Culture and language

Language is the basis of social life. “Language is culture and culture is language”. There is a close relationship between the two phenomena, where language reflects the culture of a particular society, and culture is the product of socially and historically situated discourse communities, created and shaped by language. Language is defined as a sum of beliefs and practices of society and the ideas and world views of society are determined by language.

            Language is the principal means which society resides on. The relationship between language and culture is deeply rooted in the way that language reflects culture of one society and its world views. In practice there is an unequivocal tendency of identifying language and culture. In order to identify culturing of language, one often encounters expressions such as: “language and culture are inseparable”, “language and culture are intimately connected”, “language is culture and culture is language.” Language reflects and conveys culture and cultural connections. Language can be, of course, as a part of culture, simply defined as a sum of beliefs and practices in society. On the other hand, culture is the product of socially and historically situated discourse communities, created and shaped by language. The power of language to reflect culture and influence thinking was introduced for the first time by an American linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir and his disciple Edward Whorf. According to their hypothesis, the structure of language influences the way we think and behave. As an example, Whorf tells an anecdote which has become famous. While he was working as a fire risk insurance assessor, he noticed that the way people behaved towards things was often dangerously correlated to the way these things were called. For example, the sight of the sign ‘EMPTY’ on empty gasoline drums would prompt a passerby to toss cigarette butts into these drums, not realizing that the remaining gasoline fumes would be likely to cause an explosion. In English the word ‘EMPTY’ means a neutral space, free of danger. Whorf concluded that the reason why different languages can lead people to different actions is because language filters their perception and the way they categorize experience. The theory of linguistic relativity does not state that linguistic structure limits what people think and see, but it has a tendency of influencing what they usually think.

            Different ideas are the result of different uses of language in one society. World view is a structure that is made up of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world around him and which determines the interaction between the individual and the society. It can be shaped by culture and language which are common for one society. This is because people use language to express their culture and in this way express their world view in that same society. The connection between language and culture is established with the birth of an individual. The reason for this is because the child is exposed to the environment and this helps him to become a part of the cultural team. The individual describes his views using the language that is the product of his culture. Accordingly, the knowledge of culture of one group of people depends on the knowledge of their language. Their views may differ, even though they grew up in similar conditions and culture, unless they speak the same language. The understanding and views of the individual are limited by the language he uses. The reason for this is because different languages establish different limitations, so people of the same culture but different languages have different world views. This indicates that culture creates language and that culture of one society is expressed through language. Language is a system of signs that by itself has a cultural value. People identify themselves and others through language. In other words, they see language as a symbol of their social identity. Prohibition of its use speakers see as a rejection of their social group and culture.

            While determining connections between culture and language, it is very important to make a distinction between language and culture in the generic sense, on one side, and language and culture in the differential sense, on the other side. In the generic sense, we are dealing with language and culture as phenomena shared by all humanity. The generic sense comes in two forms: a psychological/cognitive one and a social one. On one hand, one can view language and culture as psychological/cognitive phenomena which, to some extent or other, have certain specific (neuro-)physiological prerequisites. On the other, one can view language and culture as social phenomena that have developed as part of the social life of the human species. Human culture always includes language, and human language cannot be conceived without culture. Linguistic practice is always embedded in some cultural context or another. In the specific sense, we are dealing with various languages and various cultural phenomena. We are dealing with specific forms of linguistic practice, such as ‘whole’ languages, language varieties, registers and loan words, as well as with specific forms of cultural practice: various meanings and meaningful forms, various norms and values, symbols, ideas and ideologies. Language teaching belongs to this level as well. Theoretical concepts such as foreign language, i.e. second language, child language, children’s culture and written language and literature culture, belong to the differential level. Nevertheless, it is important to point out that differences between languages are relative. In every language there are particular terms that are specific for that language, terms which it shares with other languages and terms that are universal and which the language in question shares with all known languages. For example, in the Arabic language, there are different words which denote different types of horses or camels, whereas in English there are no such specific words. Instead, the distinction is made by putting an adjective in front of the concept word. Therefore, all languages are, to some degree, carriers of both language universals and language specificity. It is similar with cultural forms and relationships: some are specific, some are more or less widespread, and some are universal and known to all societies. 

            Used in the context of communication, language is connected with culture in many ways. First of all, words that people utter relate to general experience. They are used for expressing facts, ideas or events that can be communicated because they relate to general knowledge of the world shared by all humanity. Words are used for conveying author’s attitudes, beliefs, thoughts that other people share as well. All in all, language is used for conveying cultural reality. But, members of community or social group do not only use language to convey an experience, they also use it to create one. It gets a meaning through means used by community members in mutual communication such as: telephone, face to face conversation, letter, email, newspaper reading, interpretation of graphs and tables. The way that people use oral, written or visual means creates meanings that are understandable to the group they belong to. This implies: speaker’s tone of voice, accent, conversation style, gestures and face expressions. Cultural differences are distinctive in pragmatic ways of language use. New skills are typically acquired through verbal instructions, but in some cultures they are acquired through nonverbal observation. Differences in social roles between the adults and children also influence use of language. House and school setting can represent different cultures, subcultures or both and can significantly influence language acquisition. Through both verbal and nonverbal aspects, language represents the basis of cultural reality.

            In terms of semantic content, language always relates to persons, events, conditions, processes, characteristics and relationships inside one society, and the functioning and existence of culture is largely based on language. Therefore, it is not uncommon for mistakes, which occur during translation, to happen exactly because of ignorance of the close connection between language and culture. Since the beginning of the 90s of the XX century, a large part of linguistics, including anthropological linguistics, sociolinguistics and research of intercultural (language) communication, translation, acquisition and language teaching, have largely indicated the close connection between language and culture. This has further led to increased research of how cultural differences are manifested and created through linguistic practice, discourse, how culturally different are conceptual systems and world views contained in semantic and pragmatic systems of different languages and how development and socialization contribute to the development of cultural identity and cultural models of the world.

            From all this it follows that language and culture are closely related and intertwined. This link could be summarized in three hypotheses: 1) language expresses cultural reality, 2) language epitomizes cultural reality and 3) language symbolizes cultural reality.

References:

Harley, T. A. (2008). The Psychology of Language. From Data to Theory. Hove and New York: Psychology Press.

Kramsch, C. J. (1998).  Language and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kramsch, C. J. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Risager, K. (2006). Language and Culture: global flows and local complexity. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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