Colonial Histories
Throughout history, colonization has occured throughout societies and nations. People venture beyond their borders to to colonize in other territories. Some reasons for this may be overpopulation, limited resources, notions of granduer, and possibly other factors. Colonial histories play a big part in understanding the dynamics of intercultural communication. Colonialism is significant in determining languages. Britian, France, and Spain are the three most important colonizers. English is spoken in thirteen different countries including many more places in the world. Many different languages are spread through colonization and the histories of colonization tell the story of how that language may have been determined. We do not freely choose our primary langauge but we learn the language of societies in which we are born. Understanding the history is crucial in which linguistics are often apart of these histories.
The most obvious example to give to colonial histories is the colonization and spread of langauges. As I stated earlier, Britian, France, and Spain are the three most important colonizers. Many other foreign languages have been spread through colonialism as well. History is important to know in which it reveals how something (in this case language) may have got to where it is today. History may also reveal the legacies. One example would be the queen of England is also the queen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Bahamas.
Colonial history relates to me in which people colonized to the United States from Britian in which English was brought over as a language. Therefore, the United States primary language is English. Other languages like Spanish is also spoken and you can trace back the history in where it came from and why it may have colonized to the United States.
References:
Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2009). Interculteral Communication in Contexts (5th Edition ed). New York , NY: McGraww-Hill.
I agree with your idea of "the most obvious example to give to colonial histories is the colonization and spread of langauges". Right now we can see many countries have offical languages which are not their original language, such as India.
ReplyDeleteGreat application. I think the concept of colonialism and post-colonialism is vital for current examinations of intercultural communication. For future blogs, make sure you cite the sources listed as a reference in the blog. You should definitely do this in the first paragraph where you define your concept. Also paragraph 2 needs more depth. This is the section where you bring this concept to life so include rich description and detail. You use the spread of language. So give us a specific example of how a certain language has been spread in a colonized country.
ReplyDeleteI agree that colonial history relates to most of us here in America that use English as our primary language. It was interesting to read all the countries where I did not realize that English was the primary language.
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