Identificación y conteo de leucocitos y eritrocitos

Table 5.4 Significance of intercultural awareness

Theme 2: Significance of intercultural awareness

Sub-theme 1: Linguistic relativity

• High relevance

• Medium relevance • Low relevance

Sub-theme 2: Language empowerment

• Linguistic proficiency • Linguistic inadequacy

The second theme to emerge from the data analysis is the significance of intercultural awareness (see Table 5.4). The results showed that there were no differences between teaching staff and student participants. That is, on this issue, all the participants reached a consensus on the view of intercultural awareness. They strongly believed that intercultural awareness is of great importance both personally and professionally. As the following two student participants stated:

Intercultural awareness is very crucial in every individual. Knowing about different cultures, and knowing culture through languages, is a very crucial component of everyone’s life. (Student 13)

It’s breaking down the barriers, and like I say it’s important for work – and even in the class, we have quite a diverse range, and seeing how people learn – and that’s quite important for the awareness. (Student 13) Moreover, there was also a high agreement among all the participants that language and culture are closely related. The findings in this part emphasised the strong relationship between culture and language. In fact, the prevalent

assumption was that language proficiency is beyond the basics of language. This is illustrated by the following notable comments:

There are lots of other things around those basics of language, and that’s where intercultural awareness comes in. It often meshes with language, but it’s not dependent on it. (Staff 5)

Culture is a term that encompasses almost everything. One of the parts of culture is language, it is a part of culture, but it is not culture by itself. (Staff 3)

Language being the vehicle of communication, and communication being the way that we know other human beings, language is central to true intercultural awareness. (Staff 4)

Understanding meaning as well as the intention behind that meaning, so it’s not only understanding in terms of vocabulary, it’s understanding in a whole lot of terms. (Student 7)

The significance of cultural awareness theme mainly relates to two aspects:

linguistic relativity and language empowerment. Linguistic relativity is sometimes also referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Sapir, 1966; Whorf, 1956).

According to Piller (2010), different languages sometimes offer different concepts for perceiving and experiencing the world around us. That is to say, different languages lead people to see and interpret the world in different ways.

Language as a tool for empowerment presents humanity with a unique perspective, which is accessible only to those who speak it. Any new language in which a person attains proficiency broadens that person’s social, economic and cultural horizons in quite a profound way. Trying to internalise the intricacies of a non- mother tongue is enlightening and empowering.

5.3.2.1 Sub-theme 1: Linguistic relativity

All of the participants believed that language and culture are embedded in each other and affect one another. Evidence of participants’ beliefs is introduced below:

The two go together – so learning the language means that you can

understand the culture better, and learning about the culture means that the language makes more sense – so they are very intertwined. (Survey student participant 08)

Having a cultural side of language learning would greatly benefit and help us to better learn the new target language. (Student 11)

The culture and the language interrelate. There’s no other way for you – if you don’t know the language, you don’t know the culture, because after all the language was made from this beautiful culture. The two things must be dealt with together, rather than having two separate things. (Student 13) These comments from participants support the view that language and culture are intertwined and interrelated. As discussed earlier in the literature chapter, teaching languages without the cultural context has been proven to be the least effective method of teaching and is therefore not to be recommended. This is also supported by a study that linguists conducted in the 1970s in Quebec, Canada. The study found that a learner who is keen about the target culture will be more successful in their language studies. Moreover, the culturally curious students will be more receptive to the language and more open to forming relationships with native speakers (Billy, 1980). Two student participants pointed out:

Particularly if you think of wanting to later on do translating and interpreting, then clearly you have to have an understanding of cultural situations and differences, because it is often reflected through language – the way people communicate and the way they learn, and it is quite

interesting because there are particularly things that perhaps even what we’ve learned in text, but it has some sort of traditional meaning, or it’s something that makes you think ‘why would you say it like that, why is it implied like that?’ because that is something that relates to some cultural understanding that is then reflected through language. (Student 13)

It’s important in terms of learning about a language, so you should learn a bit about the culture as well. I prefer to get that from a hands-on experience

5.3.2.2 Sub-theme 2: Language empowerment

Another significant aspect described in the data was the willingness to

communicate with people from different cultures by using the target languages. The overwhelming majority of the participants considered this aspect first and foremost. A recurring subtheme within language empowerment is the sense of achievement that attached to the development of skills in communication and successful attempts to communicate in target languages. One staff participant mentioned his early working experience in the target country by saying, “being able to understand and communicate, and being able to talk to people in the culture, and them not realising that you are not ‘one of them’, actually to that stage of feeling that you were ‘one of them’ in a superficial sense” (Staff 2). In addition, one student participant shared his view: “It was pretty amazing for me for the first time when I helped someone to use the telephone because I’d

communicated with somebody from outside in a language which was not native to either of us.” (Student 2)

While communicating with people from different cultures, language learners should respect other cultures, possess the motivation to communicate with people regardless of their cultures and build up confidence and social understanding. As one student participant commented:

It’s a huge thing, and it’s that aspect of not just the meaning of words, but the intention behind them – and language carries a whole culture behind it, not just dictionary meanings of words – and unless that comes across, or you can go to a country and use a language – it’s a beginning, and to learn those words, how to use them in sentences and string them together with the right grammar, this gives you the possibility of communication with

someone in that culture – it’s the first step, and you learn quickly enough if your heart, ear and eyes are open – but it’s the first step, the communication – and the willingness to communicate. It’s a lovely thing. (Student 7)

To add further depth to this point, the next major theme will illustrate some examples in detail.