Language and Culture Chapter 1

UNIT I: LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
1.1 INTRODUCCION
Language always carries meanings and references beyond itself: The meanings of a
particular language represent the culture of a particular social group. To interact with a
language means to do so with the culture which is its reference point. We could not
understand a culture without having direct access to its language because of their intimate
connection.
A particular language points to the culture of a particular social group. Learning a

language, therefore, is not only learning the alphabet, the meaning, the grammar rules
and the arrangement of words, but it is also learning the behavior of the society and its
cultural customs. Thus; language teaching should always contain some explicit reference
to the culture, the whole from which the particular language is extracted.
The human communication process is complex, as many of our messages are transmitted
through paralanguage. These auxiliary communication techniques are culture-specific, so
communication with people from other societies or ethnic groups is fraught with the
danger of misunderstanding, if the larger framework of culture is ignored.
Growing up in a particular society, we informally learn how to use gestures, glances, slight
changes in tone or voice, and other auxiliary communication devices to alter or to
emphasize what we say and do. We learn these culturally specific techniques over many
years, largely by observing and imitating.
The most obvious form of paralanguage is body language, or Kinesics, which is the
language of gestures, expressions, and postures. However, the meaning of words can
also be altered by tone and character of voice.
1.2 Four Types of Cultures.
The Aesthetic Sense or Culture with a capital C refers to the media, the cinema, music
(whether serious or popular) and above all literature-study which are often to be one of
the main reasons for language teaching. Many of these forms of culture are at the same
time sources of information on culture in the second sense. The Sociological Sense or
Culture with a small c refers to the organization and nature of family, of home life, of
interpersonal relations, material condition, work and leisure, custom, and institutions. The
Semantic Sense refers to the conceptual system embodied in the language and,
according to the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis, conditioning all our perceptions and our thought
processes. Many semantic areas (e.g., food, clothes, institutions) are culturally distinctive
because they relate to a particular way of life - that is, to our sociological sense of culture.
For instance, you cannot learn to use the names of meals without learning the main meal
times. So, these cultural features - like culture in one’s sociological sense - may differ for
English from one English-speaking country to another. The last, The Pragmatic Sense (or
Sociolinguistic) refers to the background knowledge, social skills, and paralinguistic skills
that, in addition to mastery of the language code, make possible successful
communication. It includes: (a) the ability to use appropriate exponents of the various
communicative functions , (b) the ability to conform to norms of politeness, where different
from the learners‟ culture, including taboo avoidance, (c) awareness of conventions
governing interpersonal relations- questions of status, obligation, license, where different
from the learners‟ culture, (d) familiarity with the main rhetorical conventions in different
written genres e.g. different types of letters and messages, form-filling, advertisements.
In order to reveal how culture is disseminated and whose culture is presented in the
textbooks, this notion of culture in four senses is employed.
The Aesthetic Sense or Dimension is limited to several forms of cultural items: visual art
(traditional puppet), literature, music (traditional or popular), and cinema. The sociological
sense, in this study is limited to family relationship and organization, the housing
organization, leisure, interpersonal relation, and naming as a part of custom. Semantic
Sense is limited to food and clothes. The Pragmatic/Sociolinguistic is limited to rhetorical
convention and function of language.
1.3 OTHER VIEWS OF CULTURE.
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 are taught either 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
initial knowledge of the child about the essential structure and vocabulary of the first
language was learned before the child went to 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.
Culture is not learned by imitation but by oral instruction. There could be some imitation,
if the learner is still young. With language, methods of social control, products, techniques
and skills are explained. 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.
1.4 CONCLUSION
Learning a language is therefore learning the behavior of a given society and its cultural
customs. Language is a product of the thought and behavior of a society. An individual
language speaker’s effectiveness in a foreign language is directly related to his/her
understanding of the culture of that language (Taylor, 1979), and it is possible to consider
teaching culture through learners’ own languages, which can be used in a specific way to
interpret the other culture (Ager). According to Kramsch, language expresses, embodies
and symbolizes cultural reality.
REFERENCES
Abdullah, N. and Chandran, S.K. (2009). Cultural Elements in a Malaysian English Language Textbook.
[Online]. Available at ddms.usim.edu.my/bitstream/handle [10 September 2010] Adaskou, K.,Britten, D.
and Fahsi, B. ( ). “ esign decisions on the cultural content of a secondary nglish course for
orrocco”. Journal. 44, (1), p. 3-10. Aliakbari (2004). Culture in Iranian Textbook. Journal of PAAL
[Online]. 7, (1). Available at www.paaljapan.org/journals.html [11 October 2010] Byrd, P. (2001).
Textbooks: Evaluation for Selection and Analysis for Implementation. Teaching English as Second or
Foreign Language (third ed.). Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publisher. Cortazzi, M., and Jin, L. (1999). Cultural
Mirrors, Materials and methods in the EFL classroom. In E.Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in Second Language
Teaching and Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global
lSamovar, L. A. (1986) Intercultural Communi-cation: A Reader. U.S: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Fengping ao, “Japanese: Heavily ulture- aden anguage” Journal of ntercultural ommunication,
Issue 10, December 2005anguage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kramsch, . (2 ). “ iscourse, the symbolic dimension of intercultural competence”. n . Hu and .

Byram (eds) Interkulturelle Kompetenz und fremdsprachliches Lernen. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, pp. 107-
124.
Risager, K. (2006). Language and culture. Global flows and local complexity. Clevedon: Multilingual
Matters, pp. 185-199.

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UNIT I: LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

A particular language points to the culture of a particular social group. Learning a

1.2 Four Types of Cultures.

1.3 OTHER VIEWS OF CULTURE.

Language is learned, which means it can be culturally transmitted. Pre-school children

Kramsch, . (2 ). “ iscourse, the symbolic dimension of intercultural competence”. n . Hu and .

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