Language as a Marker of Cultural Identity for TCKs Mode of Pronunciation as an Adaptive Strategy

Schema Building Please reflect on these questions for a few minutes Where am I from? How do I know? Where is my home? Who am I? How can I find out? What language do I speak when I’m home? What is my Mother Tongue? Have I consciously made a choice to adapt my language to any larger cultural group?

Definitions to Know Third Culture Kid a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.

Cultural Markers Events or facets of our society that illustrate or reveal cultural or societal norms, and shifts in those norms, e.g.: cell phones, Phish heads

You may have a shared geographic cultural marker with a person from your home culture, but the TCK relies on language as a cultural marker.

Code Switching

Un/Conscious Code Switching “My initial desire to adopt a fully American or British accent was a result of wanting to fit fully with specific groups of people. My experimentation of accents might even have stemmed from my subconscious search for an identity. I still have the tendency to change accents according to the environment and people, but I now do it less out of an anxiety about my identity and more for the sake of communication.” (Justin Lau, Singapore)

Two Terms From Different Schools Mode of Pronunciation A blending of two linguistic terms Adaptive Strategy An anthropological term

Adaptive Strategies The expression adaptive strategies is used by anthropologist Yehudi Cohen to describe a society's system of economic production. Cohen argued that the most important reason for similarities between two (or more) unrelated societies is their possession of a similar adaptive strategy.

Mode of Pronunciation A Patterned Arrangement A Patterned Arrangement Diatonic Tones Diatonic Tones Manner, Fashion, or Stylistic Approach to the Way Language is Spoken Manner, Fashion, or Stylistic Approach to the Way Language is Spoken

A Working Hypothesis The Cultural Marginal uses blended accent as Mode of Pronunciation as part of an Adaptive Strategy that is part of an un/conscious choice to use language as a cultural marker to adapt to others’ cultures

Please Enjoy the Show! Welcome to My Life Start at minute :33 Start at minute :33 …a lovely stop-motion film and a young woman’s cultural liminal experience, caught between three linguistic worlds. Multilingualism in TCK Starts at 3:40 …remember that these students have never lived in the USA. The video is shot at Georgetown in D.C.

What Accent Are YOU? “Have you ever stopped in the middle of a conversation to think consciously about what accent you’re speaking in? To check if you’re pronouncing things ‘correctly’? I have. A lot.”

Blended Accent International students relate to each other through identifying with each other’s language and eventually settle on a culture that is typified by their education. This can be spotted in their telltale “international school accent” (Blended Accent). International school accents give their students a sense of belonging and a root in an otherwise culturally disparate environment.

Blended Accents of Cultural Marginals “After a summer holiday spent in our respective motherlands, my friends and I would be quick to laugh at one another for our lingering “home” accents, creating supposedly funny slips in pronunciation for a few days before switching back into our default school accents. Growing up in Hong Kong, this oral duality was par for the course, and widely understood by my friends, teachers, and everyone around me. Everyone had their own accent, but everyone had an accent, and that brought us together, allowing us to find sameness in our differences.” (Aneri Shah, India)

Group Discussion Please Discuss These Questions with Your Peers

Choose a Question to Discuss To what extent do you believe it is possible for groups of people to retain their cultural identity when they are removed from their homeland and /or they lose the use of their mother tongue? Have you had any personal experience of negative attitudes towards non-native Englishes, whether directly or as an observer? Do you agree or disagree that it is essential to retain one’s own cultural identity in order to become a “self-confident” member of a larger cultural group? How do you see language being linked to one’s cultural and ethnic identity? What happens to a person who has been torn from either their Mother Tongue or their cultural community?

Cheers! Thank you for your time Thank you for your time If you would like this presentation, reference, and links to videos, etc. please me at: If you would like this presentation, reference, and links to videos, etc. please me at: Terima Kasi Banyak. Terima Kasi Banyak.