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UDC 314
CULTURAL AND LANGUAGE PROBLEMS FACED BY MIGRANTS
AS THE MEMBERS OF A CERTAIN ETHNIC COMMUNITY
J. A. Petrova
Rostov state university of economics. Rostov-on-Don, Russia
science-almanac@mail.ru
Our cultural and language peculiarities reflect our personalities and temperaments, roles and relations, social and
ethnic identities. Most migrants consist of migrant students and workers, economic refugees, political refugees, immi-
grants, or executives and businessmen from different countries. Migrants from different parts of our world are obvious
representatives of certain language, ethnicity, culture and other differences, which may lead to cultural and language
difficulties faced by migrants as the members of a certain ethnic community.
Key words: migrants, language, culture, communication, ethnic groups.
According to UNESCO statistical data, more than half of the world’s population is
multilingual. The USA and the UK, Canada, Australian, and European counties became a part of
the international problem of refugees, racial and minority oppression and other disadvantages found
on other continents. Studying cultural and language problems faced by migrants we should emphas-
ize the unique nature of specific group characteristics, since this would lead to inappropriate de-
scriptions of ethnic or linguistic groups. Most migrants consist of migrant students and workers,
economic refugees, political refugees, immigrants, or executives and businessmen from different
countries [11, p. 132].
The culture is created as a result of cultural activities of individuals in the under-natural
reality, connected with the needs of human being in the process of adapting to social and natural
environment. B. Malinowski believed that the culture presents «instrumental reality, satisfying
human’s needs, being in the ways, far beyond the immediate adaptation to the environment. Culture
gives a person the means for expanding the possibility of his body, reliable armor, protective and
safety devices, methods of increasing the efficiency and speed in those situations, where this cannot
be achieved by means of direct physical abilities» [1, p. 21]. G. Triandis defined culture as
«material and non-material elements of the vital activities of the group, which in the past
contributed to its survival in the existing environmental niche and were used by the members of the
group for cooperation and maintenance of their territorial and socio-cultural integrity» [3, p. 43].
Within the framework of our research, we study different cultural and language problems faced by
migrants as the members of a certain ethnic community, almost in every country and region. Ethnic
migrants are those who reflect their own ethnic culture. Ethnic culture embodies traditions and
customs of their ancestors. This implies typical features of ethnic culture, such as: conservatism,
succession, definite cultural traditions. Cultural tradition – is a mechanism for maintaining and
preserving the stability of cultural norms, which serves for transmitting cultural forms from
generation to generation and strict support of such forms.
The culture for the society – is the same as the memory for the individual. In other words,
the culture includes traditions that «inform» the person that «it worked» in the past. Therefore,
ethnic culture is the traditional culture. According to the American cultural studies A. Suingewood
writes: «The culture, created by a person, is a dialogue between past and present; the field of the
memory that continues to exist in the present; the dialogue involving many different voices to be
heard, all exist in the present, helping to find the answers to other generations» [18, p. 179].
Culture is more than cultural projects or forms of representation; culture is used in its
broadest sense of shared practices which produce meaning; which can be simultaneously affirmed,
deconstructed and criticized [8]. In many western nations, culture often is ascribed the features of
being essentialist, inherited and fixed; yet sociological attention, at both the macro and micro levels
of analysis demonstrates cultures arising at particular moments in time and reflecting particular so-
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cial and national developments [15, p. 84-90], while the hegemony of influential social groups in
structuring and maintaining cultures is frequently occluded [9; p. 99], [7, p. 284]. Migrant people
are the members of a complex system of movements, their actions and contributions are captures
fully by improvement of their mode of life, which may not lead to improved opportunities if mi-
grant people are refugees or asylum-seekers [6]. Immigrants cope with conflicting cultural and so-
cial norms and expectations while attempting to adjust to life in a new country [17]. Acculturation
usually refers to the process by which immigrants learn a second culture – that of the predominant
cultural group.
In many cases, for migrants both verbal and written communications are severally limited,
which lead to feelings of social isolation, uncertainty and helplessness. In most cases, migrants use
their native language as a «group language», differentiating them clearly from their surroundings.
The social use of the native language is clearly restricted: it is used in family domains and in some
cases in semipublic places, as bars, cafes and restaurants, and rarely in public ones [11, p. 133].
Language is an important channel, which transfers the way of our thinking and feeling. Through
language people express themselves and their identity, ethnicity, occupational status, gender, and
age. We are all unique with our personal communicative style, through which reflects our personali-
ties and temperaments, roles and relations, and social identities. Language marks our social status,
forms our impressions of others and marks our group boundaries [16].
A lack of understanding of the native language may cause serious problems for migrants’
word interpretation of every part of the everyday experience. That’s why it is essential not only to
speak native language of the country, but also to get the right information for avoiding social, cul-
tural and linguistic problems. Rather than viewing words as having meaning in themselves, B. Ma-
linowsky saw them as entirely relative to their context, «words modify the human organism in order
to transform physiological drives into cultural values» [12, p. 8911]. Although language by no
means guarantees cooperation among people, language is an essential precondition of collaboration.
Without language, extended cooperative human endeavors simply could not exist [14;10]. D. Krech
wrote in his book «Individual and Society» that «a language does reflect the personality of the indi-
vidual and the culture of the society, but the language in turn helps to shape that personality and
culture» [13, p. 291]. This approach was also reflected in J. Hertzler’s thesis, that there is an inde-
pendent, reflexive relationship between a community and its language. G.A. Borden adopted a sim-
ilar approach of «independence». According to his words: «The language differences reflect cultur-
al differences, and, since language controls thought processes to some extent there are obviously
differences in patterns of thinking from one culture to another [4; p. 220]. It means that a language
is a creation of the special needs and circumstances of a community, but it also in turn sustains the
community, preserving its unique identity. At the same time «culture – is a way of life» [5, p. 163].
By H. D. Brown «culture – is deeply rooted in every cell of our being, but the language – is a means
of communication among the members of the culture, which is the most visible and available form
of the culture. And so a person's ideology, self-identity and persuasion, actions, feelings, and
communication process may be destroyed by changings from one culture to another» [5, p. 170].
The concept of communication has recently acquired a philosophical status, it can be found in
almost each dictionary of modern philosophers. The problem of the field, in which the topic of the
communication-culture is presented, is quite heterogeneous. Suffice it to say that the issues related
to the study of communication, in fact are discussed in the research works on communication,
dialogue, philosophy of language and speech, logic, rhetoric, semiotics, cybernetics, theory of
discourse analysis, psychology, etc. [2].
Communication and understanding between people marked the beginning in an age of the
culture. From the very beginning, people were involved in the social contexts of different degrees of
complexity. Communication guarantees continuity in the development of the culture. It is obvious
that the communication process is reasonably necessary for the forming of the society, in order to
achieve understanding and cooperation between its members, where migrants are one of the most
important elements of the cultural interaction process [2]. Different migrants from different parts of
our world are obvious representatives of certain cultural and language peculiarities. Getting into a
74
new socio-cultural system, they either refuse their cultural values and language norms, dissolving in
it (assimilated), or form their own community (in language, cultural, religious, or ethnic
differences), which may lead to different cultural and language problems faced by migrants as the
members of a certain ethnic community.
References
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rah Dobson and Keith S. Dobson London: Guilford Press, 2009.
8. Gilroy P. Postcolonial Melancholia. Colombia University Press, N-Y., 2010.
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lin- New York, 1992.
12. Jones L. Encyclopedia of religion, Vol. 13, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.
13. Krech D., et al. Individual and Society. Publisher: Kogakusha Company, 1962.
14. Malinowski B. Dynamics of Culture Change. Yale, 1945.
15. McGuigan, J. Cultural analysis. SAGE Publications Ltd, 2009.
16. Petrova Y. A., Podporina A. A. The main theories in the field of communication and the se-
lection of words in our language, according to our cultural background // News of Science &
Education, England, 2016.
17. Rhodes S. D., Hergenrather, K.C. Zometa, C. Lindstrom, K., Montaño, J. Characteristics of
immigrant Latino men who utilize formal healthcare services in rural North Carolina: Base-
line findings from the Hombres Study. Journal of the American Medical association, 100
(10), 2008.
18. Suingewood A. Cultural theory and the problem of modernity. N.-Y., 1998.
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Литература
1. Малиновский Б. Культура // Культурология XX век. Дайджест. IV. М.,1998.
2. Петрова Ю.А. Язык в субкультурах молодежи как набор коммуникативных и семио-
тических ресурсов в социокультурных контекстах // Гуманитарные и социально-
экономические науки. №1, 2016.
3. Триандис Г. К. Культура и социальное поведение. М., 2007.
4. Borden G. A. Speech Behavior and Human Interaction. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall,
1969.
5. Brown H. D. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall Regents, 1994.
75
6. Brownless L., Finch N. Leveling the playing field, 2010. ULR:
https://www.unicef.org.uk/Documents/Publications/levelling-playing-field.pdf.
7. Dobson D., Dobson K. S. Evidence-Based Practice of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Debo-
rah Dobson and Keith S. Dobson London: Guilford Press, 2009.
8. Gilroy P. Postcolonial Melancholia. Colombia University Press, N-Y., 2010.
9. Gramsci A. Selections from Cultural Writings. Harvard University Press, 1985.
10. Hertzler J. O. The Sociology of Language. New York: Random House, 1965.
11. Jahr E. H., Language Contact: Theoretical and Empirical Studies. Mouton de Gruyter, Ber-
lin- New York, 1992.
12. Jones L. Encyclopedia of religion, Vol. 13, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005.
13. Krech D., et al. Individual and Society. Publisher: Kogakusha Company, 1962.
14. Malinowski B. Dynamics of Culture Change. Yale, 1945.
15. McGuigan, J. Cultural analysis. SAGE Publications Ltd, 2009.
16. Petrova Y. A., Podporina A. A. The main theories in the field of communication and the se-
lection of words in our language, according to our cultural background // News of Science &
Education, England, 2016.
17. Rhodes S. D., Hergenrather, K.C. Zometa, C. Lindstrom, K., Montaño, J. Characteristics of
immigrant Latino men who utilize formal healthcare services in rural North Carolina: Base-
line findings from the Hombres Study. Journal of the American Medical association, 100
(10), 2008.
18. Suingewood A. Cultural theory and the problem of modernity. N.-Y., 1998.
19. Ten Y.P., Gudakov V.V. Symbols of the regional culture of the North Caucasus // Научный
альманах стран Причерноморья. 2015. № 2. http://science-almanac.ru
March, 3, 2016
