Bridging Language & Culture

Reflection: Interview with Karin Frisch

         Karin Frisch, a married, stay-at-home, mother of twins, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was my interviewee. She never received formal English lessons; attributing her acquisition of English, largely, through children’s books, and American media. Through my interview with Karin, I was able to apply, grammar and morpheme, correction, of her word choices and prepositions, and identify theories that we have learned through our modules, that I could apply to Karin’s L1 transfer, and acquisition of English.

         Perhaps, Karin’s high level of culture shock attributed to her, instrumental and integrative, orientation motivation of English acquisition. She met her husband in 2004, and despite the language barrier between the two, they both experienced interpersonal exchanges, and developed communication competencies to cope. Although, to Karin, her English L1 transfer to L2 seemed natural and effortless, I can identify and apply the theories of studied linguistics to her ELL experience.

         She was 25, when she moved the states, a post-critical age period, which, I believe had no hindrance on her English acquisition. She acknowledges her educational background was helpful for her language transfer. She, also, states she was exposed to English through media, music, people, and schooling. at a critical age period, 5-13 years. This is interesting because, I believe this implicit and explicit exposure may have familiarized her with English, subconsciously, way before she knew her husband would be American. This makes me very curious about our subconscious learning abilities? I can relate research that mother’s playing music for their infants increasing brain functions. I think this could be a similar phenomenon that applies to adolescence.

         I believe Karin’s ELL is a very common story of newcomer transition. I have friends and family, who have married inter-culturally.  I think this is the best example of the interpersonal, acculturation process, as the phases of a relationship, serves as an analogy for the acculturation process; euphoria, honeymoon stage, excitement; culture shock, change of perception of self in new culture, or with new person; culture stress, finding discourse to alleviate tension of native pressures, integrating two individuals in a relationship; Assimilation, adaptation to culture, relationship interdependencies. I had to write that analogy, because I think comparing acculturation stages to relationship phases, is relatable for all people, especially students. That is why I enjoyed Karin so much, she points out that people experiencing language barriers, use communication competencies, when they feel an interpersonal connections. She said a few times, “I could barley speak English, but I could feel something, and he could too, so we worked at it,” explaining her interpersonal relationship with her husband.

         Today, Karin admits she still struggles with English prepositions, and understanding English “slang.” For example, she says, “Sometimes I have to ask my husband what phrases like, face the music, mean.” Another error, and evidence of her competency strategies, in her sentence structure, was her word choice in saying “I will teach you directions [to her house].” I knew she meant, “I can give you directions to my house,” I thought it was interesting that she presented directions, as something you can teach. This make sense, we, technically, have to learn a set of turns and roads to make our directions, but in English, it is grammatically correct to “give” directions. This is an example of Karin, communicating through L1 interface, as described by Ellis’s Contrastive Hypothesis Analysis. The word “teach,” is overtly incorrect, yet, she is transfering what she knows, to express her idea. I am not Karin’s teacher, so I did not correct her, but I know as a teacher, I would want to correct students. I would use approaches discussed in Thomas and Hienle’s, in their Grammar Dimension Series.

       Karin’s, two, three-year-old, twin, girls, are bilingual in Portuguese and English. It is fun to observe her children innately switch languages to accommodate other speakers. For example, pre-school, they may say “cuidado,” to eachother, when coming down the slide, but speak English to teachers and peers. Because, she is teaching Portuguese and English to her girls, equally, I expect there social distance will low and expansive, when visiting Brazil and her in the U.S. This family is really fun, and great to observe, in my social-linguistic studies.