This class overall has been a new topic and subject matter of learning I normally wouldn’t have taken. I think that there is a sense of cultural understanding gained when you have the opportunity to learn about cultures in a different way, especially through linguistics. There are aspects of certain cultures that don’t make sense until you can dive a bit deeper. For example, I always wondered why East Asian cultures, particularly Japanese, were known for brands like Hello Kitty. But through learning about normative linguistic features, I learned that the style stems from the certain word kawaii, that plays a large role in Japanese culture. Though, I can say this is true for multiple things I have learned from the class.

While it hasn’t necessarily challenged me to think a different way, the course has changed how I piece together multiple aspects of culture and discover how these many interconnected things make up their way of life and customs. For example, taking things learned from a linguistic side and an economics side, finding connections between the two, and inferring how a linguistic phenomena could possibly change the state of the country’s economics.

This class presented an interesting subject, taught in a way for non-native speakers of the languages to be able to learn, but I feel for native speakers to dive a little deeper into their own culture. Surely, when thinking about English, I have never thought about the way our language has affected other aspects of our society and culture. Its impact could be great insight into our culture, but I have yet to encounter a class that teaches these things for English, like this course has.

This class has changed the way I think of languages and their affects on their culture and has opened the opportunity for me to continue this trend of learning with other places.