Culture and language are strongly interconnected. The relationship between them is debatable and several questions pop up in your mind when you try to understand how the language and culture are linked.
Do you know whether culture came first or language? What is the difference between them? Can one of them exist without the other?
For a clear understanding of the relationship between language and culture, it is better to get familiar with their definitions first.
Table of Content
- What is Culture?
- What is Language?
- How Culture is Related to Language?
- Language is Needed for Effective Expression and Transmission of Culture.
- Language or Culture-Which Came First?
- Evolution of Language and Culture
- Language and Culture Influence
- Learn a Foreign Language
- The Last Word
What is Culture?
Culture is defined as a blend of thought patterns and characteristics of a group of people.
The word culture is derived from the Latin term colere which means to grow something from the earth so when people interact with each other, they grow together which forms their culture.
Usually, the term culture is defined using external aspects such as language, traditions, religion, arts, and cuisine. But, culture is something deeper than these factors. It refers to the way we think and interacts with those around us.
How You Perceive the Diverse Cultures Existing in the Society is known as Your Cultural Lens
Interestingly, people living in the same society having similar characteristics may have different cultural views and ideas which depend on several different factors. Thus, it is important to mention that different people living together can have their own ideas and their cultural lens may vary.
What is Language?
Language is the medium of communication using which we express our thoughts and ideas and interact with others.
Tidbit: Over 700 languages are spoken across the globe.
Some of the languages evolved from the others while many languages are traced back thousands of years. However, the origin of the first-spoken human language is still unknown.
“Language is the Roadmap of a Culture”
(Rita Mae Brown)
You might find it surprising to know that the same language spoken in different regions sound a bit different. Yes, dialectical differences exist for many popular languages because of the cultural impact.
For instance, the French spoken in France is different from Canadian French. Likewise, many languages have different regional dialects.
How Culture is Related to Language?
“Changes in Language Often Reflect the Changing Values of a Culture”
(Ravi Zacharias)
Language and culture are interlinked and you cannot learn one of these without having a clear understanding of the other. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica,
language is linked to all the human-life aspects in society, and understanding of the surrounding culture plays an important role in learning a language. Moreover, language allows the organization and evolution of cultural values.
Language is Needed for Effective Expression and Transmission of Culture.
A renowned linguist Ken Hale shares his views on the culture-language relationship. He says that when a language is lost, a part of the culture gets lost as well as Culture is significantly encoded in language.
Culture impacts our core traditions, values, and the way we interact with others in society. On the other hand, language makes those interactions easy. Simply put, language facilitates social interactions while culture helps us to learn how to behave and interact with others.
Language or Culture-Which Came First?
Language is an integral part required for the establishment of culture.
Communication is a basic human need, right? From the start, human beings are communicating and interacting with each other in different ways. Thus, for obvious reasons, the language came first.
Language is the source as well as the essence of a culture.
With time, many languages evolved, and today, a large number of languages are spoken across the world. Do You Know?
Out of over 7000 languages, only 200 languages currently exist in both spoken and written forms while many of the languages are extinct now.
It won’t be wrong to say that language complexity increased over time and so did cultural diversity. The languages evolve, primarily because of their association with culture.
Evolution of Language and Culture
Do you know what is common between language and culture? Both are continuously changing!
For instance, the English language that we use today is way different from the old English. Similarly, you can identify several differences between the old western culture and the new one.
Without Culture, no language can exist.
Both language and culture experience drastic changes over time. Therefore, you cannot expect a 10-year-old chile and a 70-year-old man to share an identical culture and exact the same language even if they leave in the same locality.
How Do Language and Culture Influence Our Personal Identity?
Both language and culture play a significant role in shaping your personality.
Culture tells you how to interact with others and helps to shape values and ethics. Besides, it keeps you close to like-minded people and thus, the sense of belonging strengthens your bond with society.
On the other hand, language is like a tool using which you express your culture. In fact, cultural ideas and beliefs are transmitted ahead via language.
Furthermore, both the culture and language allow us to peek into the past and shape our ideas. How We think, speak and interact with others around us is determined by our cultural values. Likewise, language also impacts human thoughts.
As mentioned earlier, language and culture continue to evolve and so does our personality. As we meet people belonging to different cultures, we get to learn more and explore more, and interaction with them can impact your personality as well.
Want to Learn a Foreign Language? Learn about Culture First!
The understanding of a culture can greatly help in learning any foreign language. If you are interested in learning one or more foreign languages, you must study the culture of the respective regions.
It is rightly said that ‘Action Speaks Louder than Words. For effective communication with a foreign audience, you must be aware of their cultural nuances.
Thus, culture and language are intertwined and you cannot set them apart. If you want to improve your linguistic skills for a second language, you must tackle both the culture and language side by side.
The Last Word:
The more you know about the cultural background of a language, the faster you can learn that language.
If you aspire to learn any foreign language, remember that understanding culture is going to be an integral part of your learning journey.
For learning any language, it is essentially important to know about the culture of the people who speak that language.
In addition to having expertise in the language, you also need to consider socio-cultural aspects and learn how to properly address people in that foreign language.
To cut a long story short, language and culture are inseparable.
Read More:
Impact of Cultural Differences in Global Businesses
Language and culture relationship is a complicated topic. The two are inextricably linked.
A specific language is frequently associated with a particular group of people.
When you communicate through language, you’re also dealing with the culture. You can’t understand society without first learning its language.
Learning a language entails not knowing the alphabet, word order, and grammar rules. But it is also the learning about the conventions and behavior of the target society.
When studying or teaching a language, it is also critical to consider the culture. That is the culture in which the language is also spoken. That is because the language is deeply present in the culture.
Distinctive Communication Techniques:
These culturally distinctive communication techniques are taught mainly by imitating and observing others.
It is initially from parents and intimate relatives. Then it is later from friends and others. Others include the people outside the tight family circle.
The Role Of Paralanguage In Language And Culture Relationship:
Paralanguage refers to communication that is about vocals but not words. The most visible sort of paralanguage is body language, also known as kinesics.
Nonverbal communication includes expressions, postures, and gestures. Changing the character and tone might change the meaning of specific words.
How Does Paralanguage Differ In Cultures?
There are considerable pitch variances between cultures; for example:
– Japanese females use an exceptionally high pitch to identify themselves. They do it acoustically to identify themselves from Japanese males.
– On the other hand, female and male pitches are less differentiated. It is less differentiated among English speakers.
Language Is Culture, And Culture Is Language – How Much True?
These two have a similar yet complicated relationship. Language and culture co-evolved and affected one another as they progressed.
Alfred L. Krober was a cultural anthropologist from the United States. Using this backdrop, he stated that:
“Culture began when speech became available. It is also the enrichment of one led to the development of the other.”
Culture is the result of human interactions. The acts of communication are the cultural manifestations.
Ferruccio Rossi-Landi was an Italian philosopher. His work centered on philosophy, semiotics, and linguistics. He stated:
“A speech community is made up of the messages that people send with one another. It is also done by using a specific language that the entire society understands.”
What Is A Culture?
It isn’t easy to define what constitutes culture. This phenomenon varied and it is comprehensive. There are several definitions in international dictionaries that attempt to scale it.
People commonly believe that culture comprises a group’s underlying assumptions. It includes values, attitudes, behaviours, and beliefs.
A geographic location usually constrains them. They have distinct qualities for every other member of society. Those people who operate as an acquire culture.
Individuals pick up culture from the group in which they had opened their eyes. They then transfer it to the rest of the society. We say that every individual who shares pattern is continually forming the culture.
Origin Of The Word ‘Culture’:
The term “culture” is Latin in origin. It was also from the Latin word “colere.” It means “to grow from the ground.”
So, some cultures also “grow” from earth and the people who give existence to it. The importance of culture and language is excellent. The culture gives existence to religions, cuisines, arts, traditions and fashion.
Yet, its intrinsic elements have the important role. The culture tells people about their personality. It means, by the code of set of beliefs and behavior they shared.
However, it is important to know that the culture can be different from the language.
What Is A Language?
Oral communication is the primary means of learning a language. Before they ever start school, children understand the fundamentals of grammar and structure.
At this age, their parents are their primary providers of information. When children enter pre-school, they are taught the fundamentals of their first language.
Culture, like language, is also inherited from the environment of the kid. It is the responsibility of not just the family.
But it is also of the country, with its traditions, customs, and inhabitants. The youngster absorbs the information they hear and see. That occurs even on an unconscious level.
How Does A Language Influence Culture?
It is impossible to change the effects of culture and language on one another. A culture gives birth to a language.
“Language evolves as a means of expressing culture.”
Culture has an impact on the language used within a society’s limits. It is as to how specific terms are also employed to support the culture.
Members of a particular culture communicate with one another. They form ties with one another through different languages.
Others define specific cultures through language. It is also based on social culture. That is also based on regional geographical culture based on philosophy.
What Can Language Teach Us About Culture?
Language is also used to express events and experiences within a culture. The words that emerged from the cultural experience have no significance to outsiders.
Yet, they connect with insiders in an oral tradition similar to storytelling. This example emphasizes the need to understand a culture, not its language.
Cultures Shape Through Languages:
We learn culture through oral instruction rather than imitation. If the learner is still young, there may be some mimicry.
We can better grasp social control tactics, abilities, and products. For the community, spoken language provides a significant amount of helpful information.
This aids in the development of new skills. These tactics are for adapting to new situations or changing conditions.
Cultural Identity – Language And Culture Relationship:
Cultural identity is a significant factor in people’s happiness. People who identify with a specific culture feel a sense of belonging and security.
It also gives users access to social networks that offer help and shared beliefs and goals.
Examples Of Culture Identity:
Location, race, history, religious views, and aesthetics are examples of cultural identity.
Moreover, ethnicity and even food can all contribute to these cultural markers.
Diversity In Culture And Language:
Any culture’s expression requires the use of language. It promotes sentiments of group identity. That also encourages solidarity by assisting in communication.
Language is an inextricable aspect of culture’s development. Literature and language are crucial in expressing culture. These help in passing it down through the generations.
Language encrypts the customs of societies and ideals. The language changes in tandem with the culture over space and time.
The importance of language in conserving and promoting cultural diversity is critical. Every language provides a window into a society’s culture. It is also a way of living and thinking.
Role Of Language In Intellect And Emotional Expressions:
Language is to display emotional expressions and intellect. Every Language has two shapes:
– Written and
– Spoken.
Spoken is more interactive and transient. But written texts can move across space and time. It is permanent.
It is also used to pass on cultural and scientific knowledge across generations. Written language is essential. It is the important way of communicating across civilizations.
Importance OF Cultural Diversity:
It is also used to transmit cultural information from one generation to another. Written language is crucial. It is the means of communication among civilizations.
Civilizations collect and record technology to educate their people. This “collective intelligence” is critical for the progress of society.
Due to historical events and human migrations, people from many groups live together. It results in cultural and linguistic variety.
Maintenance Of Languages Of Distinct Ethnic And Cultural Groups:
Maintaining the languages of distinct ethnic and cultural groups is crucial. It is essential for the preservation of cultural legacy and identity.
The loss of a language means the loss of culture and identity. The suppression of minority languages has been utilized as a deliberate policy.
It is throughout history to suppress minority cultures. As a result of conquest and migration, many languages around the world lost.
Linguistic Varieties:
Language is in use in a variety of ways. Linguistic variations are also divided into three categories:
– Geographical – utilized only in some parts of the society.
– Social – based on gender, occupation, and age, society groupings use different changes.
– Usable – languages that are for specific purposes.
All of these factors are a contributing factor to enhance linguistic richness. Thus, these are important in building a language and culture relationship.
What Can Language Teach Us About Culture?
Language and culture are inextricably relateable. Language is also used to express events and experiences that occur within a culture.
The words that emerged from the cultural experience have no significance to outsiders. Yet they connect with insiders in an oral tradition similar to storytelling.
Intricacies Of Language And Culture:
Learning a foreign language will help you understand different things. But if you skip over learning the culture, you miss out on some subtleties.
For example, you don’t understand a term or word’s cultural significance and history. Now you risk offending folks you’re attempting to reach with your message.
Accommodation Of Communication – How Does It Work?
The technique of adapting the way you communicate with cultures is communication accommodation.
Accommodations in communication are also made. That is to decrease the difficulty of comprehending diverse accents or dialects.
What Impact Does Language Have On Who You Are?
The usage of language, such as correct terminology, can influence who you are. Language becomes a tipping point. It becomes a battleground in a culture that replaces individuality.
Some factors are threatened by society’s group that replaces it with cultural identity. These are:
– Individual development
– Personal progress
– Independent thinking
Language’s Influence On Conformity:
Individuals are also taught and even bullied into conforming to the groups’ ideology. Anyone who deviates from these guidelines faces shaming into conforming once more.
This form of behavioral management is observeable in language. A deliberate control can manage it.
Some think of their originality in a way that is not in line with the group’s thoughts. They got under a lot of pressure.
Bias Based On Race, Gender Or Religion:
Another facet of language and culture is bias based on gender, ethnicity, or religion. There may be a bias relation towards a specific gender depending on the society.
A bias within a race’s culture, filled with rhetoric intended to degrade a race. The same thing is also observable in a religious culture. That is when the culture has biasness in it.
How Do Language And Culture Play A Part In Our Personality?
The language also shapes your personality. It also depends on the culture you encounter throughout your life.
Culture influences your values and ethics. It does this by instructing you on how to interact with others. Also, it keeps you in touch with folks who share your interests.
It also helps you feel more connected to society. On the other hand, language is a tool that allows you to share your culture with others.
Language also expresses cultural ideas and beliefs in reality. In addition, both culture and language enable us to gaze back in time. It also aids in the formation of our thinking. It is a factor in language and culture relationship.
Our cultural beliefs have also an impact on how we perceive and interact with others. Language influences human thoughts as well.
Some Final Thoughts:
The debate over culture and culture that which came first is everlasting. Linguists all throughout the world have a variety of theories. It’s about the interaction of culture and language.
Language and culture also bring people together. But they allow for creativity. It results in an interesting mixture of qualities for each citizen. Languages similar to some particular language also have importance.
Thus, with the help of language, we can communicate and can understand the culture of a society.
- Author
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I’m Elizabeth, and I love teaching my language and culture to students with Workplace Languages. I’ve been teaching ESL/Spanish for ten years now, and I hold a Master’s in Education from Northcentral University.
Updated 2022
The relationship between language and culture is a complex one. The two are intertwined. A particular language usually points out to a specific group of people. When you interact with another language, it means that you are also interacting with the culture that speaks the language. You cannot understand one’s culture without accessing its language directly.
When you learn a new language, it not only involves learning its alphabet, the word arrangement and the rules of grammar, but also learning about the specific society’s customs and behavior. When learning or teaching a language, it is important that the culture where the language belongs be referenced, because language is very much ingrained in the culture.
Paralanguage: The Relationship Between Language and Culture
Complex is one term that you can use to describe human communication since paralanguage is used to transmit messages. Paralanguage is specific to a culture, therefore communication with other ethnic groups can lead to misunderstandings.
When you grow up in a specific society, it is inevitable to learn the glances, gestures, and little changes in voice or tone and other communication tools to emphasize or alter what you want to do or say. These specific communication techniques of one culture are learned mostly by imitating and observing people, initially from parents and immediate relatives and later from friends and people outside the close family circle.
Body language, which is also known as kinesics, is the most obvious type of paralanguage. These are the postures, expressions, and gestures used as non-verbal language. However, it is likewise possible to alter the meaning of various words by changing the character or tone of the voice.
Homologous Relationship Between Language and Culture
The phrase, language is culture and culture is language is often mentioned when language and culture are discussed. It’s because the two have a homologous although complex relationship. Language and culture developed together and influenced each other as they evolved. Using this context, Alfred L. Krober, a cultural anthropologist from the United States said that culture started when speech was available, and from that beginning, the enrichment of either one led the other to develop further.
If culture is a consequence of the interactions of humans, the acts of communication are their cultural manifestations within a specific community. Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, a philosopher from Italy whose work focused on philosophy, semiotics and linguistics said that a speech community is made up of all the messages that were exchanged with one another using a given language, which is understood by the entire society. Rossi-Landi further added that young children learn their language and culture from the society they were born in. In the process of learning, they develop their cognitive abilities as well.
According to Professor Michael Silverstein, who teaches psychology, linguistics and anthropology at the University of Chicago, culture’s communicative pressure represents aspects of reality as well as connects different contexts. It means that the use of symbols that represent events, identities, feelings and beliefs is also the method of bringing these things into the current context.
Influencing the Way People Think
The principle of linguistic relativity tells us that language directly influences the way people view the world. Anthropologist-linguist Edward Sapir of the United States said that the language habits of specific groups of people built the real world. He further added that no two languages are similar in such a way that they would represent one society. The world for each society is different. In analysis, this means that speaking a language means that the person is assuming a culture. Knowing another culture, based on this principle, is knowing its particular language. And we need communication to highlight interpretations and representations of that world. This is why the relationship between language and culture is essential when learning any new language.
Inter-Cultural Interactions
What is likely to happen if there is an interaction between two cultures? In today’s scenario, intercultural interactions are very common. Communication is necessary for any person who wants to understand and get along with people whose backgrounds and beliefs are greatly dissimilar from their own.
It is easy to use language to mark cultural identity. But we also use language to describe processes and developments, like explaining the intentions of a specific speaker. Specific languages refer to particular cultural groups.
Values, basic assumptions, behavioral conventions, beliefs, and attitudes shared by an ethnic group make up what we call culture. This set of attributes influences the behavior of the individual members of the group and their interpretations of the meanings of the behavior displayed by each member.
It is through language that we express the attributes of culture. We also use language to point out unique objects in our cultures.
All this means that learning and teaching another language is essential for international communication and cooperation. The knowledge of other languages facilitates knowledge of other countries and the specific cultures of each one. Again, this is why the relationship between language and culture is critically important.
Transmission of Culture and Language
Language is learned, which means it can be culturally transmitted. Pre-school children take on their first language from their exposure to random words they encounter in and out of their homes. When they reach school age, they learn their first language or another language. If it is the first language, the children are taught writing and reading, the correct ways to construct sentences, and how to use formal grammar. However, the child gained initial knowledge about the essential structure and vocabulary of the first language before the child started school.
Conversely, culture is transmitted in a large part, by language, through teaching. Language is the reason why humans have histories that animals do not have. In the study of animal behavior through the course of history, alterations to their behavior were the result of the intervention of humans through domestication and other types of interference.
The culture of humans on the other hand is as different as the world’s languages. They are likely to change over time. In industrialized countries, the changes in the language are more rapid.
Language Shapes Culture
Oral instruction, and not imitation, is how we learn the culture. There could be some imitation if the learner is still young. With language, we have a better way to understand methods of social control, products, techniques, and skills. Spoken language offers a vast quantity of usable information for the community. This helps to quicken new skill acquisition and the techniques to adapt to new environments or altered circumstances.
The advent of writing increased the process of cultural dissemination. Diffusing information became much easier thanks to the permanent state of writing. And thanks to the invention of printing and the increase in literacy, this process continues to evolve and speed up.
Modern techniques for fast communication transmission across the globe through broadcasting and the presence of translation services around the world help make usable knowledge to be accessible to people anywhere in the world. Thus, the world benefits from the fast transference, availability, and exchange of social, political, technological, and scientific knowledge.
Assimilation and Social Differentiation, and Language
Through time, variations appeared within a language. Transmission of a language is self-perpetuating unless there is deliberate interference. However, it became important for humans to improve their social hierarchies and social status to advance personally. It’s safe to say that many people cultivate their dialect phonologically, grammatically, and lexically to fit into new communities.
An example of this phenomenon is the insistence of immigrants from Europe to speak American English when they decided to move to the United States. It is because they realized that speaking American English is a sign of acceptance in their new home country. Unexpectedly, third-generation immigrants now want to get in touch with the language of their ancestors.
Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
Culture unifies a community although there is diversity within that unity. For example, the older generation’s speech might differ from the speech younger people use. Also, different groups speak different languages. This is evident in the differences present in a professor’s speech compared to a young admin staff member at the university. People could use a different form of the same language in online forums, which would vastly differ from the language used by media and classically trained individuals.
We use language in different ways. Linguistic varieties fall into geographical, social, and functional subclasses. These factors lead to the formation of dialects that add diversity to the language.
At Day Translations, Inc., our translators are not only linguistic experts. Because they are native speakers, each of them understands their own culture like the backs of their hands. They inherently understand the nuances of their language as well as the languages they work with. They apply their deep cultural knowledge to the translation projects they handle because they have a deep understanding of the relationship between language and culture.
Get in touch with our translators day or night, wherever you are. We are open 24/7, all days of the year, to provide you with professional translation service with the highest level of quality and accuracy. For an instant translation quote, send us an email at Contact us or call us at 1-800-969-6853.
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The problem of finding a connection between language and culture has always been at the center of discussions among scientists in various fields: linguists, sociologists, linguoculturologists, philosophers, etc. The vast majority of linguists have come to the conclusion that language, being a social phenomenon, should be considered both from a linguistic point of view, and from an extra-linguistic or cultural point of view, since it itself is a part of culture. The language reflects the uniqueness of the people and their cultural richness. Since each culture has its own language system, through which its speakers are able to communicate with each other, the importance of language in the culture of any nation is difficult to overestimate.
It would be appropriate to emphasize that the interaction of language and culture should be considered very carefully, bearing in mind that these are different semiotic systems, but they are closely interrelated: in communication processes, in the formation of language abilities of a person, in the formation of a generic, social person.[4]
The first attempt to solve the problem of interaction and interrelation of language and culture was made by V. von Humboldt in his work «On the difference in the structure of human languages and its influence on the spiritual development of mankind»(1830-1835)[2], whose concept is based on the following provisions:
— material and spiritual cultures are involved in language;
— any culture is national, its character is expressed through a language because of a special vision of the world;
— the internal form of language is an expression of the «national spirit», its culture;
— language plays the role of a wire between a person and the world around one.
V. von Humboldt’s idea was that «both language and culture are forms of consciousness that reflect a person’s worldview and are a national form of embodiment of the material and spiritual culture of the people». Subsequently, the thesis of V. von Humboldt was developed and studied by such researchers as I. A. Baudouin de Courtenay, A. A. Potebnya, R. O. Jacobson and others.
One of the problems that hinder research on the relationship between language and culture is the inaccuracy in the interpretation of culture, and this is not surprising.[1] The concept of «culture» is multi-faceted, as a result of which different definitions of culture appear as different variations of its meaning depending on the aspects of its consideration. At the moment, there are more than 500 different definitions of culture. In a broad sense, culture is understood as «the totality of manifestations of the life, achievements and creativity of a people or group of people».
According to E. M. Vereshchagin and V. G. Kostomarov, there are several features of culture that are appropriate for all existing definitions. These features are: sociality of culture, its accumulating function and influence on the formation of personality.
Any culture is a unity of spiritual and material aspects. The material aspect of culture represented in language specific lexical units, spiritual — resistant associations, shared vision of the world that has been developed by one or the other linguistic community in the course of its cultural-historical development.[3]
Nevertheless, language and culture have significant differences, namely, in language as a phenomenon, the focus on the mass addressee prevails, while in culture, elitism is valued. Obviously, culture is a sign system, but unlike language, it is not able to organize itself. Finally, language and culture have different sign systems.
A significant contribution to the study of the relationship between language and culture was made by research in the middle of the twentieth century, which led to the conclusion that the relationship between language and culture is extremely complex and multidimensional. Nowadays, we can talk about three main approaches to the study of the problem of the relationship between language and culture.
The most well-known approach in world of linguistics is represented by the Sepir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity. The main idea of this hypothesis is the close connection of language with culture and its influence on all spheres of human life. Language is a prerequisite for the development of the entire culture as a whole. The real world in which a person exists is unconsciously based on the language norms of a particular society. [4] According to the idea, people perceive the world in the refraction of their native language, and each language forms a unique linguistic picture of the world, different from other languages. The disadvantage of this point of view is the lack of completeness and complexity of the relationship between these two phenomena.
Such philosophers as S. A. Atanovsky, G. A. Brutyan, E. I. Kukushkin, and E. S. Markaryan worked on the development of the second approach. The key point of this method is the attitude to language as a reflection of culture. In this approximation, the relationship between language and culture is characterized as unidirectional. Again, there are some inaccuracies in this hypothesis, since the role of language in this case is reduced to a formal reflection of the facts of culture, language is presented only as its tool, devoid of any independence.
The most successful approach is considered to be the third, the key concept of which is based on the dependence of language and culture on each other. In other words, they are in constant interaction, while remaining independent sign systems. «Language is an integral part of culture, the main tool for its assimilation, it is the reality of our spirit. Language expresses specific features of the national mentality» [5]. On the other hand, «culture is included in the language, since it is all modeled in the text» [5]. This point of view is held by most modern linguists, and it is a key one in linguoculturological theory. Thus, according to the cultural approach, language is a specific means of storing and transmitting information, as well as managing human behavior. Through language, a specifically human form of social experience transmission, cultural norms and traditions is carried out.
When interacting with a foreign culture, one should take into account its traditional ideas and attitudes in order to avoid a cultural barrier in the communication process. It is important to have a systematic knowledge of the traditions and realities of society, and this is possible only when learning the national language. Simultaneously with the process of learning a foreign language, a person is immersed into a new culture and receives historical information that has been systematically accumulated over many centuries.
There is no doubt that there is a direct connection between language and culture, and the link is indissoluble. Language appears both as a repository of cultural values of the nation, and as a tool for the assimilation of these values. A community can be called ethnic if it is united by a common language for all its speakers, which serves as a guarantee of the translation of the national cultural values. Language «cannot be unrelated to culture, since one of the goals of society is to create culture» [7]. Language and culture appear as factors of mutual development and existence. Culture is unthinkable without language, the most important means of communication between people.
Language is a fact of cultural existence for several reasons. First, it is defined as an integral part of the culture that we inherit from our ancestors. Second, language is the main tool for learning other cultures. Finally, language is the most significant of all forms of cultural order.
Taking into account all mentioned above, we can conclude that language is an integral part of culture and its tool, it is the reality of our spirit, the face of culture; it expresses the features of the national mentality. «Language is a mechanism that opened up the area of consciousness for a person» (N. I. Zhinkin).[6]
List or references:
https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/vzaimosvyaz-yazyka-i-kultury
В. Гумбольдт. О различии строения человеческих языков и его влиянии на духовное развитие человеческого рода. — В кн.: 1960.
Вежбицкая А. Язык. Культура. Познание. М., 1996
Гумбольдт В. фон. Избранные труды по языкознанию / пер. с нем. под ред., с предисл. Г. В. Рамишвили. М.: Прогресс, 1984
Маслова В.А. Современные направления в лингвистике. М.: Академия, 2008
Речь как проводник информации / Н. И. Жинкин; [Предисл. Р. Г. Котова, А. И. Новикова]. — М.: Наука, 1982
Язык и культура: Учеб. пособие по спецкурсу / З. К. Тарланов. — Петрозаводск: ПГУ, 1984.
Language
is the principal means whereby we conduct our social lives.
When it is used in contexts of communication,
it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways.
To
begin with, the words people utter refer to
common experience. They express facts, ideas or events that
are communicable because they refer to a
stock of knowledge about the world that other people share.
Words also reflect their authors’ attitudes and beliefs, their point
of view, that are also those of others. In both cases,
language expresses cultural reality.
But
members of a community or social group do not only express
experience; they also create experience through language. They give
meaning to it through the medium they choose to communicate with one
another, for example, speaking on the telephone or face-to-face,
writing a letter or sending an e-mail message, reading the newspaper
or interpreting a graph or a chart. The way in which people use the
spoken, written, or visual medium itself
creates meanings that are understandable to the group they belong to,
for example, through a speaker’s tone of voice, accent,
conversational style, gestures and facial expressions. Through all
its verbal and non-verbal aspects, language
embodies cultural reality.
Finally,
language is a system of signs that is seen as having itself a
cultural value. Speakers identify themselves and others through their
use of language; they view their language as a symbol of their social
identity. The prohibition of its use is often perceived by its
speakers as a rejection of their social group and their culture. Thus
we can say that language symbolizes cultural
reality.
We
shall be dealing with these three aspects of language and culture
throughout this book. But first we need to clarify what we mean by
culture. We might do this by considering the following poem by Emily
Dickinson.
Essential
Oils — are wrung –
The
Attar from the Rose
Be
not expressed by Suns — alone –
It
is the gift of Screws –
The
General Rose — decay –
But
this — in Lady’s Drawer
Make
Summer — When the Lady lie
In
Ceaseless Rosemary —
Nature, culture, language
One
way of thinking about culture is to contrast it with nature. Nature
refers to what is born and grows organically (from the Latin
nascere: to be born); culture refers
to what has been grown and groomed (from the Latin colere:
to cultivate). The word culture evokes the traditional nature/nurture
debate: Are human beings mainly what nature determines them to be
from birth or what culture enables them to become through
socialization and schooling?
Emily
Dickinson’s poem expresses well, albeit in a stylized way, the
relationship of nature, culture, and language. A rose in a flower
bed, says the poem, a generic rose (‘The General Rose’), is a
phenomenon of nature. Beautiful, yes, but faceless and nameless among
others of the same species. Perishable. Forgettable. Nature alone
cannot reveal nor preserve the particular beauty of a particular rose
at a chosen moment in time. Powerless to prevent the biological
‘decay’ and the ultimate death of roses and of ladies, nature can
only make summer when the season is right. Culture, by contrast, is
not bound by biological time. Like nature, it is a ‘gift’, but of a
different kind. Through a sophisticated technological procedure,
developed especially to extract the essence of roses, culture forces
nature to reveal its ‘essential’ potentialities. The word ‘Screws’
suggests that this process is not without labor. By crushing the
petals, a great deal of the rose must be lost in order to get at its
essence. The technology of the screws constrains the exuberance of
nature, in the same manner as the technology of the word, or
printed syntax and vocabulary, selects among the many potential
meanings that a rose might have, only those that best express its
innermost truth7and
leaves all others unsaid. Culture makes the rose petals into a rare
perfume, purchased at high cost, for the particular, personal use of
a particular lady. The lady may die, but the fragrance of the rose’s
essence (the Attar) can make her immortal, in the same manner as the
language of the poem immortalizes both the rose and the lady, and
brings both back to life in the imagination of its readers. Indeed,
‘this’ very poem, left for future readers in the poet’s drawer, can
‘Make Summer’ for readers even after the poet’s death. The word and
the technology of the word have immortalized nature.
The
poem itself bears testimony that nature and culture both need each
other. The poem wouldn’t have been written if there were no natural
roses; but it would not be understood if it didn’t share with its
readers some common assumptions and expectations about rose gardens,
technological achievements, historic associations regarding ladies,
roses, and perfumes, common memories of summers past, a shared
longing for immortality, a similar familiarity with the printed word,
and with the vernacular and poetic uses of the English language. Like
the screws of the rose press, these common collective expectations
can be liberating, as they endow a universal rose with a particular
meaning by imposing a structure, so to speak, on nature. But they can
also be constraining. Particular meanings are adopted by the
speech community and
imposed in turn on its members, who find it then difficult, if not
impossible, to say or feel anything original about roses. For
example, once a bouquet of roses has become
codified as a society’s way of expressing love, it becomes
controversial, if not risky, for lovers to express their own
particular love without resorting to the symbols
that their society imposes upon them,
and to offer each other as a sign of love, say, chrysanthemums
instead — which in Germany, for example, are reserved for the dead!
Both oral cultures and literate cultures have
their own ways of emancipating and constraining their members. We
shall return to the differences between oral and literate cultures in
subsequent chapters.
The
screws that language and culture impose on nature correspond to
various forms of socialization or acculturation.
Etiquette, expressions of politeness, social
dos and don’ts shape people’s behavior through child rearing,
behavioral upbringing, schooling, professional training. The
use of written language is also shaped and socialized through
culture. Not only what it is proper to write to whom in what
circumstances, but also which text genres are
appropriate (the application form, the business
letter, the political pamphlet), because they are sanctioned
by cultural conventions. These ways with language, or norms of
interaction and interpretation, form part of the invisible ritual
imposed by culture on language users. This is culture’s way of
bringing order and predictability into people’s use of language.
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The relationship between language and culture is complex topic that brings up a myriad of questions.
- Which came first, language or culture?
- Can one exist without the other?
- What is the difference between the two?
To help us understand the unique relationship between language and culture, let us begin by defining the two.
What is language?
Language is a system of “spoken, manual, or written symbols” through which human beings express themselves. Language helps us communicate, play, and imagine.
Language allows us to interact with the world and define who we are.
The origin of human language is relatively unknown. Linguists believe that spoken language of some form began with the first humans, the homo sapiens.
However, there is no record of this early language to show us how language truly began.
Language is individual
All typically developing children acquire one, or multiple languages, during childhood through listening and observing the speech around them.
However, it is important to note that no two people speak exactly alike. We all have our own speech patterns and habits.
For larger languages spoken across various regions, each country, culture or community adds their own vocabulary and ideals to the language.
As a result, language allows us to communicate and connect to a larger people group but we still maintain our individuality within language.
How are languages divided?
Due to the variances of speech from person to person, it is difficult to define exactly when different speech patterns become a completely new language.
Linguists categorize a different language as the moment when two groups of people cannot understand one another without some prior learning or teaching.
With the bigger world languages, this distinction seems rather obvious.
However, the boundaries between languages become slightly muddled when dealing with the smaller dialects, which can differ by community but still have a great deal in common.
Lahnda, for example, is categorized as one language by linguists but is really a group of dialects that have many common characteristics.
What is culture?
Culture is the characteristics and thought patterns of a people group. Generally, we define culture using the obvious, external categories: language, religion, cuisine, arts and traditions.
However, culture goes much deeper than that. Culture teaches us how to think, interact with those around us and how to view our world. This is your cultural lens.
The word culture actually comes from the
Latin term “colere” which means to grow something from the earth. In a sense,
our culture is what grows us together.
On the other hand, culture is often used to
categorize or divide people into groups: Western culture, Eastern Culture,
African Culture.
However, like language, each person has his or her own unique culture.
Although we may share characteristics with others who live in similar contexts, no two people have the exact same cultural views and ideas.
How are language and culture related?
In short, you can’t have one without the other.
Brittanica states “language interacts with every aspect of human life in society, and it can be understood only if it is considered in relation to society. “
Therefore, true understanding of a language requires an understanding of the surrounding culture.
Wenying Jiang beautifully compares the relationship between language and culture to an iceberg.
Language, and some aspects of culture, are at the tip of the iceberg, the part you see above the water.
Yet, the majority of what forms the iceberg, culture, hides below the surface.
Another analogy for the relationship between language and culture is that of a person.
Language is the flesh and culture is the blood. You put the two together and you have a whole person. However, one without the other results in death.
Linguist Ken Hale from Massachusetts Institute of Technology agreed, “When you lose a language, a large part of the culture goes, too, because much of that culture is encoded in the language.”
Culture influences our values, traditions and methods of interaction while language facilitates those interactions.
Language allows you to interact and culture tells you how to do so correctly.
Which came first, culture or
language?
Although we do not have proof of what the first languages looked like, linguists argue that language is innate.
All beings communicate in some way. Therefore, language came first and culture developed as a result.
As our languages increased in complexity, so did our cultures because we were able to convey more in-depth ideas.
How are language and culture learned?
At birth, we are all fundamentally the same. Yet,
through our interactions with others, each of us learns how we are to think,
speak and act.
Language learning actually begins in the womb. When babies are born, they are already able to recognize their mother’s voice and even distinguish foreign language.
At birth, our brains are able to distinguish all the language sounds that exist in the world.
Humans are born wired to learn any language. Yet, by our first birthday, our brains begin to focus on just the sounds we hear the most.
Which means, within a year we go from recognizing 800 language sounds to becoming laser focused on just 40 common phonemes.
The development of culture is similar. Although young children do not analyze the world in order to make sense of it as an adult would, they do begin to grasp some universal concepts and create their own cultures around 9 months of age.
Children begin to mimic actions they have seen repeatedly and interact with others in the ways that have been modeled for them.
If children grow up in culture that emphasizes play, they will interact with others and objects in a playful manner.
If the culture emphasizes speech and language, a child will talkatively explore and enquire about the world around them.
However, if children are living in a culture that emphasizes silent work and production, children will observe their models intently and begin to interact in the same way.
By middle childhood, most children have innately learned how to connect with others according to the norms around them.
Both language and culture are
constantly changing
It is important to note that both language and culture are in a constant state of change.
Just as the English language today bears little resemblance to Old English, Western Culture today looks very different from Western Culture hundreds of years ago.
Even throughout generations, language and culture change drastically.
Therefore, we cannot expect a fifteen year old and a fifty-five year old to share an exact language and culture even if they are living in the same context.
Our interactions with the world invoke change.
How do culture and language influence a person’s identity?
Culture and language both shape a person’s identity.
Culture dictates how we interact with and react to the world around us. It binds us to like people groups and gives us a sense of belonging.
Language, on the other hand, is one way to
express culture. Language allows us to pass down cultural stories and ideas as
well as communicate our own thoughts and beliefs.
Culture and language give us a window into our past and guide us to who we should become.
Although our culture and native language form the basis of our identity, they do not write the final chapter.
They are our starting point that helps us navigate the roads of life and serve as our compass, always able to point us back home.
Yet, just as culture and language are constantly changing, so is one’s sense of identity.
Over time, through interactions with people who do not share our cultural background, our sense of self becomes more complex.
As we begin to identify with new people groups, some of our cultural ideals are challenged.
In those moments of challenge, we must make a choice: reject this new person or reject a cultural norm.
Making a conscious choice between the two options requires a great deal of cultural self-awareness.
Many times, our culture is so deeply ingrained in us that we choose our idea of normal over people who challenge us without really knowing why.
The more we are willing to venture out of our comfort zone and explore other languages, cultures, and ideals, the more our own cultural contexts and sense of identities are challenged and pushed to grow.
We begin to find pieces of our identity all around the world, instead of just in one specific community.
Can you learn a foreign language without learning the
culture?
No. If you want to speak another language effectively, you must learn the culture of your target audience.
It is one thing to know the words to say.
However, if you want to convey your message clearly, you need to know how to address your audience correctly.
The adage “actions speak louder than words” comes into play. If you utter the perfect sentence but unintentionally address your audience with disrespect, your words will be meaningless.
Language and culture are intertwined. You need to tackle both together to become competent in a second language.
Relationship Between Language and Culture
As mentioned, the relationship between language and culture is complex topic. All of us have a culture and a language.
Our culture and language point us toward our people and dictate how we view the world.
Since they have been a part of us since birth, we often do not appreciate the intricacies of culture and language until we venture into a world that is not our own.
If you are learning a new language, culture must be an integral part of your journey.
You can only effectively communicate if you understand with whom you are interacting with and how to address them properly.
Библиографическое описание:
Рустамов, Д. А. National and cultural aspect of the word and its meaning / Д. А. Рустамов. — Текст : непосредственный // Молодой ученый. — 2019. — № 34 (272). — С. 93-95. — URL: https://moluch.ru/archive/272/62010/ (дата обращения: 14.04.2023).
The language is the means of characterizing and differentiating the man. Looking at language culture as a form of national culture is of a special interest in culture learning and learning the people. In as much as the language is the basis and root of any culture. In this respect the language is regarded as a unity of generally excepted conception of people about the universe. The question of the unity of language and culture has been a point of interest for scientists for several centuries.
National difference in seeing, hearing and calling the events of the general reality are marked with national or people’s general looking. Of course it would be inappropriate to speak about the notion of lacuna here. Because external features of the event can be seen quickly, and notwithstanding what its appearance is, this phenomenon is called somehow. But inner peculiarities of things and events can be named or unnamed according to whether they have been looked at by spiritual glance. As a result a phenomenon being named in one language might be unnamed in another. The condition with no name chooser is estimated as national-mental lacuna. This place is filled with another units. For instance, word combinations or set expressions may fulfill such a task. Such alternatives as Старшийбрат in Russian and ака in Uzbek (elder brother) and младшийбрат in Russian and ука in Uzbek (little brother) can be examples for such phenomena. But in many cases the comparison of these two languages show that such condition may not exist as well. For example such words as амма, холаin Uzbek have no exact alternatives in Russian, and this shows that this language has lacuna based on national-mental values. Verbal description of the universe can be seen in being split to special features of expressive means — semantic and sememe semic structure of the word. In verbal description of reality plays significant role in the category of national-spiritual activeness which has national-mental basis and categorization of the phenomena of the reality, characteristics and conceptualization as well as in the stabilizing the meaning quality.
The language and culture are multi-aspect and colorful phenomena. That is why condition of national-mental culture in the domain of the language while being presented scientifically and given certain conclusions on the basis of the principle of “from form to meaning”, cannot be perceived identically. Lexeme differs from other units of verbal expression in higher meaning value and relative independence. This feature of it served for using the word like a language expression according to the principle of part-whole naming (synecdochic naming).
It is known that, the history of learning meaning features of the word dates back to ancient times. The problem/question of naming and the relation between things/objects and words were in the agenda of ancient philosophy. They were in opposition according to recognizing the naturalness or relativity of relations between thing/objects and words. Scientists who acknowledged the natural relation between word meaning and the named object used the term “fyuzey” (natural) as their slogan. Those who denied the natural relation between the name and the named, and considered these relations to be conditional, had the term “tesey” (according to agreement) for their slogan. The first ideas of such thinkers as Heraclites, Ephesus, Alexandrian about the problem became known as “continic conception about the word” [1. 192–193]. In the Renaissance period scientific-idealistic interpretation of word and meaning, language and speech improved a little. Linguistic system of ideas known as “Concept of Verbal Meaning of the Period of Renaissance” are of special attention. In the Renaissance period, namely in its period connected with Enlightenment interpretation of word and verbal meaning received a new form. As linguistics began interpreting the language from the comparative historical point of view, verbal essences began to be learned on the basis of mutually different and similar relations of languages which was base on the principle of relativism. Besides, religious-idealistic core was preserved in the science of language. The direction of learning meanings developed under this principle in perceiving the meanings, understanding and characterizing of the word pays main attention to three aspects of its object of learning:
a) Historical-cultural aspect of word meaning;
b) Literal-aesthetic aspect of word meaning;
c) Philosophical aspect of word meaning.
XIX century linguistics left its footprints in the history of the science with its name of Historical comparative linguistics. Wilhelm Humboldt based on his broad linguistic knowledge, classified the world languages, learned the origin and morphological structure of every language, devided them into language families” [2. 229]. He put forward the idea of the unity of people’s language and people’s spirit, and created the idea of verbal relativity in linguistics. We have to remember the following words Wilhelm von Humboldt: “We can say the idea that languages are organs of original understanding and original perception is generally excepted truth.” He says that thought is not only connected with language but also conditioned on with every certain language. Humboldt writes in his “About Difference of Forms of Languages and Their Impact on Spiritual Development of Man” that “The language is an organ which creates thought. Thinking and language make up a single integrity” [4. 65].
We cannot say that the scientist’s thoughts about the integrity of language and thought were fully and changelessly acknowledged by his followers. For example A. A. Potebnya considered himself to be Humboldt’s follower and apprentice, and formed his own views under the influence of Humboldt’s theory of “inner form of the word.” The scientist characterizes the notion of external and inner forms in connection with new words and creating their meaning [5. 176].
Some ideas on the twofold oppositional nature of a verbal sign were given by such scientists as Saussure, B. A. Serebrennikov, A. S. Melnichuk, A. A. Ufimtseva. Saussure marks verbal sign as an ideal phenomenon in the consciousness and does not see the meaning out of it. He gives room to both of them as one unit in social consciousness. Ch. Pirs, R. Yakobson, E. C. Kubryakova, A. A. Ufimtseva and others consider the verbal unit to be material and the meaning to be ideal phenomena [3. 18–28]. We think that differentiating/no differentiating, separating/ not separating language and speech is connected with whether we are speaking about a language peculiarity or speech peculiarity.
Many sidedness of the language is marked with extensiveness of its mutual relations with other phenomena. A linguist R. Yakobson, speaking about some aspects of the language, marked it from the point of view of its relations as “…the basis of intellectual and spiritual life and a means of communication” [7. 306].
In the framework of relations of the language, relations with culture, takes a special place. That is why the relation of the language and culture is marked with several factors:
Firstly, the language is a complex material, and it is made up of language and speech levels connected on the basis of the dialectics of denying mutual denying. The culture is reflected in different qualities and quantities in these levels;
Secondly, language levels are of different nature, and differ according to the degree of reflecting the culture;
Thirdly, not all the levels of the language are at the same extent with the cultural development, and this fact can be the cause of pointing out relative independence among them.;
Fourthly, the fact that the language and culture are not integral in the lexical level which is regarded to be an outstanding means of expression of national culture can be seen in the volume of borrowings as well as existence of universal lexical phenomena;
Fifthly, looking at the results of pointing out the language’s feature of expressing the culture as at its form, or strengthening of the idea that the language is a part of many unit culture make the case more complicated.
Categorization and conceptualization of the culture in language is connected with seeing the reality from different angles.
The unity of culture and language results in recognizing the heterogeneousness ofits constituent parts (that is culture and language). This situation results in interpreting the relation of the language and culture differently. We can bring the following as the most characteristic examples for our idea:
1) Language is independent for the culture;
2) Language is continuation of the culture;
3) Language is a form of the culture [6. 37].
Language is a means of understanding and interpreting stable qualities of man as well as of the society. Language characterizes the reality. At the same time the language is a unique phenomenon to characterize itself.
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