Mengenai Saya

Foto saya
an ordinary person who always try to be better and better

Minggu, 30 Desember 2012

English For Academic purposes


CULTURE SHOCK AND LANGUAGE LEARNERS

Facing totally different thing in new environment might cause both exciting and stressful for some people. It is commonly happened when the one who learns a new language will face some cases. According to Stern (1983), language learning is a process that can be traumatic and lead to language shock and culture shock, furthermore, Hofstede (1997, p.207) culture shock can be caused by the fact that appropriate behavior, language, underlying beliefs,values, and attitudes[1]. However, when the one learns a language, it doesn’t mean the one learns only a language itself. But since the time, the one has unconciously affected by culture shock. They learn many things else beyond it. That’s why a language learner has something special dealing with culture shock. So that the writer briefly would like to state some ideas about  the relationship betwen culture and language learners also  how the culture effects the language learners.
Whoever they are, wherever they live, and no matter what their belief are,  when they come to a new circumtances, they will absolutely get such a shock feeling  that is usually called Culture shocked. It is the phenomenon  individual commonly experience when they are confronted with the realities of the different cultural environment. The phrase of culture shocked is used to describe the feeling of individuals when they are encounter different social norms, values, belief, and way of doing[2]. This kind of things happened to every single person in the world who face the new thing for the first time in their life. In addition, the stage of culture shock has different level for everyone. The more people deal with the culture, the more people adjust to it. According to Shary, a girl from Tobaggo Island, “she said that, it’s hard to learn a language without understanding the culture, when someone learns a language, it means that someone learns its culture unconciously, and try to get used to it. As this  indonesian language learner’s  example when she first came to indonesia she got shocked to see some of Indonesian having chit chat with their family by unfolded the mat on the floor and then sat down on it. “ Actually it was quite strange for me, but  that’s indonesian culture and I have to try to understand”. she replied. Also as she has traveled alot, she had more comprehension toward cultures in such a way that she never tries to compere among them. So, by understanding the culture more, it will  get us easier to understand the language.
  There are many theories about language and culture, according to Konjaranigrat in his sociolinguistic, language is apart of culture, language and culture are two system that adhere to a human. If a language is a system that coordinate human’s interaction in the society, so that a language is a system that functioning the interaction ongoing[3]. It’s totally not false to state that it’s impossible to be a good language learner without understanding its  culture, because language and culture are like two side of a coin. furthermore, when a language learner learn a target language without understanding its culture it will be tasteless,  why I said so, because learning a language needs “sense”. It is used to choose the words properly based on the context or to state the idea according to the target language means, eventhough a language has very strong relationship with the culture, it doesn’t mean  that a good language learner will not effected by culture shock when they are coming to the area of target language. Nevertheless, according to Stern, A good language learners are often believed not to have to face culture shock[4]. In my mind, there is a question displayed about what kind of a good learner that should not face a culture shock. Perhaps, this statement would be appropriate if we have  another assumption Such as the language learner has  experiencing different aspects of culture while they learn a language,  or  the language learner has dealing with many kinds of culture in the world that means they do not focus on one language only, but they put a head on several of languages that they are having much knowledge about cultures so that they can look something from different perspective and might understand the differences among others.
In conclution, there isn’t any of a good language learner who doesn’t  get a culture shock eventhough the one has already known the culture very well.  Because the process of teaching-learning in the classroom itself has immersed the target language environment creating  affective problems and  triggering such a language shock, stress and culture shock. But at least, as being a language learner the stage of culture shock the one gets can be manageable and handled, and is able to go beyond the comparison of similarities and differences and think to construct something new by taking the positive things to understand the diversity and accept dissimilarity.


written by : Mutia Elviani
project paper of EAP class
submitted on november 27, 2012



[1] Lesson from Good language learners, Stern, 1983, pp.411-412,
[2] Culture shock, crossing culture in the language classrom pg. 108
[3] Rayapost.blogspot.com
[4] Lesson from good language learners, (stern,1983 pp.411-412)

Tidak ada komentar:

Posting Komentar