Language, Culture, and Society-Degree

In Doris Sommer’s article “Language, Culture and Society” we get an argument of whether it is better to be monolingual or bilingual and whether it is better to leave behind your first language and culture for one that you move to. I would like to look at this in relation to degrees.

In her article Sommer talks about W.E.B. DuBois’s complaints “against double consciousness” by refusing to “cure it by ‘bleaching’ his black soul” (14). I think this is the extreme degree of this argument. It is possible to be a part of the culture you live in while still holding onto your cultural identity. Sommer brings into her argument others who show that it is better to be bilingual than monolingual. She brings in several philosophers and theorists that show that being bilingual shows a persons ability to solve problems as greater than those who are monolingual. I personally am monolingual and find that those who are bilingual are not limited by their bilingualism as I am by my monolingualism. However Sommer points out that those who are bilingual do not always find it easier to communicate because they do not always know all of the “nuts and bolts” of one particular language. So it depends on the degree to which a person knows one particular language on their degree of communication. If someone knows all the nuts and bolts of English but also all the nuts and bolts of Spanish then they can communicate with most of the residents of San Diego for instance. Someone who lives in Montreal would be able to communicate with most of the residents of Canada if they know French thoroughly and English thoroughly.

I think that if I moved to a country other than the United States that I would absolutely need to learn what their standard language is whether it was Spanish or French or German in order to be successful in that country. So the degree to which I know Standard English would not be helpful to me if I moved to Italy. In order for me to be successful in Italy I would need to learn standard Italian. I would also need to learn the dialect of Italy depending on where I lived in Italy. Just as an Italian who moved to New York would need to learn Standard English as well as the dialect of English depending on whether they moved to Brooklyn or Manhattan, in order to be successful. I believe that I as an immigrant to Italy would need to assimilate to the culture of Italy that I moved to. I have a friend who moved to Milan to be a model. For her to be successful she needed to learn not only Standard Italian so that she could communicate with all Italians but she also has to learn the dialect of Italian spoken in Milan. She did this and became a successful ramp model as well as being used in Italian commercials in which she had to speak Standard Italian for these commercials so that they could be shown nationally. I guess this is the point that Sommer is making when she discusses Universalism.

It will not be possible in our world with the effects of globalization to return to a world where “England was English, German was German, France French, Spain Spanish” (3). Our world is global and each country is more diverse than it was, it is not possible to remain too monolingual any more and expect to be able to communicate with everyone in the country to the same degree that was once possible.