Book Description
Recognizing and understanding Other's cultural and linguistic differences with equitability have become important and necessary for successful communication today (Lehman, Chi-yue, and Schaller, 2004). Often speakers of different languages from different cultural backgrounds are categorized into too broad terms, the most commonly referred being (1) the West vs. the East, (2) individualistic vs. collectivistic, and (3) low context vs. high context (Hall, 1959, 1976; Lehman, Chi-yue, and Schaller, 2004; Shiraev and Levy, 2016). However, with technological advances and social expansion, cultural experiences have become globalized, thus not as isolated anymore but shared (Cho, 2019; Cicourel, 2006; Crystal, 2012; Graddol, 2006). The present study therefore aims to investigate whether the stereotyped cultural customs interfere with the communication of meaning between different cultural groups today, namely American and Korean, and examine how different types of sociocultural experiences play a role in language learning and teaching. To observe the embedded, shared values and codes from the first culture (C1) as well as the first language (L1), meaningful narratives from childhood and the understanding of these narratives between two different groups of C1 and L1 were analyzed. Results imply that the known stereotypes between the two cultural groups still exist in speakers' way of communication but experiences of and exposure to other's sociocultural content can guide learners to fewer conflicts stemming from the stereotypes.
