Transforming cultural conflict in the foreign language classroom: the case of Arabic at Defense Language Institute

Abstract

This paper considers the impact of global and national political polarisation on perspectives of instructors and learners in Arabic classrooms at Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in the United States with particular interest in understanding cultural conflicts that occur between instructors and learners. Instructors and learners at DLIFLC responded to a survey, the qualitative data from which are analysed using discourse analysis, research in intercultural communication, and theories of pedagogy. The analysis indicates that while cultural conflict is part of the language-learning experience, there are communicative strategies to turn moments of discord into assets which often involve the ancillary role of non-native speaking instructors who assist in preventing and mediating conflict between native-speaking instructors and students. The paper begins with a brief literature review that informs our theoretical framework, and a description of the study, followed by an analysis of the data it generated and discussion of their implications for DLIFLC and similarly-situated classrooms.

Keywords:

• Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center
• Arabic
• cultural conflict
• language learning
• discourse analysis
• communicative competence
• pedagogy
• philosophy of education

Notes

1. Or fleeing civil wars in which the U.S. has elected not to intervene.

2. ‘Transcultural shifts’ refer to cross-cultural collisions and negotiations that lead to hybridity in terms of complex beliefs about language and cultural identity.

3. In the United States, for example, the dual system has been considered less workable than in the United Kingdom (see below), such that several U.S. states have preemptively banned appeals to the authority of sharia law in court cases (Johnson and Sergie 2014).

4. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended; Age Discrimination in Employment Act; Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 501; Equal Pay Act; Civil Rights Act of 1991, Americans With Disabilities Act; and ADA Amendments Act of 2008.