This document discusses cultural stereotyping and othering. It includes discussion prompts on stereotypes people bring to their profession, how stereotypes lead to disadvantage or inferior treatment, and the fine line between stereotyping and making informed opinions. There are also examples of people falling into culturist traps by reducing others based on stereotypes, and strategies for avoiding perpetuating destructive discourse through greater self-awareness and consideration of complexity and individuality.

2.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I_43IeRtr8

3.  Discussion of your identity narrative
 Unpacking our stereotypes
 Your voices on this week’s readings
 Panel Discussion by Lisa and Chris
Kumar Chapter 5
Kumar article on stereotyping
 Interview with Edward Said on Orientalism
P.S: PLEASE WATCH YOUR EMAILS FOR NEXT WEEK’S
READING SET. I MAY CHANGE A FEW THINGS.

4.  Take about 10 minutes to discuss what you found out
about yourself as a language educator as you worked
on your identity narrative. What are some of the cross-
cultural concepts you have mentioned in your
narrative?

5.  We all fall into the culturist trap of reducing people. It
is important that we are aware of our stereotypes and
can monitor how we let them influence our teacher
behaviors (e.g. assessing L2 student writing, evaluating
classroom participation, creating culturally relevant
assignments). With this in mind, comment on the
followings:
1. What are some of the stereotypes you bring to your
profession? Be specific.
2. How do you/did you pass through this stereotype
and look for a deeper understanding/full complexity
of a group of people (or, have you?)

6.  In what ways our expectations of stigmatized social
group’s (e.g. stereotypes)lead to inferior service or
disadvantage?

7. Discussion based on learning logs

8.  When do people have enough? When does othering
go too far and when is it appropriate to act on or claim
that someone is othering you?

9.  What is the fine line between stereotyping and
gathering information to make an informed opinion
about a person from a particular culture?

10.  In my opinion, people tend to judge foreigners based
on the stereotypes. Is it really their culture? Or is it the
fact that the students feel uncomfortable in the
classrooms that make them passive?

11.  Further on, the author talks about historical accounts
from Confucius which do not support the Asian
stereotype of complete and unconditional obedience
to authority. So where does this generalization come
from?

12.  Even though I’ve based my assumptions on working
with East Asian students and interacting with Asian
friends, they may still be faulty ideas and would not
prove true in every case. Even though it’s good to have
a frame of reference for relating to students, I agree
with Kumaravadivelu that I must more fully develop a
“critical awareness of the complex nature of
cultural understanding” (717).
Question: I wonder what kind of cultural stereotypes
Asian students might have about North American
teachers…

14.  The smith family
Summarize the scenario. What does this example show
about prescribed stereotypes? What mistake did John
make with the the Smiths?

15.  A religious culture characterized by
-- clothing
--disdain for modernity
These stereotypes led John’s behaviours and explained
whatever the Smiths do from this “filter” He fell into
various culturist traps.
Any similar situations you experienced?

16.  Stereotyping: Ideal characterization of the Other
 Prejudice: Judgment made on the basis of interest
rather than emergent evidence
 Culturism: Reducing the members of a group to the
pre-defined characteristics of a cultural label.

17.  An understanding supervisor?
Summarize the case. What are some of the culturist
language/behavior Jeremy displays? How does Jeremy
think he is acting? How does Jabu interprets Jerremy’s
behavior? How could Jeremy appropriate his language
and behaviors not to fall into culturist trap? What would
you do if you were in Jabu’s shoes?

18.  Culturism: Jerremy assumes that he is being supportive and
understanding when in fact he is being patronizing
according to Jabu
 False Sharing: Jeremy is sharing an image of Jabu which he
constructed based on his previous experiences.
*** Avoid being seduced by previous experience of the exotic.
*** Monitor your own language and be aware of the
destructive, culturist discourse we might be conforming to or
perpetuating (p. 38)

19.  Is it natural to form stereotypes?
“Many argue that it is natural to form stereotypes, and
that they indeed help us to understand “foreign
cultures”—that they act as a template, or as an ideal
type, against with we can measure the unknown”—Do
you agree with this? Is stereotyping a natural act?

20. 1. Averse Racism
Stereotypes are ingrained in the racist system and are
perpetuated in popular culture
2. Social Identity
We stereotype, when we see others as a threat to our self-
esteem. A need to maintain a positive distinction between
our own group and others. We might be biased in favor of
our own group
3. Orientalism: Western representation of Other. Legitimized
by power relationships/colonialism
“colonized people are stereotyped and treated not as
communities of individuals but as an indistinguishable mass”

21.  Read the interviews by Mallison and Brewster on page
149. In your groups, write an analysis of what strategies
of “othering” Nate uses when he talks about
Blacks, Latinos and rednecks. How does he create a
“discourse of difference” (Wodak, 1997 see p. 152) in his
narrative?
 Then, compare your analysis with Mallinson and
Brewster’s analysis. Do you agree with their analysis?
Why? Why not?

22.  Avoid being seduced by the previous experience of the
exotic.
 Monitor of our own language and be aware of the
destructive, culturist, sexist, racist discourse we might be
conforming to or perpetuating
 Know that maintenance of students ethnic language and
culture is a fundamental right of all members of the
community.
 Be sensitive to subtle cultural meanings that children with
a different view of social reality bring to the class
 Move beyond taken-for-granted assumptions when
interpreting student behavior.

23.  …should be performed through the practice of
everyday life rather than through the practice of
merely reading texts or including “culture
celebrations”—Avoid “boutique multiculturalism”
(Stanley Fish)
 ALL students should be encouraged and enabled to
engage critically with various ethnic and cultural
backgrounds so that they can recognize and explore
complex interconnections, gaps that occur between
their own and other ethnic and cultural identities and
how these identities are situated in the wider
framework of power relations

24.  Assimilation vs acculturation (p. 68)
 What’s wrong with the melting pot theory?

25.  In Hungtington’s words all immigrants should commit
themselves to Anglo-Protestant culture of the
founding settlers—which is the center of the American
Identity. Key elements of American identity according
to him:
 The English language
 Christianity
 Religious commitment
 Protestant values of individualism
 The work ethnic

26.  Salin says immigrants would be welcome as full
members of American family if they accept English as
their primary language, take pride in American
identity, and live by protestant ethic

27.  Assimilation: Newcomers leaving their their ethnic
backgrounds and cultural resources behind and
embrace the host societies’ values (characterized by
the mainstream segment of the adopted society)
 Acculturation: newcomers adaptation of the culture-
the behaviors, norms, practices, symbols, rules of the
target/host culture.

28. NATIVISM (19th and early
IDEALISM 20th century)
 The fusion of all races  “Early Americans”
 Religious amalgamation  Core culture should be: WASPs
 Native language and cultural
 Shedding previous ethnic traits are seen as impediments to
identities and construct an the construction of American
American identity. identity
 Emerging American  Cultural assimilation was a one-
identity can be “blend of way process.
sociocultural beliefs and  Linguistic assimilation is
practices drawn from many essential by discarding the home
languages: Monolingualism and
different ethnic groups”(p. monoculturalism.
77)

29.  Who is doing the assimilation?
 From what to what?
 For what?
 What does it make to people?

30. Finding traces of nativism in second language theory
construction and language policies in the U.S. Examples:
 The legacy of nativist philosophy: ENGLISH-ONLY
POLICIES
 Theory Construction:
1) Robert Kaplan’s Cultural thought patterns
2) Schumann's acculturation model of second language
acquisition

31.  Contrastive Rhetoric: Cultural thought
patterns in intercultural education
(Kaplan, 1966; the doodle article)
 Explored the links between the
culturally specific logic/thought
patterns and paragraph structures in
English essays written by NNES
students.
 “The patterns of paragraphs in other
languages are not so well
established, or perhaps only not so
well known to speakers of English”
 Came up with five lingua-cultural
groups in rhetorical structures of a
piece of writing in students’ cultures.
31

32.  Essays were collected as class exercise, students did nto have
comparable language skills
 Rhetorical deviations he found in NNES students were similar to
the rhetorical errors made by NS students
 The generalizations about student’s culture based on the
rhetorical and cultural through patterns has been contested by
many scholars. Kaplan did not take into account linguistic and
cultural variations in each group.
 Faulty argumentations: making assertions about one’s L1 writing
rhetoric and thought patterns based on a general L2 essay
structure. Other factors such as topic knowledge, language
proficiency, educational background also influences students
paragraph development
 Considering standard English speaking NSs as the norm-
overlooks the plurality within language groups! Native English
speakers do not all write in linear, straight line paragraph
development. Members of different discourse communities write
in different genres.

33. Ethnocentric view of culture:
 The worldview of a group of people using the same
language is determined by that single language and
culture? (strong version of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis)
 Even though he himself modified some of his
arguments two decades after he wrote the original
1966 article, some English teachers still associate the
rhetorical deviations in NNES students’ English essays
to their linguistic and cultural traits (see pg. 88)

34.  Ten-month longitudinal study to investigate untutored English
acquisition by Spanish speaking adults. Alberto makes little
progress. Schuman connects this to the social distance between
him and the members of the mainstream community. According
to Schumann psychological and social contact with the TL group
“is the essential component in acculturation” (1978, p. 29)
 The greater one’s cultural integration with the mainstream
group, the more successful would be one’s attempt to learn the
target language
“Any learner can be placed on a continuum that ranges from social
and psychological distance to social and psychological proximity
with speakers of the target language, and that the learner will
acquire the language only to the extent that he acculturates” (p.
29)—this argument dismisses various outside factors.

35.  Inequitable power relations between the second language
speakers and the target language speakers.
Norton (2000) says “It may be because the dominant power
structures within the society had relegated Alberto to a
marginalized status and then blamed him for his inability to
acculturate”
 Target language community’s responsibility to maximize
opportunities for cultural assimilation
 Schumann’s social distance theory carries traces of nativist
philosophy as it minimizes the importance of the immigrants'
own language and culture.
 More recent studies argue that “maintenance of the mother
tongue among immigrant children can in fact facilitate their
successful learning of the target language” (Cummins, 2000)

36.  Be aware of the dominant discourses which are easily
perpetuated by the media, and which lead us to “think-as-
usual” that familiar images of the foreign Other as normal
 Seek a deeper and a complex understanding of the
representation of the foreign Other which are perpetuated
by society
 Monitor your language and be aware of the
destructive, culturist discourses we might be perpetuating.
 Avoid readily explaining student behavior in terms of
culture and cultural stereotypes—avoid binary categories
such as NS-NNS

37. 1. Averse Racism
Stereotypes are ingrained in the racist system and are
perpetuated in popular culture
2. Social Identity
We stereotype, when we see others as a threat to our self-
esteem. A need to maintain a positive distinction between
our own group and others. We might be biased in favor of
our own group
3. Orientalism: Western representation of Other. Legitimized
by power relationships/colonialism
“colonized people are stereotyped and treated not as
communities of individuals but as an indistinguishable mass”

38. Otherization
 Reductive process that ascribe an imagined superior identity to the Self
and an imagined inferior identity to the Other. “Colonizers
systematically devalue the colonized and how develuation expends to
every aspect of life. See Memi’s The Colonizer and the colonized.
Orientalism (coined by Edward Said)
 Western representation of the Other (i.e. East). “Orientalism is a
systematically constructed discourse by which the West “ was able to
manage—and produce—the Orient
politically, sociologically, ideologically, scientifically, and
imaginatively” (Said, 1978). Eg. Accents of Arabs in Aladdin. Aladdin is
also Arab bur speaks English in Standard English.
 Produces an essentialist and static Other.
 Cultures, just like people, are not islands by themselves. They are all
interconnected, making every culture, in effect, a hybrid culture.

39.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwCOSkXR_Cw
Take notes when you see examples on the notions we
have been studying/discussing: “othering” “culturist”
and “racist”