Week 6. Culture and written discourse.

 There are distinctions in the features of texts in relation to both patterns and styles that writers of different languages and cultures produce.
I believe it is crucial for a TESOL educator to be aware of L1 influence in L2 students' English writing. Model essays that would show the contrast in organizational patterns as well as introduction to  journal writing are among successful approaches to teach  L2 students to explore cultural differences in L2 writing. I agree with Yoshimura that teaching the form of an English argumentative essay including such moments as the organizational pattern, coherence structure, and argumentative patterns are just as helpful and important as focus on the process and content of the essay.
Thus, exposing L2 writing conventions to L2 learners and making these conventions explicit is important for understanding the cross-cultural differences in writing.
Whorfian interpretaion of rhetorical patterns reflecting patterns of thinking in L1 and Kaplan's five types of paragraph development can be named as the beggining in contrastive rhetorics research. The research in contrastive rhetorics in the late 30-odd years proved that all groups engage in a variety types of writing depending on the genre. However, Kaplan's earlier model is useful as it reflected college students' essays. For a TESOL educator, it can give some basic insight while keeping in mind that there is more to it.
Would you agree that linearity, clarity and coherence are the basic features of Western writing while  dynamic and fluidness are Japanese's?
I liked the idea that contrastive rhetorics research is similar to intercultural pragmatics analysis as this comparison makes it clear that contrastive research is not only about the first language or the national culture.
 
Japanese culture by Kubota
Explicit teaching through a discourse convention  and creation of rhetorical pluralism in the mainstream English discourse community were two pedagogical implications of the recent studies on L2 writing and critical thinking for academic purposes. However, the perspectives of poststructuralist and postcolonial critique as well as pedagogical perspectives from critical multiculturialism and literacy have revisited the taken-for-granted cultural differences.  Instead, these differences should be viewed in the discourse in which this particular knowledge is constructed and contested. It is obvious that this critique of cultural differences confirms the belief that ESL/EFL teachers should critically examine them. I have always tried not to approach my students as representatives of monolithic, unidimentional culture. Moreover, it is important to remember that culture also has political and ideological implications to it as in the case of the Other which is constructed by colonial discourse.
Thus, by critical examination of the target culture and the culture of (a) particular student(s), TESOL educators will not stereotype the individual students based on their culture of origin.

Week 5. Otherization.

Oriental is a subjugated element as opposed to European identity. While 'Orient' is perceived as uncivilised and irrational, 'Occident' is reserved, logical, and rational. Orientalism by Said indeed remains one of the most influential and controversial works when speaking of 'otherization'. It is well-known that Said's work is about the discources of the Western colonisers by which the colonised nations and its people of the East are framed. In this respect, the question of power is the central matter here, and the assertion of self-identity is involved.
I have heard that it is difficult for a Japanese to say "I", and that he or she would avoid direct projection on himself/herself. Moreover, one person in class has told me and other students that it is hard to get 'yes' or 'no' answer from a Japanese. Having not read or encountered with Japanese people a whole lot in my life, I have not thought really anything like that about them. A friend of mine told me that Japanese are very closed and isolated , and that they do not let outsiders in their discourse no matter how long one has lived in their country. My friend admitted it was hard for her to live in Japan for 10 years. However, as it is explained by Sugimoto, who foriengers mainly interact with are core sub-cultural groups which are ideologically dominant and possess that ideological capital. Disinterest in seeking outside information and confirmation to Japan's multiculturalism by writers and editors of publications add to the slanted views on Japan in a unidimentional way. In addition, intercultural training propagate stereotypes and promote otherization.
I loved images of the other by Benetton. I do not find them perilous in terms of invoking crude racist images and associations as there is nothing subservient in the image. Rather I see it as a type of imagery that represents human diversity and trunscultural unity. I believe I've seen similar images on ets.org-- there was an image of an African American man, a white lady, and an Asian man speaking with each other, all dressed professionally, and representing by their independent and mutually respectful behavior a transnational ethos that fits in the global market.
However, I think that the notion of Other unfortunately is still persistent and conditioned by the power of the West in economy, military, and technology.  As a TESOL educator, I think it is important to remember that foreign students may feel like 'others' and not really be able to understand this feeling of otherness as they are not being mentally or physicallly opressed but still they feel they do not fit in/ they do not fully belong to the new community.  They realize that they need to relearn new skills and  new values in order to fit in. It is very important to introduce students to these values while letting them express their own for mutual exchange.

Cultural Assimilation and its illusions.
I understand and concur with Zangwill about that nature will return and cultural assimilation is delusional. It is impossible to shed your past identity as this is who I am. This is what happened to me. When I came here I tried to assimilate the new culture I was living in but soon I realized that I am not comfortable with myself. I found that it makes me feel in my skin when I keep in touch with my ethnic roots and when I continue to harbor my ethnic consciousness.

Identity and Language Learning: Discourse, Culture, and Identity

The one on one relationship between language and cultural variability is definitely an oversimplification. I have experienced what is means to be separated by a deep cultural gap between speakers of the same language that Gumberz is talking about (Holliday, 75). When I moved from the northern part of my country, Chukotka, Russia, to Siberia, I immediately felt that I do not fit in as I came across a whole new culture with its values, traditions, beliefs, attitudes, and historical "baggage". Siberia is the centre of Buddhism in Russia, and growing up in a non-religious environment in the North, I found it hard to adjust to a new place where religion carries such a profound influence on people. Different ways of life based on the traditional economic centers ( for example, reindeer herding, fishing, sealing, extraction of a sea animal, and fur trapping in Chucotka and agricultural and commercial products such as wheat, potatoes, vegetables, sheep and cattle farming, timber, leather, graphite, and textiles in Buryatia)  and beliefs existing in these two different regions of Russia comprise
different types of discourses which enact and recognize defferent identities and activities. Even though the main language that is spoken in these two regions is Russian, Chukot, Eskimo, and Buryat langauages create unique local cultures and certainly serve as social languages in their areas.
So who am I? I tried to identify myself as a member of a socially meaningful group or social network . So far, I came up with such discourses: a half Buryat, a quarter Belorussian, a quarter Evenk, and a quarter Kamchadal, a Russian citizen, a middle-class emigrant of America, a graduate student, a Buddhist, a mother. Furthermore, my various social practices of the sociocultural groups to which I belong represent different cultural models that 'shape and organize large and important aspects of experience for particular groups of people as well as the sorts of conversations'.

I have experienced the so called culture shock even though I studied at the foreign language's department in my country and absorbing American and British cultures was what we, students, strived to do. However, when I started living here I realized that people that surrounded me did not understand me. I felt strange to myself because my 'historical' baggage, my cultural traditions and beliefs were just something cute but not applicable to any part of my life here. I felt like I lost my 'self', that nobody knows me the way I really am, and that I am playing some kind of a role I am forced to play. I missed speaking my language, celebrating holidays of my country, hearing the noise of the Russian songs from the streets, laughing with my friends, and most importanly, that same wavelength each country live  on. I still dearly miss my country but I have adjusted to my new life. I am enjoying the new experiences because learning always benefits our identities. Mutiplicity of identities inevitable and Westernization has captivated me for many years. It was something I strived to understand and expereince so badly that I am who I am now--an immigrant. I am in line  with the new set of conventions and social relationships sanctioned by the new community in which I find myself.