Branches of linguistics•Topic: Culture and Language•Sehrish khokhar

Topic: Culture and Language and its Relationship:

• What is culture? Culture is defined as the set of learned behaviors, beliefs, attitude, values, and ideas that are characteristics of a particular society or population.

Culture:• There are different cultures in the world.• For example:• American Culture• Pakistani Culture• Indian Culture• Chinese Culture etc.

Cont…….• What is language?• Language is a system of symbols with standard meaning.• Form or style of verbal expression.• Language allows a person communicating with others in meeting their needs.• Language is the key to the heart of people.

Cont….• Language has three main functions:1. From a cultural perspective, it is the primary means of

preserving culture and is the medium of transmitting culture to new generations.

2. It helps establish and preserve community by “linking individuals into communities of shared identity.”

3. At the societal level, it is Important to all aspects of human interaction because it “often relates to political goals”.

Relationship between Language and Culture:• Language is an integral part of culture and human culture cannot exist without

it. Through the use of language, wide vistas of reality have been opened. What we have experienced, as well as our norms, values and ideas exist because we have learned to identify or experience these things through language.

• If culture can affect the structure and content of its language, then it follows that linguistic diversity derived in part from cultural diversity.

• The linguistic relativity hypothesis asserts that language determines thought and therefore culture. In reality language and culture influence each other. (Edward Sapir)

Relationship between language and culture:• The most significant invention made by culture.• Language is used to learn Culture.• Human culture cannot exist without language.

Sapir and Whorf• Who is Sapir? • Sapir (1884-1939) ,American anthropologist-linguist, a leader in

American structural linguistics, Author of Language and An Introduction to the Study of Speech• Born in Lauenberg, Germany.• Pupil of Franz Boas, teacher of Benjamin WhorfEdward

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941)• He graduated from the MIT in 1918 with a degree in Chemical

Engineering and shortly afterwards began work as a fire prevention engineer (inspector). Although he met, and later studied with Edward Sapir, he never took up linguistics as a profession. known for his work on the Hopi language. He was considered to be a captivating speaker and did much to popularize his linguistic ideas through popular lectures and articles written to be accessible to lay readers.

Introduction• Edward sapir (1884-1939) Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941) SAPIR-

WHORF First discussed by Sapir in 1929, the hypothesis became popular in the 1950s following posthumous publication of Whorf's writings on the subject.• After vigorous attack from followers of Noam Chomsky in the

following decades, the hypothesis is now believed by most linguists only in the weak sense that language can have some small effect on thought

• Popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, the principle is often defined as having two versions:• the strong version that language determines thought and that

linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories • the weak version that linguistic categories and usage influence

thought and certain kinds of nonlinguistic behaviour

Franz Boas• Franz Boas• embraced forms of the idea to one extent or another, but Sapir in

particular wrote more often against than in favor of anything like linguistic determinism Edward Sapir.

SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS I

Linguistic relativity:• Can the theory of language determinism be accepted?• If the theory of language determinism is right, the cross language and

cross-cultural communication will never occur. If the theory of language determinism is right, the translation toward foreign language is impossible. If the theory of language determinism is right, the foreign language lerning will never occur

SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS II

Language Determinism

• Language does not exist apart from culture, that is, from the socially inherited assemblage of practices and beliefs that determines the texture of lives (Sapir,1921: 207) CULTURAL LANGUAGE THOUGHT PATTERN

• For example because Indonesia has collective culture, the kinship system is very prominent in their language. We’ll see the expression like: • Bapak/Ibu/Saudara/Kakak/Adik tinggal di mana? In English, we’ll find

the expression as: • Where do you live?

CONCLUSION• The extreme version of this idea, that all thought is constrained by

language, has been disproved • The opposite extreme – that language does not influence thought at all – is also widely considered to be false.

Culture effect languages in different ways• The relationship between language and culture is as old as mankind.• Physical environment• Social environment• Kinship relations• Media culture • Change of vocabulary • Change in pronunciation • Same words having different meaning in different cultures

Change in vocabulary• 1: What it means in the U.S.: The floor at ground level.

What it means in the U.K.: The floor above the ground level floor.Potentially confusing sentence: “That super-important meeting is taking place on the first floor — don’t be late!”

• 2: What it means in the U.S.: A storage container.What it means in the U.K.: A trash can.Potentially confusing sentence: “I put all my grandmother’s valuables in a bin.”• 3: In British the word used anti clock wise while in U.S it is called

counter clock wise.

Effect of culture on language• As every culture is different so need different languages to speak.• Physical environment - reflected in language, normally in the lexicon

i.e Eskimo (people lives in northern Canada and green land). There are so many words used to refer snow. ( many of which describes the varying stages of the melting process)• Song. Fifty words for snow.

Kinship relationsOne of the clearest examples of lexicalized categories are words use to refer to people who are the members of thesame family or kinship term. All languages have kinship term (e.g. brother, mother, grandmother), but they don’t all put family members in the same category. In some languages the equivalent of the word father is used not only for male parents but also for male parent brother.

• In English we use the word uncle for this other type of individual. We have lexicalized the distinction between the two concepts. Yet we use this same world for the female parent brother. That distinction is not lexicalized in English but is in other language it would see that distinction in age among uncles is important in Mopan Mayan culture. Other distinction among relatives can also be lexicalized in the world language. For example, in Norwegian the distinction between male parent mother (farmor) and female parent mother (mormor) is lexicalized, but in English word grandmother generally used for both.

Social culture effect language

• As in arabic culture. Camel is the well known animal and the people use different 40 words to refer camel. • It is undoubtedly true that the Hawaiians have 65 words alone for the fishing

nets. 108 for sweat potato, 42 for sugarcane.

• The differing of cultural attitudes towards time are well articulated by their vocabularies. • Kinship relations have also effect on language. • There are some special words which belongs to few languages or a

single language. • For example: it is in punjabi that they have the word "PARSON"Meaning either the day after tomorrow or the day before yesterday.

• Changes in society may causes so me corresponding linguistic changes. Such as road side signals indifferent cultures.

Media culture effect language• As now a days kids watch cartoon in Hindi and they use words from

their language. Shakti as taqat• Indian dramas has also influenced our language. For example an Urdu

word “phir” is pronounce in Hindi as fir.

Conclusions • Languages, cultures and thoughts intricate to each other in different

ways.• Effect of environment and society on language use is obvious in

several areas (lexicon, kinship relations) but there is also evidence for the structure of language to determine the world view of the speaker.• Each social group differs from other in the way they are constrained in

their language use by culture but no social group uses language quite uninhibitedly. • Language use is sensitive to social changes, in that changes society

and culture will appear in language use.