even though the dominance of a language can allow for the loss of a culture, it can also bring awareness. In schools, local community centers and other various places, foreign languages are taught, not only do non-native speakers take on these languages but native speakers do as well to keep their culture. By doing so it “revitalizes cultures and cultural artifacts through foreign influences, technologies, and markets.” (Gerdes
The author points out a number of factors that are key to the prosperity of the Hispanic people in America. He does not just focus on the cultural belonging part as the other liberals are claiming, but Greg puts his main focus and consideration on the future of the Hispanic people, and the prosperity of their generations to come and not just their personal short lived desires. If bilingual education is established in the American system of teaching, then it would be a mean that most of them will un...
Language is an important value for the nationalistic identity of a nation. Hispanic culture is the way of life of people from Latin America and Spain, and their main identifying factor is the fact that they speak Spanish as their main language. Therefore, Hispanics are not necessarily Spaniards but other groups like Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans who speak Spanish are also part of this group (Shaw and Dennison 207). American culture on the other hand is mainly comprised of the people who speak English as their main dialect. Therefore, the Spaniards have Spanish as their native language while the Americans use Englis...
A large number of people in the Hispanic community whether Hispanics are not able to get the English literacy skills that they need not because they want to keep born in Latin America or the United States, speak Spanish primarily. This is basically because in present day time, Hispanics are more likely to pass Spanish to their kids now than they have done in the past. (Ortiz, P.149) This is seen as a social problem, especially because of the fact that there is an increasing demand that English should only be taught in public school and it should also be spoken within the Spanish community. Even though Hispanics do speak a lot of Spanish most of the time, they still do learn English also, especially the young. But, because of the large flow of immigrants, the use of Spanish is used more often because they are constantly encountering immigrants who speak no English. (Ortiz, P. 150) Before hand there has been said to have been lower achievements when Hispanics make frequent use of the Spanish la...
Another struggle for identity with Latinos is their struggle with the Spanish and English languages. While some Latinos may speak Spanish in their homes, the language may not be conversationally used in their schools. Some Lat...
Many people immigrate to the United States from different countries to begin a better life. Once in the American territory, the first step for success is to learn the English language. Richard Rodriguez, the writer of "Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood" describes the language decisions he faced as a child: "Outside the house was public society; inside the house was private" (16). The English language is the primary language in the United States, and it must be learned to be able to communicate with the public world. The language that we speak at home is considered to be private because it is only used in the presence of the people we feel comfortable with, our family. Families immigrate to the United States from Mexico to find and give their children a better opportunity to succeed. The children of immigrants who have been raised or born in the United States were able to adapt much faster to the English language. The Spanish language, in the case of Mexicans, is part of our origin that most of us inherit from our ancestors although in the United States many, including me, seem to add a new language, which gives us better opportunities.
38 percent of all Hispanic parents only speak Spanish according to Pew Research center. In many cases this is why parents teach their children to speak Spanish for their first language. My parents learned English at a young age because they moved to the united states and were expected to know it. That was not the case for me. Growing up my family expected me to know English well. We lived in a small town called Fort Hancock, Texas with my grandparents. Everyone just spoke Spanish in that town and for that reason, I learned to just speak Spanish first. When we moved to Oklahoma City I was five. I had to transition to English, which was hard. I got made fun of, but luckily improved later on my literacy journey.
The number of English language learning (ELL) students in the U.S. has grown dramatically in the last decade. According to a 1991 national study, there are over 2,300,000 students in grades K through 12 who are English language learners (August & Hakuta, 1997). This number has grown by over 1,000,000 since 1984. The majority of these students are Spanish-speakers (73%), followed by Vietnamese-speakers (3.9%). Because the overwhelming proportion of ELL students are Spanish speakers, the issue of bilingual education is largely a Latino one.
4 Dec. 2013. Roca, Ana, and Mara Cecilia Colombi, eds. “Mi Lengua: Spanish as a heritage language in the United States, research and practice.” Georgetown University Press (2003): 4-85. Google Scholar.
Although there are few, the advocates of cultural globalisation claim that globalisation helps the enrichment of local cultures. They argue that people from different cultures share their ideas and experiences. They believe, naively, that all parties tell and listen the others ideas and experiences on an equal p...
Learning Spanish has actually helped improve my English speaking skills and expand my vocabulary. In a sense, English and Spanish are cousins, as they have a common ancestor, known as Indo-European. Sometimes, English
Humans have been communicating since four million years. On the other hand, the birth of culture is estimated to have taken place about 35,000 years ago. Today, both culture and communication have evolved considerably and have become interdependent of one another, to the point that communication is considered to be a product of culture. Thus, our own culture has a deep impact on our thoughts and behaviors. Since each culture has its distinct aspects, intercultural communication can be the cause of conflict and disorder. There are three main issues which are at the root of the problem of intercultural miscommunication : language as a barrier, cultural diversity and ethnocentrism. I will analyze these three notions in situations in which intercultural communication is frequent such as : the workplace, the classroom and vacation trips.
This research project is centered upon the idea that individuals, specifically those in second and third world countries, need to protect their cultural identity by combating the imperialism of western, dominant cultures. According to research, some reasons behind this imperialism are war, totalitarianism, tourism, the need to fit in, peer pressure, immigration, and globalization. These reasons are prevalent in today’s society and can be seen worldwide. Some solutions to the problem that I found in my research are to create a multicultural society that embraces diversity, encouraging a multilingual society along with preserving dying languages, and protecting smaller villages and towns from tourism, industrialization, and globalization. While
Our world is constantly changing and it requires a society that is well versed in understanding the problems deriving from culture differences and tolerance of one another’s beliefs and perceptions. We are dealing with systemic problems in education, economic, government, religion and culture differences.