Cultural and language problems faced by migrants as the members of a certain ethnic community

Petrova Julia Andreevna

UDC 314

CULTURAL AND LANGUAGE PROBLEMS FACED BY MIGRANTS AS THE MEMBERS OF A CERTAIN ETHNIC COMMUNITY

J. A. Petrova

Rostov state university of economics. Rostov-on-Don, Russia science-almanac@mail. ru

Our cultural and language peculiarities reflect our personalities and temperaments, roles and relations, social and ethnic identities. Most migrants consist of migrant students and workers, economic refugees, political refugees, immigrants, or executives and businessmen from different countries. Migrants from different parts of our world are obvious representatives of certain language, ethnicity, culture and other differences, which may lead to cultural and language difficulties faced by migrants as the members of a certain ethnic community.

Key words: migrants, language, culture, communication, ethnic groups.

According to UNESCO statistical data, more than half of the world's population is multilingual. The USA and the UK, Canada, Australian, and European counties became a part of the international problem of refugees, racial and minority oppression and other disadvantages found on other continents. Studying cultural and language problems faced by migrants we should emphasize the unique nature of specific group characteristics, since this would lead to inappropriate descriptions of ethnic or linguistic groups. Most migrants consist of migrant students and workers, economic refugees, political refugees, immigrants, or executives and businessmen from different countries [11, p. 132].

The culture is created as a result of cultural activities of individuals in the under-natural reality, connected with the needs of human being in the process of adapting to social and natural environment. B. Malinowski believed that the culture presents «instrumental reality, satisfying human's needs, being in the ways, far beyond the immediate adaptation to the environment. Culture gives a person the means for expanding the possibility of his body, reliable armor, protective and safety devices, methods of increasing the efficiency and speed in those situations, where this cannot be achieved by means of direct physical abilities» [1, p. 21]. G. Triandis defined culture as «material and non-material elements of the vital activities of the group, which in the past contributed to its survival in the existing environmental niche and were used by the members of the group for cooperation and maintenance of their territorial and socio-cultural integrity» [3, p. 43]. Within the framework of our research, we study different cultural and language problems faced by migrants as the members of a certain ethnic community, almost in every country and region. Ethnic migrants are those who reflect their own ethnic culture. Ethnic culture embodies traditions and customs of their ancestors. This implies typical features of ethnic culture, such as: conservatism, succession, definite cultural traditions. Cultural tradition - is a mechanism for maintaining and preserving the stability of cultural norms, which serves for transmitting cultural forms from generation to generation and strict support of such forms.

The culture for the society - is the same as the memory for the individual. In other words, the culture includes traditions that «inform» the person that «it worked» in the past. Therefore, ethnic culture is the traditional culture. According to the American cultural studies A. Suingewood writes: «The culture, created by a person, is a dialogue between past and present; the field of the memory that continues to exist in the present; the dialogue involving many different voices to be heard, all exist in the present, helping to find the answers to other generations» [18, p. 179].

Culture is more than cultural projects or forms of representation; culture is used in its broadest sense of shared practices which produce meaning; which can be simultaneously affirmed, deconstructed and criticized [8]. In many western nations, culture often is ascribed the features of being essentialist, inherited and fixed; yet sociological attention, at both the macro and micro levels of analysis demonstrates cultures arising at particular moments in time and reflecting particular so-

cial and national developments [15, p. 84-90], while the hegemony of influential social groups in structuring and maintaining cultures is frequently occluded [9; p. 99], [7, p. 284]. Migrant people are the members of a complex system of movements, their actions and contributions are captures fully by improvement of their mode of life, which may not lead to improved opportunities if migrant people are refugees or asylum-seekers [6]. Immigrants cope with conflicting cultural and social norms and expectations while attempting to adjust to life in a new country [17]. Acculturation usually refers to the process by which immigrants learn a second culture - that of the predominant cultural group.

In many cases, for migrants both verbal and written communications are severally limited, which lead to feelings of social isolation, uncertainty and helplessness. In most cases, migrants use their native language as a «group language», differentiating them clearly from their surroundings. The social use of the native language is clearly restricted: it is used in family domains and in some cases in semipublic places, as bars, cafes and restaurants, and rarely in public ones [11, p. 133]. Language is an important channel, which transfers the way of our thinking and feeling. Through language people express themselves and their identity, ethnicity, occupational status, gender, and age. We are all unique with our personal communicative style, through which reflects our personalities and temperaments, roles and relations, and social identities. Language marks our social status, forms our impressions of others and marks our group boundaries [16].

A lack of understanding of the native language may cause serious problems for migrants' word interpretation of every part of the everyday experience. That's why it is essential not only to speak native language of the country, but also to get the right information for avoiding social, cultural and linguistic problems. Rather than viewing words as having meaning in themselves, B. Ma-linowsky saw them as entirely relative to their context, «words modify the human organism in order to transform physiological drives into cultural values» [12, p. 8911]. Although language by no means guarantees cooperation among people, language is an essential precondition of collaboration. Without language, extended cooperative human endeavors simply could not exist [14;10]. D. Krech wrote in his book «Individual and Society» that «a language does reflect the personality of the individual and the culture of the society, but the language in turn helps to shape that personality and culture» [13, p. 291]. This approach was also reflected in J. Hertzler's thesis, that there is an independent, reflexive relationship between a community and its language. G.A. Borden adopted a similar approach of «independence». According to his words: «The language differences reflect cultural differences, and, since language controls thought processes to some extent there are obviously differences in patterns of thinking from one culture to another [4; p. 220]. It means that a language is a creation of the special needs and circumstances of a community, but it also in turn sustains the community, preserving its unique identity. At the same time «culture - is a way of life» [5, p. 163]. By H. D. Brown «culture - is deeply rooted in every cell of our being, but the language - is a means of communication among the members of the culture, which is the most visible and available form of the culture. And so a person's ideology, self-identity and persuasion, actions, feelings, and communication process may be destroyed by changings from one culture to another» [5, p. 170]. The concept of communication has recently acquired a philosophical status, it can be found in almost each dictionary of modern philosophers. The problem of the field, in which the topic of the communication-culture is presented, is quite heterogeneous. Suffice it to say that the issues related to the study of communication, in fact are discussed in the research works on communication, dialogue, philosophy of language and speech, logic, rhetoric, semiotics, cybernetics, theory of discourse analysis, psychology, etc. [2].

Communication and understanding between people marked the beginning in an age of the culture. From the very beginning, people were involved in the social contexts of different degrees of complexity. Communication guarantees continuity in the development of the culture. It is obvious that the communication process is reasonably necessary for the forming of the society, in order to achieve understanding and cooperation between its members, where migrants are one of the most important elements of the cultural interaction process [2]. Different migrants from different parts of our world are obvious representatives of certain cultural and language peculiarities. Getting into a

new socio-cultural system, they either refuse their cultural values and language norms, dissolving in it (assimilated), or form their own community (in language, cultural, religious, or ethnic differences), which may lead to different cultural and language problems faced by migrants as the members of a certain ethnic community.

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