Rona A. Ysais Ms.

Lorna Israel
Seminar Paper in IS-205

Language Reculturalization

Introduction

Culture, in fact, are always “flowing” onto each other, creating a “dynamic”
whole, that keeps on shifting. The movement of people, goods, and services lead to
cultural “barrowings” (Mendoza, 2001). Specifically by looking at the language that
everyone uses to communicate also shifts its form. There is no doubt about the evolution
of language that happens in every nation. That evolution takes place in all levels: the
sound structure (phonetics and Phonology), the lexicon, the grammar (morphology and
syntax), and the pragmatics.1 There is no definite historical evolution for a reason that the
research in linguistics on the 20th century is far way different from the 19th century, thus,
this is an effect of the phenomenon of change brought by globalization.

Since people need to work together across difference, differences have to be

negotiated. People need to work across differences in work, politics, cultural activities
and everyday life. But it is increasingly understood that social difference is not only
difference between people but also difference within people. Indeed, recognizing the
difference within is the basis for being open to a non-suppressive negotiation of
differences between people and groups (Barat, 1998). Working across differences is a
process in our individual lives, within the groups we belong to… Working across
differences entails semiotic hybridity — the emergence of new combinations of
languages, social dialects, voices, genres and discourses. Hybridity, heterogeneity,
intertextuality are salient features of contemporary discourse also because the boundaries
between domains and practices are in many cases fluid and open in a context of rapid and
intense social change — the negotiation of social difference includes, for instance, the
negotiation of differences between educators, advertisers and business managers, and

1
Quoted from Steels, Luc (1999) Puzzle of evolution. Kognition Swissenchaft from
http://www.csl.sony.fr/downloads/papers/1999/steels-kogwis1999.pdf

1
between students and consumers of commodities, within educational institutions which
are increasingly forced into operating in market ways (Fairclough, _____). Consequently,
negotiating differences is at the same time negotiating identities, in such a way that
working out how one person related to others is simultaneously working out them selves.
Considering the regular day-to-day conduct of international affairs is entrusted to the
members of the Foreign Service who are accredited by the sending state as its permanent
envoys to represent it in the states with which it is maintaining diplomatic relations. As to
the Diplomats having the functions of representing its nation, protecting the interest of its
nation, negotiating with the government of the receiving state, and promoting friendly
relations between the sending and the receiving states – these diplomats certainly molds
them selves in a way the receiving states expect them to be. They have to be effective
representative for they bring with them their whole nation. More so, by doing that their
nationality is expected to be strengthened in order for them to be come efficient
representatives of the sending state.

The radical fluidity of the contemporary life unpredictably unsettle social

identities, moreover, the search for and construction of identities becomes a process and a
major preoccupation, however, it should be framed as looking it as a problem of learning
to live with difference. By looking at the language spoken by each nation there is a strong
sense of differentiation, this paper will delve in the reculturalization of language – how
does this helps the nation to become more bigger and smaller at the same time.
Furthermore, language sometimes plays crucial role for the formation of one’s identity,
however, language is same time pointed as not an indispensable deciding factor for one’s
cultural identity all the time. This paper will also show how language can no longer be
the basis of defining one’s identity.

According to Vicente Rafael2, It is through such languages causes are

strengthened, identities are formed, and ideas of nationhood are conjured. He also added
in his article A Freedom=Death: Conjurings, Oaths, and the Power of Secrecy, that,

2
Vicente L. Rafael is a professor of history at the University of Washington in Seattle. His interests include
Southeast Asia, comparative colonialism, and comparative nationalism. Currently, he is a member of the
Editorial Collective of the journal Public Culture. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_L._Rafael)

2
today there is not one language that is spoken and understood by all Filipinos, nor even a
majority of them, which simply proves that while the teaching of a foreign language may
be imposed upon a people, it can never replace the native tongue as a medium of national
expression among the common masses. This is because, as Rizal asserted, the national
thought takes root in a common language which develops and grows with the progress of
the nation. We may borrow for a time the language of other people, but we cannot truly
possess a national language except through adoption, development, and use of our own.

The Scapes

The drastic change brought by globalization has been giving many new
opportunities and consequently adversities to individual in every parts of the world. The
challenges that faced by the nation during the transition led them to the modernization of
many things and aspects of life, which gave new opportunities for individuals to rise up
and do progress for their own. Via modernity, the world has become translucent and
interdependent with each other. According to Appadurai3 (1997),

modernity now seems more practical and less pedagogic, more experimental and
less disciplinary than in the fifties and sixties, when it was mostly experienced
(especially for those outside the national elite) through the propaganda apparatuses
of the newly independent nation-states and their great leaders… the transformation
of everyday subjectivities through electronic mediation and the work of the
imagination is not only a cultural fact. More so, it is deeply connected to politics,
through the new ways in which individual attachments, interests, and aspirations
increasingly crosscut those of the nation state. (p. 10)

There are five dimensions of global cultural flows according to Appadurai, these
dimensions can be associated with the reculturalization of language. These dimensions
3
Arjun Appadurai is a contemporary social-cultural anthropologist focusing on modernity and
globalization. He also serves as Senior Advisor for Global Initiatives at The New School in New York City,
where he also holds a Distinguished Professorship as the John Dewey Professor in the Social Sciences.
(See http://www.appadurai.com/homebio.htm)

3
are: (1) ethnoscapes, (2) mediascapes, (3) technoscapes, (4) financescapes, and (5)
ideoscapes. The suffix –scape allows us to point to the fluid, irregular shapes of these
landscapes, shapes that characterize international capital as deeply as they do
international clothing style (Ibid, p. 33). In other words, the scapes are the factor that
contributes to the changes – these are fascinating and very captivating that it gives new
value and significance to the ones that has no meaning; these are also new invented
technologies that contribute to making life a more easy, simple and sometimes effortless;
it could also mean the atom. As to Appadurai, these are the building blocks of imagined
worlds – that is, the multiple worlds that are constituted by the historically situated
imaginations of persons and groups spread around the globe. An important fact of the
world we live in today is that many persons on the globe live in such imagined worlds
(and not just imagined communities) and thus are able to contest and sometimes even
subvert the imagined worlds of the official mind and of the entrepreneurial mentality that
surrounds them (Ibid, p. 33).

The imagination – is the means by which individuals connected with new global
possibilities – this could be no longer a fantasy and escape and more likely it is no longer
on elite posting, consequently, it becomes a critical to all forms of agency and is itself
become a social fact. Learning new languages it is already as like becoming more fluid
that keeps us moving. In this sense, the culture is mechanisms for setting up differences –
the language which can be learn are the ones that connect us to the world.

The ethnoscapes – people in motion, such as the migrants, tourist, refugees and so
on. People should be able to deal with one another directly using the same language or a
language that they can meet to understand each other. Think about this, imagine yourself
going to another planet not knowing how to communicate with them, most probably,
there would be a misunderstanding. On the other hand, the mediascape – refers to the
capabilities of the information elite to produce and disseminate information in forms of
newspaper, magazines, television stations, film production studios and so on. Via
information that is being spread in all parts of the world, people get to freshen up their
minds of what is up-to-the-minute. Furthermore, the technoscapes – communication

4
beyond borders, there are various technologies that helps individual’s to propagate and
share ideas and information. People nowadays are not the only thing that is in motion but
everything is all in motion, we’re all liquid. At least by all these means, it can lessen the
misunderstanding of having no commonalities in language. Moreover, the ideascapes –
differences between states and non-states ideologies. Each individual has their own
perception on language. Thus, they use it on how they perceive it. The presence of media
and technology makes the notion of language profound. Because of these modern ways,
we get to easily access in learning new languages, deepening our knowledge of others
culture and so on. In this sense, we tend to come up on the whim of capital. The
financescape – global flows of capital. Language is very important in conglomerate, how
can one do business if they could not understand each other? It is much better if two
business corporations would meet at the middle; I do not mean barter process but prior to
that – a language that can help each side to get to understand each other. Having a
common language helps both parties to understand and appreciate each other.

Modernity has brought us to a water world - everything has been liquefied that
people and things keeps on moving. They would stop however they are still moving in
their place – deterritorialization – according to Jan Scholte4, it entails the “reconfiguration
of geography, so that social space is no longer wholly mapped in terms of territorial
places, territorial distances and territorial borders. Everything is unstoppable and keeps
on evolving.

Language

Indeed the globalization is progressively changing the shape of the world –

transforming it into small world. This metaphor, once coined by Marchal McLuhan to
4
Jan Aart Scholte is Professor in PAIS and Director of the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and
Regionalisation (CSGR) at the University of Warwick. He also holds a part-time appointment as Centennial
Professor at the London School of Economics. Before coming to Warwick in 1999, he worked at the
University of Sussex, Brighton and the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. Jan Aart has also held
visiting positions at Cornell University, the London School of Economics, the International Monetary Fund,
the Moscow State University and Gothenburg University. (See
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/staff/scholte/)

5
describe the consequences of mass-media’s ability to bring events from the far reaches of
the globe (Lustig, Koester 1999: 4), now has a wider sense and reflects an increasing
social and ethnic dynamics which breaks down political and cultural borders almost
everywhere. Migrations, political and economic integration processes, development of
the global net of communication, intensification of personal and institutional contacts,
international tourism transform intercultural relations into everyday life reality. In this
situation ethnic borders loose their traditional dimension as separation lines and become,
according to Walter Minola, the space of mutual transition of what is one’s own into alien
and alien into one’s own. From this point of view borderlands perceived as a space of
cross-cultural encounters exist everywhere and are rather virtual than spatial
phenomenon. J. Kuczynski (Center for Universalism of the University of Warsaw) points
out that “the border exists everywhere, and for this reason modern ideology of
borderland, modern spirit of borderland are so continuously and daily necessary that they
become an indispensable condition of the very human existence” (Biasphamiatnyh, 2007:
p. 55)

We need the power of language, more completely to weld us into one strong
nation and at the same time our relation with our nations. It will give inspiration and
warmth to our popular movements and will accord to our nationality a new meaning to
which we have never learned to give full and adequate expression (Rafael, _____). In the
case of the Philippines being colonized by the Spaniards for over 300 years and followed
by the Americans – the composition of the Philippine national language is a mixed of
Spanish and the English. There are words from them that have been localized for the sake
of calling it as ours and through our own understanding we have given that localized
word a new meaning or interpretation.

However, sometimes having too many languages would not easily give you the
notion that this one person came from this nation. When identity is the subject – it is
sometimes correlates with the mother tongue or the native language that is being used by
a person. Nowadays, the past simple words having a single meaning as the world evolves
these words becomes meaningful – having interpreted in various means. The mother

6
tongue before was only used to define the one language that a person has grown up with.
Accordingly, SkutnabbKangas (1984 and 1988) points pout that there are several ways of
defining a mother tongue as follows; 1) the language(s) one learned first (origin), 2) the
language(s) one knows best (competence), 3) the language(s) one uses most, 4a) the
language(s) one identifies with (internal) and 4b) the language(s) one is identifies as a
native speaker of by others(external). An individual can have different mother tongues,
depending on which definition is used.

The Philippines as an archipelago has a variety of dialects such as Kapangpangan,

Ilocanos, Bisaya, and many more, the fact of having all these dialects we still have one
language that connects us to other Filipinos living on the far side of the Philippines and
that is the Tagalog. Furthermore, many Filipinos now exceed the borders of the
Philippines as well as those of the US and other countries where they migrate, work,
settle, or create new identities, communities, and cultures. That such Filipinos now are
becoming linguistic -- they can speak more than one language and can even write using
another cultures writings. In this sense, the mother tongue of the Filipinos can be
changed. They can choose which language they wanted to as their mother tongue. This is
sometimes why Filipinos abroad tend to be recognized as not Filipinos; also some
foreigners are miscalculated of their identity because of their fluency in speaking another
language that they know. Despite of having too many languages that we can learn and
speak this notion gives a positive sympathy on getting connected to others. Language can
be used to bridge the differences.

In the article Bridging the Gap: The Filipino language as spirit of national
identity, the author stated that “The Philippine government itself has made
pronouncements with regards to the importance of being good speakers of English in
order for the Filipinos to be globally competitive. This is done by the continuous use of
English as the medium of instruction in schools and by making it as the preferred
language of communication”. Despite the fact that the Philippine economy is at low, the
Filipinos as known to be as resourceful tend to find ways on how they will make progress
by their lives. There are some who travel abroad to work or even establish business but

7
prior to that they try to learn first a foreign language that will suit to their needs ones they
are working abroad.

Language is always tied up to one's culture and, of course, his identity. However,
the Filipinos cannot even speak anymore of cultural identity, with some social scientists
even talking of a "damaged culture". As a people, the Filipinos have extensively adapted
and substantially adopted the Western culture. Racially speaking, their features do not
differ from the rest of the Southeast Asians such as the Myanmarese, Kampucheans,
Vietnamese, Malaysians and Indonesians. Maybe, in todays world and in the future, it is
only language that may make the Filipinos distinct from their neighboring Southeast
Asians. Even if English is becoming to be the world's dominant language, it is still
necessary for the Filipinos to speak their national language or their regional language.
After all, it is the only language that can really, in essence, capture the feelings and
sentiments of the people, and can represent their true spirit as Filipinos. Also, language
can help promote unity within the country and develop a sense of belongingness. Chinese
and Japanese display their strength and unity through speaking their own national
language and they are more progressive compared to the Filipinos (Ibid, p. 1).

Language is indeed a very important factor of surviving your day. Moreover, it

has been an important tool in promulgating the existence of nations, distinguishing those
who are part or those who belong from those who do not. Carter5 and Sealey6 said that it
is obvious that for languages to play the role they do in ‘one-language, one-nation’

5
Bob Carter studied at the Universities of London, Birmingham and Leicester. He is co-convenor of the
MA in Race and Ethnic Studies. His research interests cover several areas. One is the evaluation of
sociological accounts of racism and the politics of immigration restriction, and this has involved the
development of a distinctive theoretical approach to the interpretation of ideas about race and the politics of
racism, based broadly on the sociological realism. This approach was set out in a number of journal articles
and in the book Realism and Racism (2000). His another interest is in language and social theory, in
particular exploring the ways in which discussion of concepts of race and ethnicity within the social
sciences can be enhanced by a more thorough engagement with social linguistics. These ideas have been
developed, with Alison Sealey, in Applied Linguistics as Social Science (2004).
6
Dr. Alison Sealey before coming to Birmingham in 2005, taught Applied Linguistics at the University of
Reading. She holds a PhD from the University of Warwick. Dr. Sealey’s research interests are in various
aspects of language in social context. This includes the interface between applied linguistics and sociology/
social theory, and a range of empirical approaches to language research, including discourse analysis and
corpus linguistics. She is interested in language planning policy and practice, and in the potential of corpus
methods for the development of language awareness, particularly with younger learners.

8
ideologies, there needs to be a correspondingly taken-for-granted concept of how
individuals come together as collectivities. In the article Language Understanding (p116)
“language is an epiphenomenon on the world as language users perceive it, and that
therefore a study of language that seeks to be explanatory will need to take into account
the knowledge, belief, expectations and purposes of those language users”

Going back to the diplomats – they have use language as they perceived it as
something that can carry not only them but the whole identity of the sending state, more
likely they have put into account of attaining the expectation from them by the receiving
state. Taking note that diplomats do not only speak one language but should of course
know how to speak another language – especially where they are assigned, gives them a
comfort of becoming part of the receiving state. Michael Janofsky encapsulate in his
article what President George W. Bush (2005) said in one of the College and University’s
President conference in US, he spoke about the country’s serious need for translation to
share up national security… “He illustrated the importance of learning such languages
with the following analogy: in order to convince people we care about them, we’ve got to
understand their culture and show them we care about them. We’ve got to understand
their culture and show them we care about their culture you know when somebody comes
to me and speak Texan, I know they appreciate Texas culture”. Herein, Bush has link
translation, entailing the learning of the foreign language and culture, with “care” and
“appreciation”. If I were to learn “Texan”, for example, I should be showing my capacity
to defer his idiom, suppressing my first language in favour of a second foreign tongue.
My deference would be evidence of my ability to recognized and respect his difference
and more generally to know the difference that makes us any speech act (Rafael, _____ p.
239). Learning of foreign language helps us protect and secure our nation. Furthermore,
in this sense, the diplomats having the knowledge to speak other language, other than
they know the language by heart, they then also appreciate and care about the culture of
the receiving state and more or less there would less misinterpretation between the
diplomat and the receiving state official. Moreover, their knowledge of foreign language
makes them secure wise and also, the diplomats become effective in promoting their
country in doing partners when it comes to investments.

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 The world is full of language. Then learning of a foreign language gives the
individual a new opportunity and advantages – it is like the doors of the world is giving
them chances to be reach out for the others. For a reason that it improves the skill of the
individual, thus this individual becomes competitive in the international community.
Every year there are lots of nursing students who graduates and tries to find their luck by
going abroad. In between their studies, they need to take a foreign language course –
most of the nursing students that I know have taken French as their Foreign Language. It
is a compulsory for them to learn a new language especially those who really wants to go
abroad and give their service. Not only the nursing students, but there are colleges and
universities that offer foreign language course, in fact, back in college I took foreign
language class and it become very useful for me. Moreover, the diplomats earlier are not
ask compulsory to learn a foreign language but it is their initiative to do so for them to be
at their best in doing their mission. Professionals who know other languages are called on
to travel and exchange information with people not only on their own nation and also in
other countries throughout their careers. Knowing more than one language enhances
opportunities in government, business, law, medicine and health care, teaching
technology, the military, communications, industry, social service, and marketing. Having
the knowledge of a foreign language other people will tend to see you as a bridge –
example is the translator. More likely an individual who knows a foreign language can
win the trust and friendship of people whose language an individual is speaking, even if
you know them just a little. In addition, learning a foreign language gives an individual a
view of another culture and consequently a new of your own. Studying a new language,
reading other people’s stories and articles and so as the books of authors from different
parts of the world, and by connecting with people in their own language can be a source
of pleasure and surprises – these may help an individual expand their personal horizons
and become a responsible citizen. The ability to tête-à-tête or have a dialogue with others
and gain knowledge beyond the world of your own language can contribute to the
community and as well as the whole nation.

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Conclusion

Language undeniably is important in our daily life. The world is getting bigger –
for a reason of the new technologies that is being discovered now and then, truly the
modernity leads us to a variety of progression it is just a matter of knowing how to deal
with it, on the other hand the world as it becomes bigger, same time it becomes smaller
because of the reculturalization of language. Through modernity, we’ve come to access
many ways of learning new things, through print media we can gain new knowledge and
other forms of media helped individual to explore more and find their capacity to interact
with one another – interdependence – in a sense that the hybridity of language makes the
world a small place, as everyone learns a common language, people tend to share
commonalities. The language unifies and strengthens the relationship of people who have
differences, like what I said, it bridges the gap of two differences.

Reference:

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11
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