LANGUAGE AND CULTURE : THE CULTURALINGUISTIC SYSTEM

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

In a simple thought we can define language as a system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Actually language is more than just a means of communication. It influences our culture. Culture is a set of attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors shared by a group of people, but different for each individual, communicated from one generation to the next.

The culture is learned and transmitted through language. That is why language and culture can not be separated. They both are fused together and known in the term culturalinguistic.

THE CULTURALINGUISTIC SYSTEM: THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE IN GROUP LIFE

Although language has often been considered a part of culture, it is certainly a part without which the whole could neither have come into existence, nor have endure. It may, therefore, be more accurate to say that culture is embedded in language. Language facilitates and limits our knowledge of the world in which we live; and the spesific view we have of our world is in part the result of the particular language or languages we use.

The shaping of such a spesific view begins early. A child becomes a part of a cultural sysem when he acquires a language. As his abilities in language develop, he becomes progressively more capable of exploring the first culturalinguistic systems to which he is exposed. Yet, at the same time he becomes less capable of exploring those culturalinguistic systems that are different from his.

Most linguists and social scientists, in making a distinction between human being nd all other mamals, attribute both language and culture to humans alone. That is  to say, while other mamals may have communicate and may have systems of behavior characteristic of the group, only humans create a culturalinguistic reality in terms of which members of every human group think, feel and act.  Some human groups may go one step further, their identification with their own language and culture may be so strong at times that they deny that members of other language and cultural groups are equally as human as they.

           

For every human group, it is language that povides both a heritage and a means of transmitting culture. The heritage may be considered as a total culturalinguistic reality which is in principle available to every person who learns a particular language. A child who learns French in the first few years of his life, for example has acquired the key to French culture and to each and every expression of it, in literature, in law, in art and in all other cultural forms. In practice, however, each person inherits only a small fragment of the total reality; his socio-economic circumstances, his geographic mobility, his intelligence and aptitudes and many other factors act as constraints on his acquisition of both language and culture. In short, no single person can know any language or culture on its totality.

Nevertheless, the social experience of previous generations is transmitted in any given culture with remarkable uniformity. This may be due in part to uniformities in the language. For example, words referring to kinship tend to be learned in terms of the general culltural significance, without regard to personal experience. That is to say, a person may appropiately revere “mothers” even when his own mother has provided nothing but bitter experiences for him. The child may in fact feel guilt because he does not love his mother as the culturalinguistic system dictates he should.

Many specific aspects of culture transcend linguistic boundaries. Every person heritage contains elements that have come from experiences of other cultural groups, which may be very different from his own and which he may not understand in terms of their original cultural meanings. Few people in the United States, for example will probably interpret rabbits and eggs as fertility symbols that herald the productivity of animal and vegetable life at the beginning of spring. They may engage in such rituals as the Easter egg hunt with little or no knowledge of their original significance.

           

The inheritors of a particular culture are often unaware of the norms that guide them, yet those norms are constantly at work in us, shaping our behavior in the ways of our tribe. Sometimes, to be sure, these norms are embodied in behavior that is highly visible to any observer, such as those which stand out in speific customs: dressing, greeting, eating, gesturing, etc. But even when the cultural part of behavior is not quite so obvious, our behavior still characterizes us as member of our group. For example, the observer who knows what to expect can sometimes tell what language a speaker is using even when the language can not be heard: the gestures that the speaker uses reveal what the language is. In the same way, the manner and rhythm of eating, the use of instruments, and other more subtle clues may help to identify the culture to which someone belongs, for almost every movement and act is associated with social custom in some way.

            

The custom which underlies and permeates all others, however, is language, and other behavior is generally accompanied by linguistic customs appropiate to it. If one knows and uses a language well, usually he is expected to honor the customs associated with speakers of the language.

Usually training in the customs of a culture begins in early childhood. For example,in English, formation of undesirable habits on the part of the individual which might result in social customs considered undesirable is inhibited by the use of the one word ‘no’. Later, influences become so subtle that they may not even be recognized as such. But all such responses to behavior serve not only to tune the individual  so as to be in harmony with his culture, but also to delineate and buttress the norms of the culture. By norm we mean a pattern of speech or other behavior that is viewed as desirable, expected, appropiate, or required.

Interaction, however, need not be limited to those within one culturalinguistic group, but may occur between members of different group and may thus produce new linguistic and cultural phenomena in either or both groups. For example some words for items were then transferred from Spanish to English like pampa, tomato, potato, maize, poncho and many others. Thus the ‘poncho’ was an Indian garment with generally negative cultural connotations for the conquering group until the item (and the word) became popular in the United States. Since then the ponco has become fashionable in South America among non-Indians. This was possible partly because slight physical modifications provided new connotations for the garment and the world in Spanish. Soon, perhaps already the Indians may be wearing ponchos made by Sears.

One of the most common uses of the term culture is to identify a spesific group of human being, as in the phrases western culture, black culture, and protestant culture. In each case, we imply that members of the designated group have something in common which is observable and identifiable, and the identify of every member of the group is formed in part by what he holds in common with the remainder of the group.

In many cases, that which is shared to identify the group readily is language and dialect.

Frequently the word culture has been expanded to include a social group’s material products as well as its behavior, identity and beliefs. This is because many anthropologists study groups that have disappeared and left only behind their material products.

            

The most important aspect of material culture from the linguistic point of view, is communication of the knowledge which is makes possible the production of the material objects. For instance, getting to the moon was a culturalinguistic act. For it was made possible only through the linguistic and cultural heritage that aided the communication of the necessary procedures and produced the skills needed to carry out the procedures.

            

Thus every culture has technics of producing material objects, as well as the knowledge embedded in language necessary to use.

            

In one traditional usage, culture means refinement or excellence, usually as determined by dominant social groups. The word, thus used, includes the special linguistic form called literature, as well as a very small proportion of the items produced as art (painting, drawning and sclupture) and music. These artistic forms are associated in most cases with culturalinguistic boundaries: those who are knowledgeable in the appropiate fields can identify some particular products of art.

            

Some works of art represent a structure of meaning and value that persists in the life of a society. Such works, therefore, continue to be meaningful and become ‘classics’. Since literature and art tend to symbolize values and structures highly characteristic of a given culturalinguistic reality, they may exercise a continuing influence over a long period of time. Shakespeare, for example, represent not only the culturalinguistic reality of the people of his time, but also that of millions of people living today, even of those who have never heard of him. This may be a fairly accurate indication of the importance of a great work of art in a culture.