Language and Cultural Awareness Transformation

[Tom Odom]

@ Tom, from my limited perspective, I've seen that the culture skills normally outweigh the language skills. I'd be more interested in seeing how much time those people have overseas away from the flagpole.

Excellent point and I figure we both can guess a good answer!

I agree somewhat on the cultural skills having greater weight as I have met a number of folks who could speak a language but could not get along within the culture. I was lucky to have Stan with his language skills and adaptability. To paraphrase a rebuff I once heard on a sitcom, "I can lose weight, you will always be an A$$" one can learn a language but an A$$ will always be just so

Stan--usually--kept me out of trouble when my A$$hole side began to emerge

Tom

[Beelzebubalicious]

Good point, Tom. We all live within cultures and don't need to travel to become aware or develop greater understanding of them. Awareness training should start at home. General awareness, respect for others and curiousity goes a long way. the particulars can be learned. It's just tragic when you have people that spend a lot of time overseas, but don't learn a damn thing. I've met a few guys who have spend time overseas in a base but didn't know squat about the culture they were living in. And that gets me to an idea. How about language training and awareness for the children of military overseas? My son spoke and understood more Russian after 2 years in Ukraine than I did and he's 3.

[jmm99]

Stan
Between listening to Swiss German as a child to studying German in HS, I conclude it has really helped me with my other languages (some of which I literally learned in the bush).

Beelzebubalicious
My son spoke and understood more Russian after 2 years in Ukraine than I did and he's 3

First, the best consise explanation I could find tonite; and then the explanation by CPT Luoma (his Nam rank), my doc and longer-term friend.

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A basic 3-page article (very quick read) that explains the language-learning process:

A Model for Language Learning:
From a Brain-considerate Approach
Kenneth A. Wesson
......
Around twenty-two months of age, the neural circuitry has often physically connected Broca's area (the posterior inferior portion of the third convolution in the frontal lobe) to Wernicke's area (located in the left temporal lobe, posterior to the primary auditory complex), the cortical region devoted to assisting with semantic analysis. Once these connections are established, a child will begin constructing his/her first short sentences predictably composed of a single verb and a single noun (“Tyler eat”).

http://www.sciencemaster.com/wesson/...R_language.pdf

1. Wernicke's area - understanding language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernicke's_area

2. Broca's area - producing speech

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area

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Here is my doc's take (as I remember the basics). His son-in-law was stationed on Okinawa, with little kids (pre-KG) who played with the native kids. The kids were soon "bi-lingual" - actually mono-lingual, but with two parallel and interlinked grammar and vocabulary tracks. In short, they knew when to use English and when to use Okinawan (whatever language is spoken there).

That interested him, so he started researching it. He got into the more technical stuff above; but the basic idea is that the kid's brain became adapted to taking in more than one word for a concept (a multi-language dictionary, Word A & Word B) and multi-language word strings (multi-grammar). To the kids, everything was one language - use of the right words and word strings depended on the context. Nothing was translated by them.

Doc went on that, in kids who developed that way when young, adding a third language or more was easy even when they were older (so, an added multi-language dictionary, Word A, Word B & Word C). And, without translation, even for the third language.

Now, for folks like me (without strong early childhood multi-language exposure), the process is translation. Even if I am using a foreign language regularly, I am still translating - which might be fairly fast in familiar areas, but still translation. So, no real feel for the language.

And, if you like me are tone deaf, the speaking and listening part is very deficient. As Kenneth A. Wesson points out, music and language abilities are closely related. My mom picked up on that when she realized I was quite hopeless in picking up a proper Swedish accent, even by listening to her's.

[Ken White]

I'm badly tone-deaf. Cao means 'tall,' it can also mean an ugly word. People would try to say the word in both tones and say "see the difference." My answer was always "no"...

You have my sympathy on the Swedish.

[William F. Owen]

I'm pretty lucky in my wife is German. I know when I'm in trouble when I start getting yelled at in German!

I've tried doing the Rosetta Stone program which the Army touts as the be all end all answer to our need for langague adept soldiers. It wasn't a bad tool but in no way could compete with working with the locals.

I can only dream of being yelled at in German! I get yelled at in both Hebrew and Arabic.

..but seriously. Rosetta Stone is good, if you can read the language. In Hebrew or Arabic, it's very hard going. In Spanish it's a doodle.

I think U-BOAT 509 has it right, when he says the language bit is over emphasised, and we need to go with what we've got.

My take is it that some folks naturally pick up languages. (eg: My mother spoke 5 fluently and another 3 to a workable degree.) These types should be put to the lead.

The rest of us morons should just learn how to gain and keep respect as concerns other cultures.

[Stan]

My take is it that some folks naturally pick up languages. (eg: My mother spoke 5 fluently and another 3 to a workable degree.) These types should be put to the lead.

The rest of us morons should just learn how to gain and keep respect as concerns other cultures.

Hey Wilf !
In my case I would agree, that some indeed are better and faster at picking up foreign languages. That however should not negate the need to improve where we can and definitely need to. There used to be a strange (fictitious) language aptitude test, which indicated the individual's ability to learn a foreign language. Years ago DIA administered it in order to determine if the individual was worth the time and money of being sent to DLI or FSI. Even then with 2 qualified languages under my belt, I failed the test

God, I hope they got rid of that test! Never tried Rosetta, probably too late

[Stan]

Stan--usually--kept me out of trouble when my A$$hole side began to emerge

Tom

Tom, to be fair, there were times that I needed to jam you down the breech and having a large and angry Ranger along.... well, a cultural exchange for the Zaïrois

[nichols]

Doc went on that, in kids who developed that way when young, adding a third language or more was easy even when they were older (so, an added multi-language dictionary, Word A, Word B & Word C). And, without translation, even for the third language.

Now, for folks like me (without strong early childhood multi-language exposure), the process is translation. Even if I am using a foreign language regularly, I am still translating - which might be fairly fast in familiar areas, but still translation. So, no real feel for the language.

That is exactly what goes on in my family. While they were small, I was not allowed to speak Czech, only English. Now they are fluent in both languages, can switch in mid thought to address both English & Czech speakers.

Thier dreams are sometimes in Czech and sometimes in English. Only down side is that when they get into the school system, the unknowing classifiy them as behind the general populationbecause thier phonics capabilities are not 'up to speed' with the rest of the class.

The end state is that once they get into the groove of school, and get past the issue of thinking that they are behind, they usually become straight A students.

[Beelzebubalicious]

This string makes me think of my former applied anthropology masters thesis advisor, Dr. Michael Agar. He's a linguistic anthropologist that has been delving into complexity theory and is definitely an out of the box thinker. In 2007, he participated in a military panel on language/culture for the military. His website is http://www.ethknoworks.com/

Here's a link to the workshop on language and culture at Leavenworth that Dr. Agar participated in and a report on Building Cultural Capability for Full-Spectrum Operations.

One of the findings of that report was that:

Findings strongly support the role of culture-general skills and affect. Workshop discussions emphasized that cross-cultural training should place priority on generalizable concepts about culture and skills that enable leaders and Soldiers to learn about and adapt to unfamiliar cultural environments on their own. In particular, interpersonal skills, non-ethnocentric attitudes, and openness emerged from workshop discussions and the literature as some of the most consistent contributors to success in cross-cultural settings. Foreign language plays a role, but its contribution to a broad cultural capability is limited and small relative to culture-general affect, skills, and characteristics.