CULTURAL ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE

“ Culture may be defined as WHAT society does and thinks. Language is a

particular HOW of the thought. ”
[ Edward Sapir ]

The word ‘culture’ can be defined as : “ The customs and beliefs, art, way of
life and social organization of a particular country or group. ”
For example; European, Islamic or American culture.

Whereas ‘language’ is defined as :

“ The system of communication in speech and writing that
is used by people of a particular country. ”

It is our ability to communicate through words that makes

us different from animals. Without language human beings would have
remained only a dumb animal. Language is also the maker or unmaker of
human relationships. It is the use of language that makes a life sweet or
bitter. Language has the capability to influence our culture and even our
thought processes. Broadly speaking language is more than just a means of
communication. Therefore, Anthropologists regard language as a form of
cultural behaviour.

Edward Sapir defines language as :

“ Language is a primarily human and non-instinctive method
of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of
voluntarily produced symbols. ”

The cultural environment that people grow up in can have

surprising effects on how they interpret the world around them and how do
they organize language. Language varies from one individual to the next , from
one sub-section of speech community ( family, village, town, region ) to another.
People of different age, sex, social classes, occupations, or cultural groups in the
same community will show variations in their speech. Linguists estimate that
there are about 5,000 - 6,000 different languages spoken in the World today.
As the environment changes, culture and language typically
respond by creating new terminology to describe it. For example; Guugu
Timithirr language speakers of the Cape York Peninsula in northeastern
Australia. This group of Aborigines do not have words for left, right, front or
back. They use absolute rather than relative directions. When they refer to
people or objects in their environment, they use compass directions. They
would say “ I am standing southwest of my sister ” rather than “ I am
standing to the left of my sister. ” Other examples are that in Islamic culture
people do not have any figure like Santa Claus, they even do not have any
word for such sort of figures. Also people belonging to different cultural
environments have different terms for the word “GOD”. Muslims refer it as
“ALLAH”, Hindus as “Bhagwan”, whereas no such word exist in a dictionary
of an Atheist.
Language is a form of culture identity. The way of speaking
of a person provides clues about his/her identity i.e.; whether he/she is
Muslim, Hindu, Christian, etc. For example; the words used for greeting each
other is different in different cultures. When someone greets you “ Assalam-o-
Alaikum ” then with in a moment u will get to know that he/she is belonging
to an Islamic culture. In the same way, Hindus say “ Namastey ” when
greeting each other. While Christians have their own different words for
greeting each other. Hence, such sort of variations in languages of different
people belonging to different cultures must be taken into consideration and
should not be avoided when studying about different languages.
Another important clue which a language gives us is that of
an educated and uneducated classes of any particular culture. It has been
observed by Linguists that cultures that have more complex, diverse economies
and advanced technologies have larger vocabularies. For instance; English has
roughly 615,000 non-technical words but if slang and specialized words are
added to it, English has more than 2,000,000 words and is growing at a rate
of hundreds to thousands every year.

According to Edward Sapir :

“ The simplest kind of influence that one language may exert
on another is the ‘borrowing’ of words. When there is cultural borrowing
there is always the likelihood that the associated words may be borrowed too.
”
For example; when Christianity was introduced into England, a number of
linked words, such as ‘bishop’ and ‘angel’, found their way into English. And
this process is still continue without any sort of interruptions i.e.; each wave
of culture bringing along with it some new and fresh deposits of ‘loan-words’,
and when these ‘loan-words’ are studied thoroughly, they provides us many
interesting facts about the history of culture. Therefore, it is not surprising
that all languages changes through time. They have the ability to create new
words to describe new situations and objects. None of them is static. However,
the rate and time of such variations is different in different languages in
response to new cultural situations.
There is a theory of language , called “ Linguistic Determinism
”. According to this theory ‘ the language determines thought ’. It means that
a person when learns any language, he comes under its influence. He starts
looking at the World through the eyes of his language. Supporting this view,
there is an example, that the English speakers do not have different words
for different kinds of ‘snow’. Whereas, the Eskimos has several different words
for what we call ‘snow’ in English. That is because the language of Eskimos
permits them to categorize ‘snow’ according to its kinds.
Then we have “ the Sapir - Whorf hypothesis ”. During the first
four decades of the 20th century, language was looked upon by American
Linguists and Anthropologists as being more important than it actually is in
shaping and modifying our insight of reality. The credit for it goes to Edward
Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf who said that language predetermines
what we see in the World around us. In other words, language acts like a
polarizing lens on a camera in filtering reality. Hence, we see the real World
only in the categories of our language according to “ the Sapir - Whorf
hypothesis .”
One must keep in mind that no culture is superior than other
and with this regard, no language is superior than the other. Every culture
and language possesses its own positive and negative aspects. So when
learning a new language one should adopt the positive aspects and ignore the
negative aspects of that language.
The language does not exist apart from culture, so when we
learn a language of any other community then it means that we are also
learning about their culture, simultaneously. In this way, different people
learning each others languages are actually creating a mutual understanding
among themselves regarding culture. As a conclusion, we can state that the
history of language is basically the history of culture.
CLASS : B.A.(HONS) PART-2

INSTITUTE : ENGLISH.

SUBJECT : INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS.

TEACHER CONCERNED : SIR INAYAT SHAH.

TOPIC OF MY ASSIGNMENT :

“CULTURAL ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE”

DAY : WEDNESDAY.

DATE : 24-04-2008
 REFERENCES:

1- http://anthro.palomar.edu/language/default.htm

2- “THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE :An Introduction.”

3- “LANGUAGE : An Introduction to the Study of Speech.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

BOOK-1 :

*Name Of The Book : THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE : AN INTRODUCTION.

*Writer : YULE,GEORGE

*Year Of Publication : 1985

*Printed In : GREAT BRITAIN AT THE BATH PRESS,AVON.

*Published By : THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF

CAMBRIDGE.

BOOK-2 :

*Name Of The Book : LANGUAGE : AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

OF SPEECH.
*Writer : SAPIR,EDWARD.

*Year Of Publication : 1921.

*Printed In : THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

*Published By : HARCOURT , BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.