Acculturation

Definition of acculturation
According to Douglas Brown, “Acculturation is the process of becoming
adapted to a new culture”
“Second language acquisition is just one aspect of acculturation and the
degree to which a learner acculturates to the target language group will control the
degree to which he acquires the second language.” --- Schumann

Stages of Acculturation
1. Period of excitement and euphoria: During this initial phase the students will
experience a period of excitement over the newness of the surroundings.

2. Period of culture shock: This stage emerges as individuals feel the intrusion
of more and more culture differences into their own images of self and
security. Culture shock is associated with the learner’s feelings of
estrangement, anger, hostility, indecision, frustration, unhappiness, sadness,
loneliness, homesickness, and even physical illness.

3. Period of gradual recovery: This stage is typified by what Larson and

Smalley (1972) called "culture stress": some problems of acculturation are
solved while other problems continue for some time. But general progress is
made, slowly but surely, as individuals begin to accept the differences in
thinking and feeling that surround them, slowly becoming more empathic
with other persons in the second culture.

4. Period of assimilation or adaptation: This stage acceptance of the new

culture and self-confidence in the "new" person that has developed in this
culture.
Schumann’s Acculturation Model/Theory
The model seeks to explain the differences in learners rate of development and also
in their ultimate level of achievement in terms of the extent to which they adept to
the target language culture. Second language learning is often second culture
learning.
Example of Alberto
Schumann proposed the Acculturation Model as a means of accounting for the
failure to progress of one of the six learners studied by Cazden, Cancino,
Rosansky, and Schumann (1975). Whereas the other five manifested considerable
development over the ten-month period of the study, Alberto did not advance in
most of the structural areas investigated, for example, negatives, interrogatives, use
of copula 'be', and verb auxiliaries (Schumann 1978b). Alberto's lack of
development could not be satisfactorily explained by either cognitive development,
as he demonstrated normal intelligence, or age, as many older learners achieve
satisfactory levels of L2 proficiency. Schumann noticed that Alberto's speech
manifested very similar properties to those found in pidgins, leading Schumann to
argue that similar processes of pidginization were at work. Just as pidgins have
been noted to develop in contact situations that call for functionally restricted
communication, so learners like Alberto appear to fossilize because they too have a
limited need to communicate in the L2. According to this view, learners fail to
progress beyond the early stages of acquisition because they require the L2 for
only the communicative function of language (basic information exchange), and
not for the integrative function (social identification) or the expressive function
(the realization of personal attitudes)-see Smith 1972. It was the similarity between
Alberto's learner language and pidgins that led Schumann to propose acculturation
as the primary causative factor.

Two kinds of distance of L2 learners from the target language culture.

Social Distance:
Cognitive and affective proximity of two cultures that come into contact within an
individual. Social distance concerns the extent to which individual learners become
members of the target-language group and, therefore, achieve contact with them.
social distance determines how close an individual will come to becoming like the
target language group.
Factors/variables/parameters that determine the level of social distance:
 Social dominance: The L2 group can be politically. culturally. technically, or
economically superior (dominant). inferior (subordinate), or equal.

 Integration pattern: The L2 group may assimilate (i.e., give up its own
lifestyle and values in favor of those of TL group), seek to preserve its
lifestyle and values, or acculturate (i.e., adopt lifestyle and values of TL
group while maintaining its own for intra-group use).

 Enclosure: The L2 group may share the same social facilities (low
enclosure) or may have different social facilities (high enclosure).

 Cohesiveness: The L2 group is characterized by intra-group contacts

(cohesive) or inter-group contacts (non- cohesive).

 Size: The L2 group may constitute a numerically large or small group.

 Cultural congruence: The culture of the L2 group may be similar or different

to that of the TL group.

 Attitude: The M group and TL group may hold positive or negative attitudes
towards each other.

 Intended length of residence: The L2 group may intend to stay for a long
time or a short time.

Psychological Distance:
psychological distance relates to how comfortable a learner is in relation to the
surrounding social affecting factors. Psychological distance disorientates a learner
in a way that may cause them to resist opportunities to take full advantage of the
social situation. Psychological distance concerns the extent to which individual
learners are comfortable with the learning task and constitutes, therefore, a
personal rather than a group dimension.
Factors/variables/parameters that determine the level of psychological
distance:
 Language shock: The extent to which L2 learners fear they will look comic
in speaking the L2
 Culture shock: The extent to which L2 learners feel anxious and
disorientated upon entering a new culture.
 Motivation: The extent to which L2 learners are integratively (most
important) or instrumentally motivated to learn the L2.
 Ego Permeability: Ingram (1981:44) defines ego permeability as 'the extent
to which [a person] can modify what he sees as his personal characteristics
(including language characteristics) to act in a different way when operating
in another culture or using another language'.

Evaluation of the model

Maple: Maple's (1982) study of 190 Spanish speaking students enrolled in an ESL
program at the University of Texas found a strong relationship between social
distance and measures of L2 English proficiency. Seven out of the eight social
factors were negatively correlated with proficiency. The social factors in
descending area of importance that were found to have a significant effect were:
attitudes, social class, cohesiveness, intended length of residence, size of L2 group,
enclosure, and perceived status. Maple's study might be taken as support for the
model except for the fact that the subjects were receiving L2 instruction, and,
therefore strictly speaking, lay outside the model's frame of reference.

Spolsky: A more serious criticism is that advanced by Spolsky (1989) namely that
Schumann presupposes social factors to have a direct effect on L2 acquisition,
whereas they are more likely to have an indirect one. However, this criticism too,
is not really justified, as Schumann makes it clear that the effect of the different
social factors is mediated in terms of the amount of contact with target language
speakers that is likely to ensue under different social conditions. This presupposes
that the amount of contact is positively correlated with L2 proficiency. It is not
clear, however, to what extent such an assumption is justified.

Importance / implications:
The hypothesis states that the greater the social distance between two cultures., the
greater the difficulty the learner will have in learning the second language.
Conversely, the smaller the social distance, the better will be the language learning
situation.

Good Language Learning Situation

Good language learning situation supports a L2 learner to gain success in learning
the target language TL. Schumann’s good language learning situation is when-
 The L2 and TL groups view each other as socially equal
 Both groups are desirous that the L2 group assimilate
 There is low enclosure
 The L2 group lacks cohesion
 The group is small
 Both groups display positive attitudes towards each other
 The L2 group envisages staying in the TL area for an extended period.

Language Learning Situation

Bad language learning situation is when-
 TL/L2 group becomes dominant
 Both groups desire enclosure
 L2 group is cohesive and large
 The two groups hold negative toward each other
 The L2 group is considered subordinate by the TL group