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ISSN: 2456-8104 Impact Factor: 4.928 (SJIF)
Vol. 5 | Issue 25 | May 2021 www.jrspelt.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Effect of Cultural Capital on Linguistic Performance of ESL Learners
Bimrisha Mali JRSP-ELT (ISSN: 2456-8104)
1
Effect of Cultural Capital on Linguistic Performance of ESL Learners
Bimrisha Mali (bimris62_llh@jnu.ac.in)
Research Scholar, Centre for Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Abstract
The present study investigates the relationship between linguistic performance and cultural capital of English
Second Language (ESL) Learners. The participants of the present study are the school students from Rural Assam.
There are a total of 113 participants from two government schools. The medium of instruction as well as the
communication among the students takes place in the local language i.e. Assamese. A linguistic performance test set
is devised which is adapted from Fromkin (2018). In addition to that, the participant’s response to Cultural Capital
Scale is recorded. This recorded scale of cultural capital is used as a factor while analyzing the linguistic
performance. Unlike other studies, our result reports no correlation between the linguistic performance and cultural
capital of the learners.
Keywords: Cultural Capital, ESL, Indian Classroom, Linguistic Performance
Introduction
The English language has become a lingua franca in the twenty-first century. It is widely used for
international communication. There are a variety of factors that impact English Second language learning
viz. the learners’ first language, adequate methodology, the context of learning, etc. The researches
suggest the impact of cultural capital on the educational success of students (Dumais, 2002; Kiley, 2019).
In contrast to learners with less cultural capital, learners with higher cultural capital are found
academically more successful (Dumais & Ward, 2010). EFL learners’ cultural capital has a positive
impact on all the dimensions (listening, reading, speaking, writing, and grammar skills) of English
Language learning (Pishghadam et. al., 2011).
Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital helps us in understanding the variations and inequality in academic
achievements of students belonging to different socio-economic classes. Individuals acquire certain skills,
knowledge, education, and mannerism from their family’s attitude, social standing, and educational
background. The cultural capital of an individual refers to the collection of the components an individual
possesses being a part of a class (Bourdieu, 1971). Bourdieu divides the cultural capital of an individual
into three categories namely- i) embodied, ii) objective, and, iii) institutionalized. Embodied refers to the
dominant traits (preferences), mannerisms, and language of an individual. For example, knowing which
car to buy, or knowing which fork to use, or not saying “aks” in a job interview. It is subject to
“hereditary transmission” and is heavily disguised. The objective capital refers to the possession of
cultural goods like pictures, books, dictionaries, instruments, mobile phones, and access to the internet,
for example, availability of multimedia mobile phones or access to the internet. The institutional capital
refers to the formal recognition from institutions like the possession of academic qualifications and
certifications. This in turn transforms into economic capital in the labor market. (Bourdieu & Passeron,
1990) applied these three factors in education, consumption, and taste. Students with dominant cultural
skills are bound to perform better in education, have more career success since they are already familiar
with the skills required from their social background.
The rural second language learners do not have many resources for learning the English language as
compared to the urban learners (Roy, 2017). Moreover, the rural environment does not provide the
opportunity to speak and learn the English language. The learners learn English as a second language
without getting the atmosphere for practical use. Generally, the parents of urban ESL learners are
educated and hence the domestic environment adds an advantage for them in the acquisition of the
ISSN: 2456-8104 Impact Factor: 4.928 (SJIF)
Vol. 5 | Issue 25 | May 2021 www.jrspelt.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Effect of Cultural Capital on Linguistic Performance of ESL Learners
Bimrisha Mali JRSP-ELT (ISSN: 2456-8104)
2
English language. Unlike urban ESL learners, rural English learners are typically first-generation English
learners. The rural learners also don't get to read a lot in English books, magazines, or the use of the
internet. Since these resources are rarely available. These learners are highly dependent on their teachers.
While most of the English language teachers are not trained and updated with the recent advances in the
area of English language teaching. The intriguing aspect that comes out of the study of Bourdieu and Roy
is that there is no fine-grain differentiation of cultural capital in rural settings. The purpose of the present
study is to investigate the relationship between rural English language learners’ performance and their
cultural capital in the Indian classroom context.
Research Question
Is there any significant relationship between ESL learners’ linguistic performance and their cultural
capital?
Null Hypothesis (H0): There exists a significant relationship between ESL learner’s linguistic
performance and cultural capital.
Alternate Hypothesis (Ha): There is no significant relationship between ESL learner’s linguistic
performance and cultural capital.
Related Works
Bourdieu's (1986) concept of social and cultural capitals has influenced many research works concerning
diverse aspects of human lives. Many research suggests the impact of cultural capital on the educational
success of students (Dumais,2002; Kiley, 2019; DiMaggio,1982; DiMaggio & Mohr, 1985 ). In contrast
to learners with less cultural capital, learners with higher cultural capital are found academically more
successful (Dumais & Ward, 2010).
Several researchers have investigated the impact of English Second Language learners’ capitals on
English language performance (see De, 2017; Khodadady, 2016; Pishghadam, 2011; Salameh, 2012).
These studies have claimed that the learners’ capital plays a significant role in the success and failure of
English language performance among ESL learners. EFL Learners’ cultural capital played a positive
correlation with their foreign language achievement (Pishghadam et.al, 2011).
ESL learners in Indian classrooms belong to different social classes and therefore, possess varying levels
of cultural capital. There is a huge gap between the cultural capital of different social classes which
reproduces inequality (Bourdieu, 1971). This inequality on the other hand is perceived as a merit for the
upper and the middle classes (ibid). The ability to learn English is an expensive process which only the
upper and the middle classes can afford. Knowing and mastering the English language is a cultural capital
and it reproduces class inequality (Malik, 2014). Parents and students manage institutional encounters in
different ways. This specialized skill of parents is what gets transmitted across generations and is a source
of advantage for a specific category of people (Lareau, 2003). The linguistic ability of learners gets
transmitted more from their background than from their institutions (Sullivan, 2001).
Teacher's cultural capital contributes to the success of learning the English language by the students
(Hassanzadeh, 2017). It is the teachers who provide the inputs for learning the target language to the ESL
learners in the rural areas (Roy, 2017). However, the urban ESL learners who have better chances of
getting exposure to the language outside the classroom whether it be at home from parents or the
resources like English novels, newspapers, etc. There is a lack of the resources used for teaching ESL in
Indian classrooms (ibid). Using a textbook for 20 years, the use of traditional teaching methods does not
add much to the learner's expertise (Hassanzadeh, 2017). With the growth of rapid technological
advances, the divide between the rural and urban is still intact. The new technological resources are not
penetrated in the rural classrooms.
ISSN: 2456-8104 Impact Factor: 4.928 (SJIF)
Vol. 5 | Issue 25 | May 2021 www.jrspelt.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Effect of Cultural Capital on Linguistic Performance of ESL Learners
Bimrisha Mali JRSP-ELT (ISSN: 2456-8104)
3
Cultural capital plays an important role in the performance of English language learners coming from
disadvantaged backgrounds. Lack of cultural capital may obstruct English Second language learners
especially from working-class families from educational success. ESL learners need support during their
learning process- at different stages in the transition period. An appreciation of various styles and cultures
in the classroom can play a positive influence (Kiley, 2019). The rural population perceives their English
learning as an investment and an advantage for getting jobs and being educated in the real sense (Teng,
2017).
Method
Participants and Setting
113 ESL learners participated in the present study. Out of 113, 82 are female and 31 are male students.
The participants are undergraduate students of two government colleges in the Kamrup district of Assam
(India). The age range of the learners is from 17-19 years. The learners completed their primary and upper
primary schooling in vernacular government schools. These schools used to teach English from the fifth
standard. Later it was introduced in the third standard. Therefore the participants have significant
exposure to English language learning. The participants are L1 Assamese speakers and still communicate
in Assamese in the classroom.
GENDER
College Code
Participants Male Female
College A 50 24 26
College B 63 7 56
113 31 82
Table 1: The gender wise distribution of participants in both the colleges
Instruments
To measure the level of ESL learners’ linguistic competence, the present study conducted a linguistic
performance test. The cultural capital of the ESL learners was surveyed by using the Cultural Capital
Scale from Pishghadam’s “Social and Cultural Capital Questionnaire” (SCCQ). The total (cumulative)
English language achievement scores were obtained from the learners’ linguistic performance test to
explore the relationship between cultural capitals and English language achievement.
A. Linguistic performance test
The “linguistic test” was conducted to measure the ESL learner's linguistic knowledge at the
word and sentence level in English. It comprises a cloze test which looks into the recognition of
correct and incorrect words and sentences. The word recognition test consists of simple and
complex words. The sentence recognition test consists of a word order test, a syntactic rule for
verb test, and a grammaticality test. The linguistic test consists of fourteen marks. The test was
administered by the researcher in about 15 minutes
B. Cultural Capital Scale
The cultural capital of the ESL learners was measured by using the Cultural Capital Scale (CCS)
as described in the Social and Cultural Capital Questionnaire (SCCQ) proposed by Pishghadam
(2011). The CCS comprised thirteen factors which are divided into two sub-scales: Literacy and
Cultural Competence. Literacy comprised six factors, while cultural competence comprised seven
factors. These factors were measured using a five-point Likert scale which ranged from strongly
disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). A “strongly agree” response received five points, “agree”
ISSN: 2456-8104 Impact Factor: 4.928 (SJIF)
Vol. 5 | Issue 25 | May 2021 www.jrspelt.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Effect of Cultural Capital on Linguistic Performance of ESL Learners
Bimrisha Mali JRSP-ELT (ISSN: 2456-8104)
4
received four points, “undecided” received three points, “disagree” received two points, and
“strongly disagree” received one point.
Procedures
The data collection session was organized post-lunch on a working day. Each participant was given an
additional 30 minutes post-lunch before appearing in the session. A written questionnaire was prepared by
the researcher. The researcher personally distributed the questionnaires in the form of a hard copy to the
participants. The objective of the study is not disclosed to the participants. Each participant was given an
hour to finish the questionnaires. However, most of them had finished it in 30-45 minutes. The
questionnaires examined two variables of the study: cultural capital was the independent variable, and
linguistic performance was considered as the dependent variable.
Results
The descriptive statistics of schools A and B are shown below in Table 2. It is interesting to note that the
mean of both the variables is above 0.5 and the mode is very close to the mean. Moreover, the other
properties of distribution can be analyzed by the value of kurtosis and the skewness shown in the
following table.
School A Linguistic
Performanc
e
Cultural
Capital
Mean 0.625 0.589
Mode 0.642 0.485
Median 0.642 0.6
Variance 0.009 0.019
SD 0.094 0.138
Kurtosis 0.644 -0.145
Skewness 0.529 -0.366
School B Linguistic
Performanc
e
Cultural
Capital
Mean 0.586 0.506
Mode 0.642 0.571
Median 0.642 0.571
Variance 0.008 0.0279
SD 0.091 0.167
Kurtosis 0.272 0.586
Skewness -0.908 -0.977
Table 2: Descriptive statistics of Linguistic Performance and Cultural Capital; SD denotes “Standard Deviation”
The correlation of linguistic performance and cultural capital is computed for both schools. The data of
each school is divided into two parts based on the mean value of the linguistic performance and then the
correlation is computed for each part. Finally, the correlation of each school is the average of the
correlation value of both parts. The value of correlation is shown below in Table 2.
ISSN: 2456-8104 Impact Factor: 4.928 (SJIF)
Vol. 5 | Issue 25 | May 2021 www.jrspelt.com
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Effect of Cultural Capital on Linguistic Performance of ESL Learners
Bimrisha Mali JRSP-ELT (ISSN: 2456-8104)
5
School Correlation
A -0.01
B 0.18
Both 0.17
Table 3: Correlation of Linguistic Performance and Cultural Capital
Conclusion and Future Works
The present study is based on the null hypothesis that the EFL learners’ cultural capital has a positive
impact on all the dimensions (e.g., listening, reading, speaking, writing, and grammar skills) of English
Language learning (Pishghadam et. al, 2011). However, the result of the correlation between linguistic
performance and cultural capital rejects the null hypothesis. Our alternate hypothesis suggests that
cultural competence has almost no effect on linguistic performance in rural settings. The reason is that it
is quite difficult to establish the cultural competence gap among the students or subjects. The future work
will investigate the cultural competence gap required to have a positive impact on linguistic performance.
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