 |
CULTURAL IDENTITY AND ETHNOCENTRISM
SOME ISSUES OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE: NATIVE SPEAKERS, CULTURAL IDENTITY, ETHNOCENTRISM AND PHOBIAS
Algirdas Makarevicius
WHO IS A NATIVE SPEAKER?
Native speakers of English are people whose first language is English. They learned English when they were children. They think in English. They use it naturally. Usually native speakers of English are people from English-speaking countries like the USA, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Ireland, etc. Talking to native speakers is a great way of improving your spoken English. Native speakers often don't realize that things they consider "simple" may be very difficult for English learners.
First language (native language, mother tongue, vernacular) is the language a person learns first. Correspondingly, the person is called a native speaker of the language. Usually a child learns the basics of their first language from their family.
Good skills in native language are essential for further learning, as native language is thought to be a base of thinking. Incomplete first language skills often make learning other languages difficult. Native language has therefore a central role in education.
The term "mother tongue" could be misleading. In some paternal societies, mothers are from different places and speak different dialects or languages. Yet their children usually only speak their local language. Only a few will learn to speak his/her mother's language like a native. Actually, mother in this context probably originated from the definition of mother as source, or origin.
One can have two (or more) native languages, thus being a native bilingual. The order in which these languages are learnt is not necessarily the order of proficiency. For instance, a French-speaking couple might have a daughter who learned French first, then English; but if she grew up in the United States, she is likely to become more proficient in English.
Native speakers have traditionally enjoyed a natural prestige as language teachers, because they are seen as not only embodying the “authentic” use of the language, but as representing its original cultural context as well.
In recent times, the identity as well as the authority of the native speaker have been put into question. The “native speaker” of linguists and language teachers is in fact an abstraction based on arbitrarily selected features of pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, as well as on stereotypical features of appearance and demeanor. For example, children of Turkish parents and bearing a Turkish surname, but born, raised, and educated in Germany may have some difficulty being perceived as native speakers of German when applying for a language teaching job abroad.
It is not clear whether one is a native speaker by birth, or by education, or by virtue of being recognized and accepted as a member of a like-minded cultural group. Cultural identity is sometimes closely related to the term “ethnocentrism”.
WHAT IS ETHNOCENTRISM?
Ethnocentrism (Greek ethnos nation + -centrism) is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture. Many claim that ethnocentrism occurs in every society; ironically, ethnocentrism may be something that all cultures have in common.
Ethnocentrism is the feeling that one’s group has a mode of living, values, and patterns of adaptation that are superior to those of other groups. It is coupled with a generalized contempt for members of other groups. Ethnocentrism may manifest itself in attitudes of superiority or sometimes hostility. Violence, discrimination, and verbal aggressiveness are other means whereby ethnocentrism may be expressed. It is an attitude that one's own culture, society, or group is inherently superior to all others. Judging other cultures by your own cultural standards and since, of course, other cultures are different, they are therefore inferior. Ethnocentrism means an inability to appreciate others whose culture may include a different racial group, ethnic group, religion, morality, language, political system, economic system, etc. It also means an inability to see a common humanity and human condition facing all women and men in all cultures and societies beneath the surface variations in social and cultural traditions.
This term was coined by William Graham Sumner, a social evolutionist and professor of Political and Social Science at Yale University. He defined it as the viewpoint that “one’s own group is the center of everything,” against which all other groups are judged. Ethnocentrism often entails the belief that one's own race or ethnic group is the most important and/or that some or all aspects of its culture are superior to those of other groups. Within this ideology, individuals will judge other groups in relation to their own particular ethnic group or culture, especially with concern to language, behaviour, customs, and religion. These ethnic distinctions and sub-divisions serve to define each ethnicity's unique cultural identity.
Ethnocentrism is common among people belonging to large empires. Toynbee notes that Ancient Persia regarded itself the center of the world and viewed other nations as increasingly barbaric in degree that they were farther away. China's very name is composed of ideographs meaning "center" and "country" respectively, and traditional Chinese world maps show China in the center.
England defined the world's meridians with itself as on the center line, and to this day longitude is measured in degrees east or west of it Greenwich (a town, now part of the south eastern urban sprawl of London, on the south bank of the river Thames in the London Borough of Greenwich).They used to claim that "the sun never sets on the British Empire."
The Japanese word for foreigner ("gaijin") also means "barbarian", and Japanese do not normally use the term to describe themselves when visiting other countries. For a Japanese person in New York, New Yorkers are gaijin - not Japanese tourists.
ETHNOCENTRISM AS SELFISHNESS
In the latter quarter of the 20th century, various forms of ethnocentrism began to be decried, largely by other groups professing either to be innocent of ethnocentrism themselves or eminently qualified to embrace it. Black Americans complained of the Eurocentrism of white America while exalting Afrocentrism. Edward Said wrote a book called Orientalism arguing that the West could not understand Arab and Islamic cultures (and should not try to).
Many wars have been fought with ethnocentricism as a major theme. World War II entailed ethnocentrism on two fronts: Nazi Germany's "master race" concept exalted the so-called "Aryan people", while Japan proposed its Greater East-Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. The Nazis succeeded in taking over much of Europe and embarked on the largest ethnic cleansing campaign. The term ethnic cleansing refers to various policies of forcibly removing people of another ethnic group.
The reasons for maintaining an ethnicity or culture are often personal, and relate to the cohesion of familiar personal and social elements. We all are born into a human culture, and it is the culture that shapes our self-awareness and understanding of other individuals. It also reflects, depending on the cultural teaching, customs or patterns of behaviour in relating to other cultures. This behaviour can range from universal acceptance or feelings of inferiority compared with other cultures, to racism, which many consider an aspect of xenophobia. Some examples of ethnocentric behaviours are represented by such social phenomena as economic isolationism, counter-cultures, anti-establishmentism, and widespread social patterns of interpersonal abusive behaviours as prejudice, and discrimination.
WHAT IS XENOPHOBIA?
Xenophobia denotes fear of strangers or of the unknown and comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning "foreigner", "stranger", and φόβος (phobos), meaning "fear".The term is typically used to describe fear or dislike of foreigners, but racism in general is sometimes described as a form of xenophobia. In science fiction, it has come to mean 'fear of extraterrestrial things.' Xenophobia implies a belief, accurate or not, that the target is in some way foreign. Prejudice against women cannot be considered xenophobic in this sense, except in the limited case of all-male clubs or institutions.
The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition ("DSM-IV") includes in its description of a phobia an "intense anxiety" which follows exposure to the "object of the phobia, either in real life or via imagination or video..." For xenophobia there are two main objects of the phobia. The first is a population group present within a society, which is not considered part of that society. Often they are recent immigrants, but xenophobia may be directed against a group which has been present for centuries. This form of xenophobia can elicit or facilitate hostile and violent reactions, such as mass expulsion of immigrants, or in the worst case, a pogrom. A pogrom (from Russian: "погром") is a massive violent attack on people with simultaneous destruction of their environment (homes, businesses, religious centers). In English and most of other languages, historically the term has been used to denote massive acts of violence, either spontaneous or premeditated, against Jews.
The second form of xenophobia is primarily cultural, and the object of the phobia is cultural elements which are considered alien. All cultures are subject to external influences, but cultural xenophobia is often narrowly directed, for instance at foreign loan words in a national language. It rarely leads to aggression against persons, but can result in political campaigns for cultural or linguistic purification. Isolationism, a general suspicion of foreign governments and states, is not accurately described as xenophobia.
There are many different terms coined to express “phobias” and they are related to xenophobia:
Amerophobia, Columbophobia - Fear or hatred of the United States, American culture, etc.
Anglophobia - Fear or hatred of England, English culture, etc.
Australophobia, Novahollandiaphobia - Fear or hatred of Australia, Australians, Australian culture etc.
Christophobia - Fear or hatred of Christianity
Germanophobia, Teutophobia - Fear or hatred of Germany, German culture, etc.
Japanophobia, Nipponophobia - Fear or hatred of the Japanese.
Judeophobia - Fear or hatred of Jews.
Papaphobia - Fear or hatred of the Pope.
Polonophobia – Fear or hatred of Poles.
Russophobia – Fear or hatred of Russians.
Sinophobia - Fear of the Chinese, Chinese culture, etc.
Sociophobia - Fear of society or people in general.
Racism is closely related to xenophobia. It has historically been defined as the belief that race is the primary determinant of human capacities, that a certain race is inherently superior or inferior to others, and/or that individuals should be treated differently according to their racial designation. One view of the origins of racism emphasizes stereotypes, which psychologists generally believe are influenced by cultural factors. People generally respond to others differently based on what they know, which may include superficial characteristics often associated with race. A "white" person walking after dark in a primarily "black" neighborhood in an American city might be anxious for a combination of reasons. The same may be said for an African-American walking in a white neighborhood.
WHY IS ETHNOCENTRISM BAD?
Ethnocentrism leads us to make false assumptions about other peoples. We are ethnocentric when we use our cultural norms to make generalizations about other peoples' cultures and customs. Such generalizations -- often made without a conscious awareness that we've used our culture as a universal yardstick -- can be way off base. Ethnocentrism also influences communication between human beings.
Ethnocentric thinking causes us to make wrong assumptions about other people because:
"They" may not be very good at what we are best at.
By evaluating "them" by what we are best at, we miss the many other aspects of life that they often handle more competently than we do.
Some very simple examples of ethnocentric thinking:
We often talk about British drivers driving "on the wrong side" of the road. Why not just say "opposite side" or even "left hand side"?
We talk about written Hebrew as reading "backwards." Why not just say "from right to left" or "in the opposite direction from English."
HOW TO AVOID ETHNOCENTRISM?
One must be careful, of course, not to throw around charges of "ethnocentrism" to try to discredit people with whose views we disagree. The best use of an understanding of ethnocentrism is to use it to correct our own ethnocentric attitudes and behavior rather than that of others.
We would do well to keep in mind the 2,000-year-old admonition of Jesus of Nazareth when he asked, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3)
FURTHER READING
www.esldrive.com
ENGLISH AS A SECOND OR FOREIGN LANGUAGE RESOURCES FOR ESL TEACHERS
Send E-Mail to: esldrive@gmail.com
Copyright © 2008 Language and Cultural Identity. ESL Resources.. All Rights Reserved