Cross-cultural perspectives for advanced ESL learners

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Cross-cultural perspectives for advanced ESL
learners
Emotional Intelligence

• Presented by
• Hui-wen Vivian Tang
• Mu-shang Max Yin

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• Students
• Advanced ESL learners in
• Taiwan China
• Materials
• American Multicultural
• literature
• Method
• Cultural-response approach

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Problems

• Grammar-Translation/new criticism approaches
  silence the dialogue
• Reader-response approach
• not challenge readers worldview/self-identity,
  misinterpret the text

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Cultural-response approach

• Increase cross-cultural understanding
• Reflecting on ones own race, culture ethnicity
• Respect others
• Explore the cultural context of the text.

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• I. The beginning of contrast East v.s.West
• II. Emotions cross-cultural research
• III. Emotions in cross-cultural
• reading
• IV. Emotionality in American literary classics
• V. Emotionality in contemporary African American
  literature

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I. The beginning of contrast

• Western paintings v.s.
• The mental state of human subjects
• Each individual is unique

• Chinese paintings
• Human as a dot in a vast landscape
• No facial expressions
• Social characteristics rather than personalities

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I. The beginning of contrast

• Individualistic countries (low-context) USA,
  Australia, UK, Canada, Netherlands, Italy,
  France, Sweden......
• Collectivistic countries (high-context) China
  (Taiwan), Peru, Costa Rica, Pakistan, Indonesia,
  Colombia, Equador, Guatemala

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I. The beginning of contrast

• Low-context
• (individualism)
• Control the natural environment.
• People need to be empowered.
• Identity is based on the individual.
• Lack emotional attachment to others/groups.
• Differences are respected.

• High-context
• (collectivism)
• Controlled by the natural environment.
• People need to be monitored.
• Identity is based on the group to which one
  belongs
• Strong emotional attachment to
• others/groups.
• Differences are dangerous.

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• American literature
• tensions and conflicts of plots hidden in
  characters inner consciousness what the
  characters do, think, feel as individuals
• Chinese classical literature
• no traditional Chinese novelists tell the
  story from the point of view of one character
  what the characters do in their roles as
  emperors, common men in relation to others.

I. The beginning of contrast
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II. Emotions cross-cultural research

• Universal or
• Studies on emotional displays
• Facial expression.
• Voice/speech variations
• Bodily sensation
• (6 original universal emotions anger, disgust,
  fear, happiness, sadness, surprise)

• Cultural specific
• Studies on emotional recognitions
• emotional expression proved to be more important
  than emotional differentiation to interpersonal
  relations in individualistic cultures
• emotion differentiation is more important than
  emotional expression in collectivist societies.

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II. Emotions cross-cultural research

• research recommendations
• Universal--Replication studies across wider
  range of cultures by using unbiased/unconstrained
  stimuli are necessary to allow cultural
  differences/similarities to emerge.
• Cultural specific--In addition to within group
  comparison, cross-cultural comparisons are
  adopted to compare levels of importance one
  culture overweight another regarding emotional
  variables.

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II. Emotions cross-cultural research

• Matsumoto (1993) studies differences in terms of
  individualism vs. collectivism
• Collectivists (typically Asian and South
  American cultures) it is important to avoid
  reflecting negatively upon the group, hence, they
  are less likely to show negative affect in public
• Individualists (typically in Western
  cultures)direct communication is important,
  hence, they are less likely to mask their
  negative affect

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Individualism vs. Collectivism

• ??Individualism
• 1. Fostering independence and individual
  achievement
• 2. Promoting self-expression, individual
  thinking, personal choice
• 3. Associated with egalitarian relationships and
  flexibility in roles (e.g., upward mobility)

Collectivism 1. Fostering interdependence and
group success. 2. Promoting adherence to norms,
respect for authority/elders, group
consensus 3. Associated with stable, hierarchical
roles (gender, family background, age)
II. Emotions cross-cultural research
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Individualism vs. Collectivism (contd)
II. Emotions cross-cultural research

• ??

Collectivism 4. Understanding the physical world
in the context of its meaning for human life 5.
Associated with shared property, group ownership
Individualism 4. Understanding the physical world
as knowable apart from its meaning for human
life 5. Associated with private property,
individual ownership
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III. Emotions in cross-cultural reading

• African Americans/Puerto Ricans demonstrated more
  intense emotional responses than others.
• Emotional responses of L2 readers are very
  different from those of L1 readers.
• L2 readers intrude inappropriate information from
  their own cultures.

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VI. Emotionality in American Literary Classics

• Text Nathaniel Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown
• Students Chinese sophomore in English Department
• Teaching Objectives
• individualism v.s. collectivism
• extreme view of the world v.s. relative
  view of the world
• monotheism v.s. polytheism

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Underlying tensions the emotional destruction of
Brown was caused by

• Inability to distinguish what was reality what
  happened in inner consciousness
• Unbearable miserable emotion centered in himself
• Total broken of previous faith on others
• Doubt/forget the extreme goodness of God

VI. Emotionality in American Literary Classics
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Chinese students responses
VI. Emotionality in American Literary Classics

• Browns tragedy shouldnt be inevitable his
  fatal mistakes are
• Unwilling to share emotions with others
• Unwise, shouldnt sum up an absolute evil
  committed by the few
• Dont rely on a single God. Gods are like human
  beings they may be both good evil.

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• Teaching Objectives
• individualism v.s. collectivism
• extreme view of the world v.s. relative view
  of the world
• (True/false questions)
• monotheism v.s. polytheism
• (Bible Mythology)

VI. Emotionality in American Literary Classics
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The Challenge

• History for me is a giant reservoir of human
• experience and its most valuable when that
• human experience comes in cultural forms
• unfamiliar to us, because one of the most
• difficult things to do in the world is to get a
  grip
• on our own pre-conceptions, assumptions,
• unexamined convictions we also have to
• control our emotions.
• Inga Clendinnen,
  interviewed by Miriam Cosic
• Weekend Australian October
  4-5, 2003 Review 9.

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V. Emotionality in Contemporary African American
Literature

• Multicultural Literature
• Objective Immersion in the very nature of
  multiculturalism in American society.
• Multicultural Novels (examples)
• Maya Angelous I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• Amy Tans Joy Luck Club
• Esmeralda Santiagos When I was Puerto Rican

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Toni Morrisons Beloved

• Thematic Concern In quest of personal identity
  and communal wholeness.
• Individual protest is potentially
  self-destructive, and only communal protest is
  capable of subverting symbolic structures. Only
  collective action leads to freedom. (Emma
  Parker, 2001)

V. Emotionality in Contemporary African American
Literature
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Thematic Concern

• How a marginalized individuals healing of
  emotional trauma and achievement of self through
  communal relations of power
• Two episodes chain-gang prayer meeting
• To illustrate how the individual achieves
  wholeness and keeps body soul in perfect
  harmony through communal power built upon mutual
  trust between the leader members.

V. Emotionality in Contemporary African American
Literature
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Chain-gang (Beloved)
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Chinese Slaves
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Prayer Meeting in Beloved
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Prayer Meeting in China
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Analysis of Chinese Students Responses

• Chinese students enjoy reading literature from
  collective cultures.
• Morrisons artistry in mastering the moral
  judgment of her characters deeds has been
  characterized as the moral ambiguity, which
  involved Chinese students intellect, emotion
  value deeply.
• Enacting a circular or repetition around the
  traumatic past, the novel echoes Chinese
  inherited circular thinking pattern.

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Analysis of Chinese Students Responses (contd)

• Difficulty Language
• Recommendations
• The introduction of multicultural literature
  should be structured based on levels of semantic
  changes in the English language.
• Other references are needed in order to
  understand Black English.

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First, using literature as media to communicate
with other cultures, and at the same time
understand our own culture. Second,
understanding factors of another culture serves
as background knowledge to enrich literature
coming from another culture.
Cultural Intelligence
To achieve the goal of
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Su DongPo (1037-1101),

• Men experience joy and sorrow,
• parting and reunion
• The moon may be dim or bright,
• wax or
  wane.
• Perfection is never easily come by.

Here's to longevity Though far apart, we
are still able to share the beauty of the
moon under the same sky.
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• When will the moon be clear and bright?
• With a cup of wine in my hand,
• I ask the blue sky.
• I don't know what season it would be in the
  palace up there tonight.

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• If only I could ride the wind and see
• Yet I fear flying above the crystal and jade
  towers.
• It is much too high and cold for me.
• Dancing with my moon-lit shadow
• It does not seem like the human world.

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Turning in the red chamberBeneath the carved
windowThe moon shines upon the sleepless

• But why complain?
• The moon is full and bright even when I am far
  away.

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• Men experience joy and sorrow,
• parting and reunion
• The moon may be dim or bright,
• wax or
  wane.
• Perfection is never easily come by.

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• Here's to longevity
• Though far apart,
• we are still able to share
• the beauty of the moon
• under the same sky.

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Since such emotions depend on various contextual
circumstances - time, space, religion, gender,
age, education - literature not only commands
approval and admiration, but also invokes fierce
debate and arouses (intercultural) conflict.

• Words have the power to move readers, make them
  sad, angry, delighted, interested, frightened,
  ashamed, disgusted, and surprised.
• Writers write with the desire to stimulate
  readers' emotions, and readers read to experience
  an affective charge.

Thanks