Developing Cross-cultural Understanding through Sociolinguistic Dissemination: A Practice in Multicultural Education

Abstrak / Ringkasan

The use of language cannot be separated from the culture of its speakers. Most experts agree that language is the cultural reflection of social community. Therefore, the language learning must involve the learning of related culture with the language being learnt. This paper describes my personal experience in teaching Sociolinguistics II for the students of the English Language and Literature Study Program, Yogyakarta State University through sociolinguistic dissemination to develop their cross-cultural understanding. One of the main issues in the teaching of sociolinguistics is to see how cultural aspects are reflected in the use of language. Realizing the importance of this course toward the understanding of the relationship between language and culture, English Language and Literature Study Program, Yogyakarta State University provides its students with this course in two semesters, sociolinguistics I and II. Unlike the teaching of sociolinguistics I which is more theoretical, sociolinguistics II is more practical. The students are expected to have an overview and experience in conducting a mini research that will be beneficial for them in writing thesis. In my experiences in teaching this subject, the students were assigned to conduct mini research on the issue of cross-cultural understanding. In this case, they were proposed to observe multicultural films from different points of view; namely language and society, bilingualism, language variation, choosing code, language and sex, and politeness and solidarity. In the end, they had to disseminate their observation result. The teaching of this course prioritized the process approach. The students were given a chance to consult their observation, present the research report, and revise it. In fact, the implementation of sociolinguistic dissemination not only shows the students on the significance of cross-cultural understanding in the process of communication but also gives them the experience of doing mini research, group work, writing a paper, consultation, and reporting the result.. Key words: developing, cross cultural understanding, sociolinguistic dissemination

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