Sample Attitude Questions

If you read the italicized phrases in paragraph 3, would the author’s attitude most likely be positive or negative? Choose the right descriptors from the list above.

Organization questionsask about the overall structure of a passage or about the organization of a paragraph.

A Sample Question

· Which of the following best describes the organization of the passage?

Answer Choices

A general concept is defined and examples are given.

Several generalizations are presented, from which a conclusion is drawn.

The author presents the advantages and disadvantages of ..._ .

The author presents a system of classification for ...__ .

Persuasive language is used to argue agains ... .

The author describes ... .

The author presents a brief account of ...

The author compares____and__________ ...

Sample Question

· What is the author's attitude toward the the fact that globalization has brought about the realization that modern societies must learn to cooperate in order to prevent their mutual self-destruction?

Questions about previous or following paragraphsask you to assume how the passages are organized, what would be the topic of the text. To find the order of the passages, look for clues in the first lines. To find the topic of the text, look in the first and last lines.

Sample Questions

· With what topic would the text most likely begin?

· What does the second paragraph most probably discuss?

· Can it be inferred from the text which paragraph most likely sums up the author’s attitude towards the topic?

Unit 2-9. A NEW APPROACH TO A THEORY OF CULTURE

Guidelines for extensive reading of ESP texts

Dr. Bernard Saint-Jacques is Linguistics Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia. His research of the last years has been about Intercultural understanding and communication. This essay discusses the impact of globalization on the study of culture and intercultural communication. Japan is selected as a case study to illustrate how culture is being transformed by the shrinking global community. The concept of identity and how it has been altered by globalization is also discussed in the essay. Professor Saint-Jacques sees people in modern society as “living at the same time within particular cultural settings on the one hand, and between different cultural environments on the other one,” which produces multiple identities. In the second part of his essay, Professor Saint-Jacques proposes an approach to teaching intercultural communication (ICC) in the globalized society. His method involves viewing culture as “ways of thinking, beliefs, and values,” and a greater incorporation of language into the teaching of ICC.

This essay is intended to show you that there are many ways of viewing culture, but also that your views should not become static. Culture and communication are influenced by societal changes, and these changes need to be acknowledged, both in theory development and in classroom instructional methods.

Text 2-9. A NEW APPROACH TO A THEORY OF CULTURE

(After Bernard Saint-Jacques)

Introduction

Intercultural communication is based on intercultural understanding. Intercultural understanding cannot be realized without an objective and up-to-date understanding of the notion of culture. Globalization, however, has changed the notion of culture. Culture can no longer be described as the property of a single nation.

Globalization has changed the concept of culture. Globalization stands for the overlapping of global and local factors (Robertson, 1997). Human beings are living at the same time within particular settings on the one hand, and between different cultural environments on the other one. This is nothing new.

One lives between one’s home in a family, on the one side, and also is situated in the daily life world – going to school, working in one’s professional life, on the other.

This has been happening for thousands of years. In a culturally globalized world, between-situations are becoming essential for any understanding of culture. There were three stages in globalization.

The first one was political, the founding of the United Nations in 1945.

The second one was the economic globalization, the spread of free-market capitalism in virtually every country of the world since 1980.

The third one is … cultural globalization, which has an essential function for the efficient working of the political and economic globalizations of the world. In fact, the economic and political globalizations have given rise to the problematic triangle “identity–culture–communication” in international relations (Wolton, 2005). As the technology for worldwide transmission of information continues to progress, attempts by some countries to restrict this transmission are becoming more and more ineffective (McPhail, 1989).

The debates on globalization have focused on economic and political issues, but the powerful impact of globalization on culture has not been sufficiently analyzed and researched.

Globalization provides a good opportunity to reflect on the efficiency of the tools which the intercultural enterprise so far has developed to promote intercultural understanding (Kalscheuer, 2002). Thomas’s (1996) definition of culture as a system that is valid for all members of a society or nation, as well as Hall’s (1984) and Hofstede’s (1980, 1991, 1997) “cultural dimensions”, fixed sets of polar attributes (collectivism vs. individualism, monochronic vs. polychronic, high power distance vs. low power distance, high context culture vs. low context culture, etc …) obtained with questionnaires to very small groups of participants of a given society, are not any more adapted to research in intercultural understanding.

Cultures are not homogeneous and stable entities. Recent cultural theory takes into account the increasing mixture of cultures and people within each culture, and emphasizes the hybrid nature of culture (Bhabba, 1994, Pieterse, 1994, Shweder & Sullivan, 1990). Welsh (1999) stresses the reciprocal influences of cultures.