Multilingual students' representations of material culture

Teresa M. Włosowicz

pp. 71-93

in: Larissa Aronin, Michael Hornsby, Grazyna Kiliańska-Przybyło (eds), The material culture of multilingualism, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

The present study investigates multilingual students' representations of the material cultures of several countries, acquired by the participants either directly (for example, because they have studied the languages in question, visited the countries, etc.) or indirectly (from films, literature, social representations widespread in Polish society, etc.). As the results show, despite the diversity of responses reflecting individual representations, particular cultures are associated with certain categories of objects (for example, food, vehicles, clothes, etc.) and the difference between the cultures is statistically significant at p < 0.001, so the objects associated with each culture depend on the culture, at least in the case of the participants. On the basis of these results, a suggestion is made concerning the use of representations in developing cultural awareness and overcoming negative stereotypes.