About their problems. They try to find answers for their problems together. For example
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175 COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE As the basic building blocks of communication, words communicate meaning, but culture is the most important factor that influences the meanings of words. Meaning is in the person, not in the word, and each person is the product of a particular culture. Thus, if we are willing to learn to communicate well in a foreign language, we must understand the culture that affects the language. In other words, culture and communication are inseparably linked. You can't have one without the other because they are interconnected. Culture gives meaning and provides the context for communication, and the ability to communicate allows us to act out our cultural values and to share our language and our culture. But our own native language and culture are so much a part of us that we take them for granted. When we travel to another country, we don't think much about our language and culture but we carry our own cultural views along with our passports and luggage; we never leave them behind. Using our own culture as the standard to judge other cultures is called ethnocentrism, and although they are unintentional, our ethnocentric ways of thinking and acting often get in the way of our understanding other languages and cultures. In other words, although we don't plan to be ethnocentric, we think and behave in such a way that it becomes difficult for us to understand other languages and cultures. The willingness to understand a different culture is the cure for cultural blindness. Studying a new language provides the opportunity to develop different views because we also learn the context of the culture that the language belongs to. When linguists study a new language they often compare it to their own, and consequently they gain a better understanding of not only the new language, but of their own language as well. Students who study a foreign language will also learn more about their own native tongue by comparing and contrasting the two languages. You can follow the same comparative method in learning more about culture - your own, as well as others'. Remember that each culture has developed a set of patterns that are right and appropriate for that culture. If people do things differently in another culture, they are not 'wrong' - they are just different and suitable for that particular culture. Always thinking that ‘culturally different’ means ‘culturally wrong' will only promote intercultural misunderstanding and this is what we should all try to avoid.
176 FREE TRADE In the nineteenth century, economists believed that there were limits to human wealth. In their opinion, when one man became richer, another grew poorer. If a country wished to improve its standard of living, it had to export more than it imported. So, in Bntain, the main argument in those days was about free trade and protectionism. The owners of the Lancashire textile factories naturally supported free trade because they wanted to export as many products as possible. In their view, it would be better for the country if they sold more goods to other countries. The landowners and farmers, on the other hand, were afraid of foreign competition. Free trade won because Britain at that time was able to buy as many cheap raw materials as it needed from its colonies and sell them again as finished goods. Import controls would have damaged its position as the strongest manufacturing nation in the world. In America, a similar belief in free trade eventually led to a crisis in economy - the Wall Street crash, in 1929. People in the USA were benefiting from the expansion of the American economy in the First World War. They became convinced that money automatically makes more money and speculative investments are always profitable. When they lost confidence in the stock market, the effects of the 'crash' were felt all over the world. Following the Wall Street crash, the economist John Maynard Keynes introduced a new theory. In simple terms, his solution to the problem was that there is no fixed limit to human wealth. Factories can always produce more if people can afford to buy the goods. Therefore, governments must help factories and create jobs, and the factories must pay good wages. In this way, every worker becomes a consumer. For a time, especially after the Second World War, Keynes's theory was successful. It kept the factories working and maintained full employment. In the 1970s, however, several unpleasant facts emerged. For one thing, we began to realise that the world's resources are limited. We cannot go on producing more and more because we are using up our resources too fast. Secondly, more efficient production is often achieved with fewer workers and bigger machines, not the other way round. Above all, the industrialised nations of the world consume more of the world's resources than they produce. But it is difficult to make people economise when they think that they create more unemployment by spending less money.
177 TWO STRANGERS ON A TRAIN Kate sat in the dining-car of the express train that was taking her back home to Bristol. She had hardly touched the meal in front of her. The steak was just as she normally liked it; medium-rare and thick. It was surrounded by large, grilled mushrooms and crisp fried potatoes. But Kate was worried and in a bad mood. She had recently come back from Mexico, where she had been very happy teaching English to businessmen and engineers. It seemed unlikely that she would ever find such a good job again. Two had been offered to her, both of which she had turned down because of the poor salaries. Nobody seemed interested in her excellent qualifications, which included almost perfect Spanish, fluent German and French and an excellent knowledge of commercial and technical English. Joe sat in another part of the train, smoking nervously. He was the Director of Studies at a large English language school in Cambridge, which had recently started specialising in courses for foreign businessmen and engineers. He had a lot of problems, but the biggest one was finding good, qualified teachers who could teach the sort of English his students needed. A meeting of technical and commercial translators was taking place in Bristol, which was why he was going there. He hoped to persuade some of them to become teachers at his school, and was prepared to offer good salaries. The only other person in Joe's compartment was an old man who was already asleep and snoring, and whose mouth was hanging open like an empty mouse-trap. Even though he was not hungry, he wondered if he might find more attractme company in the dining-car. The old man began to snore more loudly. Joe got up. It was only after he had sat down in the only vacant seat in the dining-car that he noticed Kate. She was opposite him, and had the sort of face he liked. He wondered how he could start a conversation with her. He casually asked her if she minded him smoking, feeling sure she would not. But to his surprise, she did. Nothing more was said for a moment. Then, ................
178 VILLAGE VOICE From The Guardian. The woman had been sent to the village by the Government, but she did not act like an official. She humbly asked permission to address the village elders. "I've come to help your children," she said. "Or to take them away from us," the mothers whispered, and hid their offspring. The elders were suspicious too, but let her have a hut - the most dilapidated in the village. That was how to get rid of an unwanted guest. Leela carried her own water from the distant well, and gathered wood for the cooking. The village watched. At first, making her hut a suitable place to live in and doing basic chores took all her time. But she was going to stay.The children gradually came out of hiding. Leela baked sweets and delicacies, but only one or two children approached her. The Black Witch, the villagers called her - her skin was darker than theirs. "If the Black Witch catches you," the mothers warned, "she will turn you into a wolf." Leela addressed the village council again. The Government had given her a small food allowance for the children, but only for those who came to her class. All boys and girls between the ages of three and five were welcome. Sometimes she gave them a handful of rice and sometimes peanuts or walnuts. First just a few came. Then a dozen, then more. Every morning Leela washed them at the well - something their mothers did perhaps once or twice a month. She combed their hair daily, not just for festivals. If a child's sleeve was torn, she sewed it on, rather than leave it to teafr further. But what the mothers appreciated most was the time they gained to work in the fields without the children round their feet.The day Leela was too ill to take the class, the village was thrown into confusion. Parents had come to expect their new freedom. The women looked in on her, and brought her milk and herbal remedies. The next day she was better. Now Leela could carry out the second stage of her plan. She invited the women to an evening class, to teach them child care. She explained why cleanliness and diet were important. The villagers grew very few vegetables. "You should grow more." she insisted. They asked her why. She improvised: "They increase your blood supply." The men told their wives to stay away from the class. If they spent their evenings with Leela, the husbands would have to carry water and cook supper themselves. Most of the women obeyed reluctantly. But some of the younger wives kept going to evening classes. They were curious about the outside world, and wanted to hear more. The husbands grew angry. Leela was spoiling their wives. Where would it end? The village elders had been right to distrust her from the start. She must go. They tried again to make life difficult for her, but she remained undaunted. The man who owned her hut decided he wanted it for his relatives. Another villager, one of the few men to appreciate her work, offered her his spare hut.The children still came to the morning class, even when the food supply gave out, as it offen did. She saw that as her major achievement. New habits were being formed. Now, when they were old enough, they were more likely to go to the proper school outside the village rather than graze the cattle. She was getting somewhere. But the villagers continued to plot against her. One day her superiors received an anonymous letter. Soon she was called back to town.
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