APPLYING THE HIGH- AND LOW-CONTEXT COMMUNICATION CULTURE MODEL IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION PROCESS: THE CASE OF KOREAN LANGUAGE IN THE LATVIAN CULTURE ENVIRONMENT
APPLYING THE HIGH- AND LOW-CONTEXT COMMUNICATION CULTURE MODEL IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION PROCESS: THE CASE OF KOREAN LANGUAGE IN THE LATVIAN CULTURE ENVIRONMENT

Summary/Abstract: In the global and changing world of the 21st century, the ability to communicate both with representatives of one’s own culture and those of a differing one, which requires the learning of different languages, retains importance. However, learning a language is not just about developing certain skills or memorizing grammar. Beyond that, language and its grammar carry information about the culture the language represents and from which it came. The context of language use is equally important, because the employed linguistic tools depend on it. The case of Korean language is a clear example of this – knowing the cultural cues and etiquette is just as important as being able to put together sentences grammatically. Following the theory developed by Edward Hall regarding high- and low-context communication cultures, this paper examines how the Korean language influenced by its high-context culture is acquired by Latvian students with a relatively lower-context culture as their background. A comparison of cultural practices and their linguistic expressions of both languages is made, enhanced with practical observations of what seems to be the most difficult to acquire from a high-context communication language. It is concluded that it is crucial to have a strong basis of cultural context and that certain aspects of politeness, ambiguous expressions and their practical usage in Korean are the most challenging for Latvian students. It is also concluded that this theoretical examination must be followed by a practical one.

• Details
• Contents