Language and Communication

As I had a new topic to discuss with my course partner, I fixed a time with him. It was like an official interview, In which we sat in room where nobody could disturb us. Firstly, My partner is Chen Zuo and he is from China however due to his family business, he lives in Botswana.

As I was prepared with some questions for him and he was ready to answers all the questions. First, I asked him about Family background languages. he replied that ” my mom and dad are both Chinese so they basically speak Chinese and  since my father is a businessman he speaks English while mom does not”. he said ” I was born in china and due to my parents, family I learned Chinese but since the beginning, I was going to English school”. although he does not remember all his language learning but he says that he never use to communicate in English in china but as soon as went to high school in UWC, he got an environment there and so he was able to speak English quite fluently.

After living China for 12 years, his family moved to Botswana and here he had to communicate in English all the time. As his understanding, he told me that ” In the beginning, there is always cultural differences in discourse. I was facing differences in pronunciation,  and grammatical structures of other people. I use to have problems understanding their English and specially their native language.  but now I am fine to communicate in English although I cannot speak or understand their native language..”

He also mentioned about he only knows two languages Chinese and English. He said ” even though in china people speak in Chinese but some dialects are mixed and sometimes its completely different from the original language.” he mentioned that ” every ethnic group has their own different dialects, pidgins however its always quite similar to the simplified Chinese.” Many ethnic groups and tribes have their own kind of dialects.

Lastly, I would say It was a good interview for me. I gained knowledge by the experience of my partner. My partner speaks two languages and he is fluent in those however he almost understands all the dialects in china. As explained in cultural Anthropology about innovations, Chen Believes that ” yes innovation has taken place and languages are mixed but the origin is same because speaking and script is not much different except a few words. Finally, Linguistic Anthropology is one of the main parts in Anthropology, In which  human communication is focused upon the importance of socio-cultural differences, communications, structures, functions and history of languages, dialects, pidgins and creoles.

Thanks to Chen Zuo