CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter reviewed literature from different sources related to the study. This

review focuses on specific concepts of the sources of language shame and the perceived

psychological effects of language shaming on students.

On Language Shaming

The term language shaming covers a wide range of acts involving using language

to demean, deride or disparage another person. This study magnifies the acts of language

shame associated with the classroom setting. It could be interpreted as an instance of

verbal abuse or verbal assault. Calling someone negative names or using put-downs or

insults is sometimes based on gender, age, or education level. Trying to dominate another

person's settlements, transactions, or other elements of how they live their life causes

someone to question their self-value, thoughts, and beliefs (Huizen, 2019). Although

verbal abuse takes many forms, it can be summed up as the use of language and other

oral means of communication to cause mental anguish (Carney, 2019). The victim's

background, including their religion, culture, language, (perceived) sexual orientation, or

customs, may be a factor in the verbal abuse. Abusers frequently choose to deliberately

target these issues in a way that is upsetting, humiliating, and dangerous to the victim,

depending on where they feel the victim is most vulnerable emotionally. Language

shaming, as associated with verbal aggression or verbal abuse, can be measured as a form

of misconduct. Abusing a student by means of verbal communication is an act of

professional misconduct, although teachers were rarely brought to a disciplinary meeting

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solely based on verbal abuse, as is seen in the public records. The disciplinary committee

verified that shouting at students is verbal abuse (Terry Hogan, Carlo Ricci, and Thomas

G. Ryan, 2018). Language shaming can be undetected if one is unaware of it, and its

extent can only be thoroughly comprehended by knowing first the factors that trigger

such acts of misconduct. Language shame was associated with a range of learner-

internal variables and teacher/classroom-specific variables. The first reference under the

coverage of learner-internal variables would be pronunciation and accent-related issues as

defined by research conducted by Galmiche. The respondents in the aforementioned

survey claimed that they felt evaluated based on the intelligibility, comprehensibility, and

lack of accent in their speech.

The term "accent" is used by Munro and Derwing to describe "the degree to

which the listener perceives an utterance differs phonetically from native-speaker

utterances" (454) or what is noticed when one pronounces something differently from the

recognized standard (Gluszek, 2010) is a sensitive issue and a significant concern in the

participant's accounts. Although not all respondents used the word "shame" appropriately

to describe their difficulties with accent and pronunciation, the data clearly showed how

demanding and shame-inducing it was to be singled out because of an unattractive or firm

accent. The vast majority of respondents recalled being made fun of, getting the short end

of jokes or criticism, and feeling "downgraded" or "diminished" when their accent was

disparaged. The stigma associated with accents was said to affect how learners engage

with others in the target language on a psychological and behavioral level, lowering their

willingness to speak (Galmiche, The Role of Shame in Language Shaming, 2018).

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According to Anneliese (2018), "The accent you have says a lot about you. It

exposes who you are at the core, and I feel somehow that having a bad accent is identical

to being silly. Foul speaking presents a bad and poor image of yourself; it reveals that

you lack something. You feel bad and inferior, kind of isolated. Such a shame!" The

outcomes corroborate a study by Baran-Ucarz that found associations between perceived

pronunciation skills, concern about pronouncing words correctly, and openness to

communicating in a foreign language. Concern over pronunciation mistakes caused

embarrassment and fear. The next point would be poor vocabulary and grammatical

inaccuracy. Galmiche discovered in his research that inadequate vocabulary or

grammatical precision caused learners to feel ashamed, as Annelise demonstrates: "I

would feel uncomfortable using the wrong term or arranging words in the wrong order.

You see, it's so uncomfortable; you feel guilty about your incapacity; you're just a little

kid trying to find the right words."

The sources listed below would be considered a teacher- and classroom-specific

variables. Inappropriate classroom management strategies (such as isolating or

humiliating students with challenges, demonstrating apathy), peer mocking, and even

bullying were indicated as crucial elicitors of shame (Galmiche, The Role of Shame in

Language Shaming, 2018). It was claimed that a common aspect of the classroom was a

teacher-induced shame. It was discovered that the most intense types of self-deprecation,

self-contempt, humiliation, and mortification might result when learners' flaws or

shortcomings are revealed in front of people in whose presence they do not feel safe or

respected. He stated that corrective feedback, assessment, and treatment of errors could

be a source of language shame. The way teachers responded to the misconceptions of

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their students was a substantial source of embarrassment. Oral corrective criticism from

teachers has the potential to harm students. Additionally, evaluations and teachers'

perspectives would be affected by the final footage of linguistic shame. According to

(Galmiche, The Role of Shame in Language Shaming, 2018), teachers' nonverbal cues

and interactions with pupils were also discovered to be a non-negligible source of shame.

Expectations and attitudes teachers have toward their students can cause deep-seated

sentiments of shame. In some cases, it can be conducive to self-fulfilling prophecies,

which consist of involuntarily performing at levels consistent with these expectations.

On the Perceived Psychological Effects of Language Shaming

A child's spirit is eventually burned by the words that poison his heart, whether

they are said out of malice or ignorance (Carlos Ruiz Zafón, 2001).

Language shaming can be associated with verbal abuse. As one looks deeper into

its consequences, referring to verbal abuse, one can see that the results for students are

somehow similar. As viewed by the exposed person, verbal abuse is emotional abuse

meant to inflict severe humiliation-denigration-fear. Few research has examined the

impact of verbal abuse on a collegiate population. However, network-based

methodologies have been used to investigate integrative-segregated patterns of

relationships across psychological traits and external stressors for varied people.

Shaming pupils verbally in front of the class has been viewed as a practical

discipline that may have had some bearing on their academic achievement. Shaming is a

manipulation of that significance to raise students' GPAs. Educators frequently use the

fear of solitude and rejection to motivate students to change.

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But in this attempt, the students even felt the negative and deriding consequences

of this type of teacher support. In Banzon-Librojo, Garabiles, and Alampay's (2017)

study, the experiences of harsh teacher discipline predicted higher bullying victimization

and students' negative perception of teacher support. The findings suggest that school

discipline strategies may affect students' behaviors and relationships, highlighting the

teacher's role in modeling and setting norms for acceptable behaviors. This study also

highlights the effects of Language Shaming on verbal abuse in the classroom. Language

shaming in general or English shaming in particular, as Piller describes, is any form of

communication that degrades any specific way of using language. Language shaming has

more to do with ego-boosting than anything else. It also fails to recognize the implicit

power of linguistic ideology (those sets of beliefs and values surrounding any language)

(Hao, 2017). For young students, humiliation seriously threatens their emotional and even

physical well-being. Not much else is processed when the brain is preoccupied with it.

Similar to worry, fear, perplexity, and guilt, this feeling of shame have the ability to put a

stop to learning.

The Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center's Director of Science, Andrea Chiba,

once described it to me in the following way: "The organism does not learn if it is afraid"

(Cushman, 2015). (Perry, 2019) claims that the Mingus Union strengthened a component

of American society that leads teachers to assume that pupils may learn by being

punished and shamed. Shaming is the worst type of instruction because it plays on

children's anxieties about rejection and stigma. It is giving up on educating students

results in merely providing them with lessons that can be learned from adult-approved

criticism and contempt. Contrary to popular belief, marking and branding in schools are
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frequently used to provide negative reinforcement. Most of us were familiar with the

stereotype of a boy who has been chastised, sitting on a stool in a corner and donning a

cone hat with the word "dumb" or the letter "D" embroidered on it. That young youngster

served as an example of what should not be done.

The dunce cap, which was still in use in the 1950s, was used by teachers to

humiliate kids. Everyone still recognizes the meaning of that image decades after the cap

was phased out, demonstrating how deeply ingrained the urge to shame is in educational

institutions. The fear of judgment and social rejection is referred described as "external

shame," according to Krystine I. Batcho in a Psychology Today piece from last year.

Teachers frequently use students' anxieties about being rejected and feeling alone to

influence behavior. According to Batcho, the fear of rejection can be so great that it can

cause isolation, which is a potent tool for behavior modification. Teachers are more

aware than anybody else of how important social connection is for adolescents. Shaming

is an effective technique used at Mingus Union to improve pupils' grades.

In the book "Hacking Classroom Culture" (2018), authors Angela Stockman and

Ellen Feig Gray show how ubiquitous shaming is. Feig Gray described how one of her

high school history instructors used humiliation to get more participation from the class.

Her teacher said in front of the entire course, "This semester, Robert, we haven't heard

anything from you at all. You might be replaced by a potted plant, I believe!" Teacher

Roni Dean-Burren pondered on how her practice of awarding additional credit to pupils

for bringing school supplies led to the shame of others whose families couldn't afford

them in a blog post that appeared to be an inversion of the shaming principle. Dean-

Burren wrote, "I realized I'd made a huge error." "Due to their financial limitations, some
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students lacked materials. Additionally, I would let their grades deteriorate because they

or their families couldn't afford them."

Shaming frequently goes hand in hand with strict disciplinary measures, including

corporal punishment. None of these are effective ways to improve pupils' academic or

behavioral performance. Teachers who use shame in their lessons ought to feel ashamed

of themselves. Shaming has a great deal of effectiveness, but it has a great danger of

alienating kids, escalating the issue, and taking the focus off the resources a student needs

to succeed. Students may feel so humiliated that they withdraw and become mute. In the

absence of meaningful education, bad academic habits can persist, and behavioral

problems can get worse. Shaming something into oblivion does not teach. Shame is

characterized by a feeling that the entire self is inferior, insufficient, or flawed. This

feeling is typically accompanied by a sense of shrinking, worthlessness, and exposure to

the other's gaze, as well as a concern that the self will be revealed and exposed as being

flawed (Tangney, 1995). It is also conducive to autonomous reactions such as blushing,

sweating, an increased heart rate, increased body awareness, downcast eyes, freezing,

stammering voice, and neurophysiological nonverbal and behavioral markers. In the latter

situation, shame becomes problematic and upsetting to the person's health because it may

be a factor in social anxiety, phobias, low self-esteem, excessive shyness, self-

deprecating tendencies, persistently negative self-appraisals, ruminating, avoiding risk-

taking activities, and potentially shame-inducing situations (Galmiche, The Role of

Shame in Language Shaming, 2018).

Shame-proneness is a pathological view of one's unworthiness and inadequacy,

according to psychoanalysis. This common Trait of Shame- Proneness Since studies with
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a variety of age groups and populations have repeatedly found strong associations

between the propensity to shame and a wide range of psychological symptoms,

personality issues, and psychiatric disorders; shame must be seriously addressed.

Anxiety, eating disorder symptoms (such as bulimia and anorexia), depression,

hopelessness, introversion, low self-esteem, and internalization of shame are some of

these. Internalization of shame is a pathology in which a person experiences situations of

humiliation as trauma that triggers previous traumatic experiences (Kaufman, 1989).

According to the analysis of (Galmiche, Language Shame: The Invisible

Emotion? 2021), shame is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that may emerge via

diverse routes, particularly during oral tasks. Among skills, speaking the target language

was reported to be the most liable to elicit shame because of the likelihood of displaying

an incompetent self to others and being ridiculed for making mistakes. Other potent

sources of language shame were reported to be the accent and the pronunciation, and the

respondents said feeling judged on the intelligibility and comprehensibility of their

utterances. Likewise, poor vocabulary or grammar inaccuracy elicited shame in learners.

By establishing links between teacher attitudes, the emergence of a shame-prone

personality, and student motivation, the study provides a first step toward putting the

topic of shame on the teacher education agenda. Of course, teachers cannot do wonders.

Still, it is my conviction that if teachers manage to consider their students' emotions

(positive and negative) more systematically and if they holistically work with them, this

may result in tangible positive changes in students' perception of FLL (Foreign Language

Learning) and may thus translate into higher motivation to learn and use the TL (Target

Language). Although there is no single and straightforward solution to enhance learners'

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self-esteem, teaching approaches can be found which create a comfortable and anxiety-

free learning environment. Such an environment may lead learners to feel more secure,

be more motivated to take the risk of making mistakes, and be less fearful of losing face.

Shaming isn't empowering. We should call shaming what it is: bullying (Perry, 2019).

Synthesis

Language shaming covers a wide range of acts that involve the use of language as

a means to demean, deride or disparage another person. In this study, language shame is

linked to a range of learner-internal variables and teacher/classroom-specific variables.

The first source under the coverage of learner-internal variables would be pronunciation

and accent-related issues as described by research conducted (Galmiche, The Role of

Shame in Language Learning, 2018). The second source is the teachers/classroom setting

variable, which triggered Shame, which was the way teachers deal with students'

misconceptions. Teachers' oral corrective feedback can cause potential affective damage

among learners. And the last footage of language shame would be reflected in appraisals

and teachers' beliefs. (Galmiche, The Role of Shame in Language Learning, 2018). Other

potent sources of language shame were reported to be the accent and the pronunciation,

and the respondents said feeling judged on the intelligibility and comprehensibility of

their utterances. These sources of why language shaming occurs significantly affect the

personality of the students. In this study, as a result, shame is intended to inflict intense

humiliation-denigration fear inside the classroom setting. In fact, language shaming has

more to do with ego-boosting for young learners. Humiliation constitutes a potent threat

to emotional and even physical safety. As well, shaming creates anxiety, fear, confusion,

and guilt that have the power to stop the students from learning on track. Although there
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is no single and straightforward solution to enhance learners' self-esteem, teaching

approaches must create a comfortable and anxiety-free learning environment to help the

students to become active in learning. Such an environment may lead learners to feel

more secure, be more motivated to take the risk of making mistakes, and be less fearful of

losing face despite their weaknesses and lapses; we should promote positive

reinforcement and long patience to teach the students without feeling ashamed.

As stated, Every (2013) identifies two methods that shaming is 'fulfilled' –

through emotions of ridicule and scorn and balancing opportunity and cruelty. However,

examining the replies to this shaming proves that, rather than stimulating the hoped-for

transformation, shaming evokes its counterpart: flight or fight reactions of dissent,

avoidance, and escalating dispute. According to one definition, "shame" refers to a broad

family of feelings, ranging from social discomfort and embarrassment with mild strength

and short duration to humiliation with solid intensity and lengthy term. (Retzinger, 1991;

Scheff, 1990, 2003). Feelings of shame and pride are essential factors in an individual's

evaluation of the self and have served a purpose of social control and behavior regulation

in all known civilizations throughout history (Elias, 1978/ 1982/1983; Scheff, 1988).

However, experiences of being repeatedly subjected to humiliation, ridicule, and social

exclusion by other people may result in stigmatization and "toxic" shame, which may

form a basis for psychological and physical pathological reactions (Scheff, 1992).

According to (Nugent 2009), educators must recognize their impact on their

students and consider their students' perceptions of them. Teachers have to ensure that

they meet students' academic and emotional needs. Creating classroom environments that
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promote positive cultures with healthy interactions can motivate students to channel their

energies and desires to reach their goals.

The comment focuses on the language of the presentation instead of the content

and denigrates the student by linking spelling mistakes to his age. Teacher-induced

Shame was described to be a noticeable feature in the classroom. It was discovered that

when learners' infirmities/failures are exhibited before those in whose bearing they do not

feel vindicated or respected, the feeling of ineptitude can turn into the most profound

forms of self-deprecation, self-contempt, shame, and mortification (Galmiche, The Role

of Shame in Language Learning, 2018). Shame diminishes cognitive functioning since

students who are frightened of encountering shame may absorb less and not maintain

what they have learned as quickly as their more self-confident counterparts (Galmiche,

2018).
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