L ANGUAGE AND C ULTURE

Culture determines language and language determines culture Culture determines language and language determines culture.

What is Language? Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication. system  a rule governed phenomenon ( phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic rules). vocal symbols  sounds – language is primarily a spoken phenomenon. for human communication  the main function of language is communication.

What is Culture? Culture is “ whatever one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members.”

One long-standing claim concerning the relationship between language and culture is that the structure of a language determines the way in which speakers of that language view the world (Whorfian Hypothesis-Linguistic Relativity). If speakers of one language have certain words to describe things and speakers of another language lack similar words, then speakers of the first language will find it easier to talk about those things. If one language makes distinctions that another does not make, then those who use the first language will more readily perceive the differences in their environment which such different words draw attention to.

Thus, according to the Whorfian view, language provides a screen or filter to reality. For example, Saudi people are able to differentiate between different classifications of camels, tents and dates, while American people are better in classifying dogs and pigs. Arabic has no exact equivalent word for “ Christmas tree” while English has no exact equivalent word for “ Eid Al-Fiter.”

We can understand how language determines culture and vice versa through the use of:

Kinship: One interesting way in which people use language in daily living is to refer to various kinds of kin. Kinship describes how people in various parts of the world refer to relatives by blood and marriage. Taxonomies: Using language to classify and categorize various aspects of the world in which they live. Like classifying animals according to one’s culture.

Colors: Our world is a world of colors but the amount of color varies from place to place and time to time. All languages make use of basic color terms and it should be of one single word like blue or yellow not light blue or dark blue.