Getting in touch with your roots

If your family spoke a particular language in the past you might want to learn it and possibly teach it to your children. It could also be useful if you are research your family tree and some of the documents you find are written in a language foreign to you.

Culture

Maybe you're interested in the literature, poetry, films, TV programs, music or some other aspect of the culture of people who speak a particular language and want to learn their language in order to gain a better understanding of their culture.

Religion

Missionaries and other religious types learn languages in order to spread their message. In fact, missionairies have played a major role in documenting languages and devising writing systems for many of them. Others learn the language(s) in which the scriptures/holy books of their religion were originally written to gain a better understanding of them. For example, Christians might learn Hebrew, Aramaic and Biblical Greek; Muslims might learn Classical Arabic, and Buddhists might learn Sanskrit.

Food

Perhaps you enjoy the food and/or drink of a particular country or region and make regular trips there, or the recipe books you want to use are only available in a foreign language.

Make Points with a Date

Your bilingual or multilingual date will be impressed by any efforts you make to learn his or her language. And a date who speaks only English will be awed and wooed by hearing some intimate phrases spoken in one of the romance languages.

Stimulate the intellect

Studies show that seniors exhibit improved brain function over a period of time as they learn a foreign language. College students who learn a foreign language as children score better on exams and perform complex tasks better.

Linguistic interest

Maybe you're interested in linguistic aspects of a particular language and decide to learn it in order to understand them better.

Challenging yourself

Maybe you enjoy the challenge of learning foreign languages or of learning a particularly difficult language.

Sounds/looks good to me

Perhaps you just like the sound of a particular language when it's spoken or sung. Or you find the written form of a language attractive. If you like singing, learning songs in other languages can be interesting, challenging and enjoyable.

One language is never enough!

If like me you're a bit of a linguaphile / glossophile / linguaholic or whatever you call someone who is fascinated by languages and enjoys learning them, then one language is never enough.

In each paragraph point out key phrases and words that explain the reason to study languages. Fill in the table.

Reason	Explanation
Emigration	to communicate and integrate with the local community

Team work

Discuss the reasons to study languages mentioned above with your group mates. What do you agree with, or what ideas are absolutely fake? Try to develop the list of reasons.

2. Enjoy some more ideas that will definitely convince you of the importance of foreign language learning!

TOP 10 REASONS TO STUDY A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

10. You won’t have to read the subtitles at foreign films.

9. You will increase the number of brain cells you have.

8. You will impress your date at a fancy restaurant by ordering dishes like Boeuf Bourguignon, using correct pronunciation.

7. You can drop names like Ibsen, Confucius, Nietzsche, Camus, Cicero, Dostoevsky, and Cervantes at cocktail parties after having read them, in the original!

6. You will know what words like deja vu, Perestroika, Tiananmen, smorgasbord, Zeitgeist, and macho REALLY mean.

5. You can get on track early with foreign language classes to prepare for study or internships abroad for a year, a semester, or a summer.

4. When you travel abroad you will be able to talk to people in their language, thus experience up close and personal the local culture.

3. You will understand the English language and American culture better through exposure to another language and culture.

2. You will acquire a highly marketable supporting area of study enhancing any major from A nthropology to Z oology, and thus get a job that will make your friends envious and your parents relieved.

1. You will become a more well-rounded WORLD CITIZEN!!!

Write a short article to the university newspaper about the necessity of learning foreign languages for a future professional.

Unit V

Modern world

Ø What do you think about the importance of learning about other cultures in today’s multicultural Global Village?

Ø What do you think Global Village is?

Ø What is culture? Can you give any definitions on the spot?

Ø What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “CULTURE”? Music? Art? Literature? Cultural patterns of behavior?

Ø Are beliefs and values shared by people belonging to one and the same cultural community?

Ø What does this word mean personally to you?

WHAT CULTURE IS

The quotations reflecting different points of view on what culture is are presented in this part. While reading try to identify the key words, related to the concept “culture”, paying attention to the word combinations in bold. Compare your list with your partners’ lists and decide what should be included into this list by all means. Ground your decision.

 

 

“What is culture? I believe, it is the way of life of a particular society or group of people, including patterns of thought, beliefs, behavior, customs, traditions, rituals, dress, language, as well as art, music and literature”. (Elizabeth Primrose)

“Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group from another”. (Geert Hofstede)

 

“Very often when we use the word "culture", we mean the customs, beliefs, art, music and add the other products of human thought which were made by a particular group of people at a particular time”. (Adam Cotter)

“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus the history of the human spirit”. ( Matthew Arnold)

 

“Culture is the shared set of assumptions, values, and beliefs of a group of people by which they organize their common life”. (Gary Wederspahn)

“Culture is the system of information that codes the manner in which the people in an organized group, society or nation interact with their social and physical environment”. (Psychology textbook)

“Culture consists in patterned ways of thinking, freezing and reacting. The essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values”. ( Clyde Kluckhohnz)

 

“Culture consists of concepts, values, and assumptions about life that guide behavior and are widely shared by people”. (Richard Brislin)

 

“Culture is an integrated system of teamed behavior patterns that are characteristic of the members of any given society. Culture refers to the total, way of life for a particular group of people. It includes what a group of people thinks, says, does and makes - its customs, language, material artifacts and shared systems of attitudes and feelings” ( Robert Kohls)

 

“Culture refers to the experience, knowledge, values, and behaviors of any one group of people”. (Carol Archer)

“Culture is a complex concept, with many different definitions, but simply put, "culture refers to a group or community with which we share common experiences that shape the way we understand the world. It includes groups that we are born into, such as gender, race, or national origin. It also includes groups we join or become part of. Jot example, we can acquire a new culture by moving to a new region, by a change in our economic status, or by becoming disabled. When we think of culture this broadly, we realize we all belong to many cultures at once. In a world as complex as ours, each of us is shaped by many factors, and culture is one of the powerful forces that acts on us. In other words, culture is central to what we see, how we make sense of what we see, and how we express ourselves”. (Marcelle E. DuPraw and Marya Axner)

“Culture is but the fine flowering of real education, and it is the training of the freezing, the tastes and the manners that makes it so”. (Minnie Kellogg)

“Culture is everything. Culture is the way we dress, the way we carry our heads, the way we walk, the way we tie our ties — it is not only the fact of writing books or building houses”. (Aime Cesair)

“Culture is to ''know the best that has been said and thought in the world."(Matthew Arnold)