Language Socialization process that Colombian Children Have With Foreign Students

Leidy Julieth Cruz Morera

Geraldine Barbosa Barbosa

Introduction

Language socialization processes in the early stages are considered an important fact in

children’s development of social skills. It is vital that children learn through their social

context: the culture, beliefs, values, behaviors that can help them to grow in their personal life

and to give a good response to their society, relationships, and progress. In few words,

“language is a major source of information for children to learn the ways and world views of

their culture”. (Schieffelin & Ochs,1986, p. 21). Therefore, language socialization refers to

the ways in which children are introduced to the cultural practices of their society.

Society has changed a lot through the time and that is its role, to reinvent itself. As

mentioned Checa and Arjona (2011) “the society has become a major change by setting up a

social space characterized, increasingly by cultural, ethical and religious diversity”. (p.2).

Years ago, the countries were in wars constantly due to political, cultural, religious and some

other differences. Almost each time a war started, people tended to migrate to other countries

because they had better opportunities of jobs and education. By this way, the term migration

could be known; this phenomena occur in different countries, this cause people started to

interchange their cultural knowledge. Colombia was not the exception, as Bassi (2017)

explained in his text; long time ago, before 1820 there were some European countries that

intended to govern and keep the world under control. They thought of traveling to different

Latin American countries to look for fortunes or in order to build and create some companies.

Nevertheless, Colombia had not had many visitors from abroad as other Latin Countries.

However, through the time, that situation has been changing. Recently, there has been a

massive migration of people coming from Venezuela. In our city, they have been treated
kindly while some others have not. The immigrants can feel disappointed, treated as animals,

but as all people know the bad attitudes come from adults and children may learn them .

For that reason, based on our little experience and keeping in mind Schieffeling & Ochs’s

(1986) work, we deem necessary to analyze the language socialization processes that

Colombian children have with foreign students. In this study, we want to research how

students interact with each other in the classroom, outside it, and the reason behind their

behavior. This interest was born in the place where we were doing our practicum, John

Dewey School in Bogotá. This school has an inclusive curriculum. In this way, the school

works with students with different types of autism and children from other countries such as

China, Mexico, Argentina, Turkey, Venezuela, and some more.

In fact, there are different researches that have created investigations about language

socialization and migration in children, or at schools. The language socialization projects are

almost the same, they look for information about how children develop their communicative

processes in different places and with different population, it means, teachers, partners,

caregivers, etc. Besides these studies try to comprehend the way that children interact with

other children, observing their attitudes in a variety of situations. On the other hand, the

studies that refer to migration are mostly focus on how is the process children have during

their academic life. Always, taking into account the background that helps to understand the

reason why there exists migrant population in a specific place.

During the process to search studies related to immigration, some researchers center the

attention on other aspects that are important to highlight. These aspects are based on

children’s experiences in different countries where they are from, most of the feelings that

they confront can be friendships, reject, anguish, or learning. On the other hand, cases of

migrant children have increased at schools. For that reason, teachers have to think about how

to manage this situation, maybe they have to change the curriculum; however, most of them
conclude that schools do not have to change it, they have to implement it very well and take

into account different cultures and beliefs that students have.

The possible population interesting in this topic of study might be teachers and directors

who need to keep in mind the concept of migrant students in order to identify and plan new

strategies and curriculums. Besides, this study would help teachers to take into account

different behaviors that children would have in different situations depending on the cultures

that they are facing.

Literature review

We took the approach of a thematic review because we consider it the best way to classify

the topics necessary for our study. Even if our main topic is language socialization processes,

the first topic that will be explained in this literature review is the Theory of mind. Hence, we

can start to know how this theory explains the first processes that children have in language

and social development at early ages. Then, we will continue with the other topics that are

related to language socialization processes and children’s behavior.

Theory of mind

Theory of mind refers to the phenomenon that is based on how we as human being

understand each other in moments when we do not use language in its complexity at all; just

with some movements or few words. The theory of mind is thought in different

developmental possibilities with the help of other theories or systems. However, there are

different points of view related to this theory and how it works. One point of view is by

Premack and Woodruffs ( as it was quoted in Astington & Baird, 2005) “it as a system of

inferences that can be used to predict behavior by attributing mental states to individuals.

This definition was quickly taken up and applied to children”. (p.4). Besides, this theory
helps the development of some aspects that involve the socialization with other people in

terms of language and social context as mention Baron-Cohen 1997. (as it was quoted in

Westra, Evan, Camuthers & Peter, 2018) “Many scholars have suggested that the theory of

mind is an innate adaptation for social cognition, emerging very early in development and

playing a crucial role in social learning and the acquisition of language” (p. 2). As we can

identify there is a controversy due to the first author said the theory of mind is just inferences

that children can have to predict while the second one said that different researchers think in

this theory as an innate adaptation for social cognition. Nevertheless, according to Astington

& Baird (2005)“the Theory of mind became the way researchers referred to children

understanding of people as a mental being who have beliefs, desires, emotions, and intentions

and whose actions and interactions can be interpreted and explained by taking account of

these mental statements” (p. 3). To conclude, there is not an exact answer about how the

theory of mind works, what researcher have found is that is a natural process, and there are

clues that help us to identify in what cases the theory of mind appears. For instance, when

someone uses the verbs that express emotions, desires such as, like, love, want, etc. They can

help children to realize about someone's desire; the same happens with the verbs used in

terms of cognition such as, know, understand, etc. This theory of mind helps us to identify

how children guess or identify what the other children try to communicate with specific

words and body language.

Language socialization processes and its connection with the theory of mind

Taking into account the theory of mind, children start to understand that others have

beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own. Children have

a language socialization process that is defined by Friedman (2010) “language socialization is

how they acquire the ways of speaking, acting, and being in the world that are recognized as

legitimate within a community (or communities) of practice”. In this way, the language
socialization process is the tool in which children develop a variety of skills to be part of a

community. Additionally, children develop the process of socialization based on the point of

view of Chomsky, as mentioned in Guasti and Lust ( as quoted in Enfield, Kocketman, 2014)

“language acquisition enabling children’s language as a process of maturation largely

immune to cultural and language variation”(p.2). In other words, the process of socialization

in children depends on the way in which adults interact with them that involve the

transmission of culture, grammar tenses, vocabulary, and behaviors. By doing so, children

represent and also interchange the culture that they know by different situations they are

involved in like games, activities, and so on. Moreover, according to Schieffelin & Elionor

(1986) “Language socialization research differs from research in developmental pragmatics

in that developmental pragmatics tends to focus on children’s competence in constructing

discourse, including their competence in producing and understanding speech acts, genres,

tum-taking norms, discourse and sentence topic”. This means that language socialization

focuses more on the development of the communicative competence in children. ºTo sum up,

the language socialization process consist of sharing cultural behaviors, cultural ideas,

interact with others in different social contexts, have different attitudes, etc. All of these

aspects to become a member of a social group.

Children behavior through language socialization.

Kyratzis (2004) showed some children behavior in different situation of the daily life.

During this research,, researchers focused on how children talk and socialize with other

children in all the activities that they do in their daily life with their peers and friendships

based on sociology, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology thoughts. This was done in

order to know how language and peer talk can help in the establishment and maintenance of

peer culture, thereby, to understand the socialization among children, Thus, the researcher

collected different studies about the topic and took important aspects of each one of them to
explain different important (overuse of “important”) aspects of how children socialize in

different situations in their daily life. Nevertheless, they describe specific cases of children in

different situations in different countries. On account of the socialization process between

children, the population that the author used were cases with children in Italian, American,

Dominican, African, Chinese preschool, high school in Great Britain Also, they used cases of

children with language disabilities. Additionally, the conclusion of this research is that the

process of socialization has three branches according to sociology, linguistic, sociolinguistic,

and anthropology thoughts: the ability that is the process in which children follow the adult

norms based on grammar in elicited developing the communicative competence. It can be in

two ways underlies situationally that is based in situations that not happen currently, and

naturalistic situations that children do constantly. The second branch is about the

reproduction of children behaviors where they transmit the culture of their adults, but also

children do an interpretation of those behaviors and reproduce it when they are with other

children, in this way researchers highlighted that when children are doing this process,

children are doing a negotiation of their cultures. The last branch is about the formulation that

children do about the beliefs and context in which they are involved creating their own reality

from games that they play where they assign a role, according to the role they build their

beliefs and behavior.

The impact of migration through language socialization process in children behavior

Kiratzis (2004) showed the impact of migration through language socialization processes

in children behaviour. This research was developed in Russian Schools. The researcher

wanted to explain the emergence of school segregation in Russia and go towards the notion

of boundaries and explore how they are constructed; how the notion of the ‘migrantness’ of a

school is formed among local residents?; and how is the divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’ built

inside such a school?. To examine the ethnic segregation at school level in Russia and in
Russian as a second language symbolic boundaries constructed around schools attended by

children of migrants, as well as inside them. Researchers worked with students that were in

8th grade to 11th grade. At the end of this study, researchers concluded that in post-Soviet

cities reproduce and enhance school segregation. In addition, researchers found that in the

four schools they worked. The migrant children and low classes children study in schools

called “black schools”. This just because there were vulnerable children. Besides, they

realized that ethnicity was stronger is children who do not speak Russian or do not uphold the

same social-cultural and social norms. Finally, researches claimed to have realized that if the

Russian Educational Government does not implement Russian language courses, the

integration of migrants in Russian schools would not be successful.

To sum, the previous researches help us to identify what the common attitudes and actions

are that children have when sharing moments with their friends or other children. This is

useful in order not to get confused with the “normal” behavior of children when we have to

do our observations with the foreign children’s behavior in front of Colombian children and

vice versa. Moreover, it is useful for us to know how the ethnic segregation and the

xenophobe can be developed in a social group throughout the historical events. Moreover, we

can evidence easily if children’s behavior might have similarities related to ethnic segregation

even in other social contexts.

References:

Bassi, E. (2017) The ‘Franklins of Colombia’: Immigration Schemes and

Hemispheric. Solidarity in the Making of a Civilised. Colombian Nation . Cambridge
University.

Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology, Chapter: 8, Publisher: Cambridge

University Press, Editors: N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, J. Sidnell, pp.187-226. Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268443710_Language_acquisition_and_language_s
ocialization
 Checa, J and Arjona, A.(2011) Españoles ante la inmigración: el papel de los medios
de comunicación. Almería, España.

Coe, C. Reynolds, R. Boehm, D. Hess, J and Espinosa, H. (2012) Everyday Ruptures

children, youth, and immigration in global perspective. Vanderbilt University Press.

Demintseva. E. (2017). 'Migrant schools' and the 'children of migrants': constructing

boundaries around and inside school space. Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2018.1538126

Friedman, D. (2010). Becoming national: Classroom language socialization and

political identities in the age of globalization. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 30,
193-210

Kyratzis, Amy. (2004). Talk and Interaction Among Children and the Co-
Construction of Peer Groups and Peer Culture. Annual Review of Anthropology. 33. 625-
649. 10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.144008.

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2004). Young Children Develop
in an Environment of Relationships: Working Paper No. 1. Retrieved from
www.developingchild.harvard.edu.

Shieffelin. B & Ochi. Eleonor. (1986). Language Socialization. Available at:

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/ochs/articles/Schieffelin_Ochs_1986_Language_S
ocialization.pdf

Westra, Evan & Carruthers, Peter. (2018). Theory of Mind 0.1007/978-3-319-16999-

6_2376-1. Available at: Westra, Evan & Carruthers, Peter. (2018). Theory of Mind.
10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2376-1.

Wiedemann.G. (2017). El gran legado de los inmigrantes en Colombia. Revista

Semana. Bogotá, Colombia.

Wilde. J & Baird. A. (2005). Why language matters for theory of mind. Chapter 1.
Available at:https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bibliouniminuto-ebooks/detail.action?
docID=281341