Page 7 - BRIDGES - ISSUE 7

Cross Cultural Stereotypes say that all these cases are realized in
practice, but they exist as a potential
in Foreign Language Teaching which can be realized, especially in

«« timesof conflict. The issueisverycom-
plex, and is not only the matter of for-
undertaken or imported from other stereotyped representations present eign language teaching and learning.
cultures/civilizations and/orliterature. in the learner’s country regarding the It has to bedealt with within theframe-
A good example of the latter is the foreign country. To be able to do it, work of the educational system of a
saying Greek gifts’, which in this or the learner has to acquire socio-cul- particular country.In what is tofollow
'
that mode entered the vocabulary of turalcompetencewhich is transferable I shall try to draw attention to two
many languages thanks to Virgil to other cultural systems, independ- burning issues needing immediate at-
(Aeneid II,48-Timeo Danaoset dona ent of the contents of a specific FLL. tention:
ferentes). These ideas have been successfully a) The culture Y does not have a par-
implemented in a new generation of ticularly developed stereotype about
Theymayinclude factual information textbooks. The programme also en- X’s culture, and then this culture is
about a country,circumstances under courages mobility,experiential learn- seen through the general stereotype
which a particular nation lives,as well ing through ethnographicproject work of thesuperordinate category towhich
They also warn of the fallacy of the conducted within the framework of X belongs, for instance, the Balkans.
widely held belief about FLT that by student exchange programmes. The The model suggested by Byram and
giving learners greater insight into authors reported cases of Zarate - reciprocity and student ex-
another way of life will automatically English-German, French-English and change - can only be partially implied
lead to raising their awareness. How- French-German exchanges. here, for there are many languages
ever, we ought not to lose sight of the (so-called small) which are not taught
fact that awareness does not equal to However,what hasnot been taken into at schools in Europe.
’understanding’ (Byram, Morgan account by them is what happens to b) Do Y’s stereotypes about A, B,C
1992:18).Alllearnersaddress the dis- stereotypes when a foreign language ... Zhave anyimpact on Xand towhat
covery of a foreign culture with atti- is learnt. Is the old lot replaced with a extent?
tudes and knowledge which isempiri- newone? Or does the acquisition of a This is a very interesting question and
cally constructed through their own new bunch of stereotypes equal to the answer to it is positive. Very little
culture.It followsfrom this thatsocio- ’multiculturalism’? This is something has been written about the mediating
culturalinstruction inforeign language that has to be investigated within the role that the language Y, especially if
teachingdoes notstart’from zero’, but framework of second language acqui- it has the status of the international
has to deal with these preestablished sition /learning. The other issue I am language.The language Ycan besaid
conceptsof theforeignworld (bitsand goingto raise hereconcernstakinginto to have a positive role-it establishes a
pieces of information, personalexpe- account interrelations and interplay contact between the culture X and
rience,generalization andstereotypes, betweenstereotypes in two languages. other cultures (A, B or C) and with-
prejudices, aversions or preferences, The problem is obviously very com- out it such a contact would be very
etc.) in the individual learner’s mind plex and merits an in-depth analysis. difficult or even impossible. On the
(Byram, Zarate,1997:44). Easysolu- In the remaining part of the paper I other hand, there is a danger that the
tions are not readily available, but shall focus on possible ways in which learners of the language Y may sim-
there may be a chance in attempts at stereotypesof twolanguages/cultures ply adopt Y’s stereotypes about lan-
widening people’s horizons, in help- (X and Y) may interact. guages and culturesthey have noother
ing people toacquire an international contact with. A very good example is
outlook. In these studies, the authors a) X has auto-stereotypes thecaseof the Balkans,which entered
advocated the introduction of socio- b) X has stereotypes about Y many other languages through Eng-
cultural competence in language c) Y has auto-stereotypes lish as a metaphor for cultural back-
learning and teaching.They define it d) Y has stereotypes about X wardness.
ascapacity tofulfill the role of cultural e) X’s attitude of to Y’s stereotypes
intermediary between one’s own cul- about X Suggested approach in the
ture and the target culture, including f) X’sattitude to Y’sauto-stereotypes classroom:
situations of conflict. To acquire this g) Y’s attitude to X’stereotypesabout
competence,one has to possess knowl- Y Students have to be sensitized to the
edge of the interpretative discrepan- h) Y’ sattitude to X’sauto-stereotypes problem of stereotyping. This can be
cies between the two cultural systems achieved by encouraging comparison
and capacity to identify and take ac- The relations rangingfrom a-d already of the learner’sown word and the for-
count of auto-stereotypes conveyed by exist; those presented from e-h are
theforeign community, and alsoof the only possible outcomes. This is not to

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