This is a great TED talk, where writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains the danger of the assumptions we make based on a single story. Anecdotes from her experiences show show both sides of seeing and being seen as "a single story." This is an interesting, crucial, and sometimes unspoken area of learning a foreign language.
Since I can't say it any better than her, here are a few quotes:
"Show a people as one thing, as only one thing over and over again, and that is what they become...
The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.
They make one story become the only story."
"It is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person.
The consequence with the single story is this: it robs people of dignity."
The consequence with the single story is this: it robs people of dignity."
"Stories matter. Many stories matter.
Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.
Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity."
Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.
Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity."
As you study a language, listen not just for morphemes and dialects, but also for the stories of the people you encounter, and for the many stories that make up a culture. A single story is never enough.
