Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter 7 notes
Derry Parler
Verbal Codes – a set of rules about the use of words in the creation of messages
Language has an influence and in fact, determines the ways in which people think.
Humans are at the mercy of whatever particular language they speak because it is a
medium of expression in society. The “real world” is unconsciously built up on our
language habits.
The reciprocal relationship among language, thought, and culture that is found in
grammatical rules of different languages.
o Example: In the English language we have past tenses which reflects a totally
different cultural concept of time as opposed to a language like Hopi which does
not use any tenses for their words. Hopi time is seen as an ongoing process where
tenses are deemed obsolete because of their cultural conception of time.
The study of other languages is useful in understanding the role of differences in verbal
codes. The study of another language can lead to an appreciation of those who struggle to
communicate in second or third languages. Multiple cultures and multiple languages will
be featured in the United States because we are rapidly becoming multicultural.
Application
Biblical Links
If the world at some point in history had a single language that was universal, how
do we explain the correlation between culture and language? During that time, did
everyone share the same culture? Or is there a metaphor in the story of the Tower
of Babel that does not match the secular understanding of cultures relationship
with language? Just an observation.