The Effects of Second Language Learning on Shaping Cultural Identity

With learning another language people will learn the culture of the target language intentionally or unintentionally, and they may feel belonging to another culture as well, and also they can feel changes on their cultural identity in different aspects, some differences are obvious in bilingual person’s behavior and some of them are not visible but it still affects the bilinguals. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between second language learning and culture. Participants included ۵ teachers (male and female, within the age range of ۳۵-۵۰) from five schools in Zabol. The sampling method was randomly and the research method was interview, the questions within it were open-ended and it conclude ۸ questions that should have been answered by the experiences of bilingual teachers. The interview first explained the questions to the participants and ask them to answer the question based on their experiences with honesty, there wasn’t any time limitation for their answers therefore they could answer all of them freely. The answering process for each interview took about ۲۵ to ۳۰ minutes. The result show that bilingualism effects cultural identity but the way it effects the people’s culture and the range of it, is different from person to person. Based on the interview all of the participants experienced changing on their cultural identity but the effect on each person was different from another. some people may feel more attracted to the target culture and some may want stick to their own culture but in both ways bilingualism has significant effects on cultural identity.

Keywords:

Second language Learning” , “Culture