Study Of Any Aspect Of The Relation Of Language To Culture

Understanding the Relationship Between Language & Culture and the implications for language teaching and learning.
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Understanding the Relationship Between Language & Culture and the implications for language teaching and learning.
Language is more than spoken words; this is evident when we study a second language. Studying another language involves learning the cultural norms and annotation related to the language specific culture. When learning a foreign language, more weight is on culture than the language itself. Studying foreign language requires both linguistic skills and cultural skills. Learning language entails more than just learning how to use words associated with culture, but also understanding the cultural norms and history.[Kramsch, C. "Language and culture in foreign language learning." The Routledge handbook of language and culture. 2015: 634-644.]
This paper analyzes the association between culture and language in the learning process, highlighting the significant function of culture in language learning. The paper also analyzes language as a communication tool that facilitates communication and how it affects both teaching and learning. Since every language has a symbol, each symbol contain a concept, the paper analyzes how language codes are perceived by different people from different ethnic backgrounds.
The relationship between culture and language
People communicate using different languages, meaning that language is a communication tool that promotes integration. Language also facilitates communication between people. Culture involves the communication process that assists people to interact. Culture facilitates due to the shared norms. Communication among individuals occurs because these people share certain common cultural norms. For example, India and the Indian culture are inseparable because people living in India are units of ethnic communities that form the republic India. India is their national identity because of its part of their culture. The main functions of a cultural system are identity and communication facilitator. Culture units the diverse Indian communities.[Stewart, Pamela J., and Andrew J. Strathern. "Language and culture." In Breaking the Frames, pp. 69-78. Springer International Publishing, 2017.] [Bonvillain, Nancy. Language, culture, and communication. Pearson Higher Ed, 2013.]
Culture can also be in the form of activities that are created from our minds or through reasoning like faith. Humans have culture because they have the sense of reason and establish a culture. The cultural notion can be analyzed using anthropological science. From this perspective, culture is the product and result of constant human behavior that is acquired by learning.[Athanasopoulos, Panos, Emanuel Bylund, and Daniel Casasanto. "Introduction to the Special Issue: New and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Linguistic Relativity." Language Learning 66, no. 3 (2016): 482-486.]
Culture is then viewed as a learned behavior that is necessary for a group, meaning that cultures are obtained through learning. In this case, culture entails things that generate creativity, innovativeness and any efforts where human strive to improve his living standards by adapting to their surroundings. Culture is seen to be personified in humans which in evident in our life behavior, idea, and other objects that infects our thinking capacity.[Ibid 484]
Based on this explanation, culture is a result of human efforts to improve their living standards and adapt to the environment. Humans are living beings with sound mind and good reasoning.
Anthropological culture and language.
Scholar like Dahmardeh, Mahdi, and Hossein Parsazadeh view language as being human and using non-instinctive approaches to express ideas, emotions, and the need to construct symbols to have a common understanding. For them, language forms part of the culture and human behavior. Language functions help express thoughts and pass information, and full fill simple tasks like just greetings. In summary, language function can be in three forms these include; vehicle for communication, a reflection of personality and cultural history that shapes personality, culture and language. Language is more of a channel of growth and transmission of culture for continuity and proper functioning of social groups.[Dahmardeh, Mahdi, and Hossein Parsazadeh. "Language and Culture: Can we shape what the future holds?." Cultura 12, no. 2 .2015: 61-72.] [Stewart, Pamela J., and Andrew J. Strathern. "Language and culture." In Breaking the Frames, pp. 69-78. Springer International Publishing, 2017.]
The Anthropological definition of language functions highlights the importance of language in facilitating, and expanding communication among different groups. The function of language is misinterpreted with the common misunderstanding being the cross-cultural communication. The main challenge is to understand the relationship between culture and language, which has been a problem sine time immemorial.
To understand cross-cultural communication, there is the need to analyze other aspects of culture and language. Language is viewed as an acceptable system of random vocal symbols used for communication among humans. While culture is set of belief's, values, and behavior patterns that are common among specific groups of individuals and are inherited from generation to generation. The two definitions imply that the culture and language are connected, however, culture is broader because it infuses all human aspects including language. People share a culture by communicating through language. The other question is how language and culture are related; the problem is to explain how culture influences individual linguistic behavior and if language influences culture and in what ways.[Ibid 71]
Numerous research studies have been conducted, and hypothesis developed, Sapir –Whorf hypothesis is one of the examples used to explain the connection between culture and language.. Sapir and Whorf believed that language shapes our perception and how we define reality, individual Worldviews are influenced by how the language ...