Elif GÜVENDİ YALÇIN

INE 606 Culture and Language Teaching

Asst. Prof. Dr. Zerrin EREN

CULTURE AND LANGUAGE

In order to understand the relationship between Culture and Language the definitions of both

should be covered first.

Definition of Culture

Although there is no single definition of culture, the most definition is that of the system of

shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of a society use to

cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to

generation through learning.

Wikipedia (Culture, 2010, October) defines culture as:

• The set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterizes an institution,

organization or group.

• An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the

capacity for symbolic thought and social learning.

• Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture.

Definition of Language

As in the case of culture, Language has different definitions. The most popular one is :

Language is a tool for communication. Although this is one of the functions of the language,

it is not the most important one. Culture does affect the language spoken.

The relationship between Language and Culture

The relationship between language and culture is, of course, a very complex problem which

has psychological, sociological and political dimensions. Many distinctions can be made. First

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there is the fact that language and language variety-dialect or sociolect is one of the overt

signs of cultural identity which people meet daily in their lives. People use varieties of

language with varying degrees of self- awareness to signal their social identity. By which it

means, for individuals or for whole groups, regions or nations, language is a way of marking

cultural identity comparable to other cultural markers such as dress, housing, or social

institutions. Languages, more importantly, embodies the values and meanings of a culture,

refers to cultural artifacts and signals peoples’ cultural identity.

Mother tongue is learned along with the ways and attitudes of the social group, and these

ways and attitudes find meaning through language. As Rivers (1981:318) suggests “full

meaning of words for individuals is the result of the sum total of experiences they have had

with those words in the environment in which they learned them.” In other words, as members

of a cultural group have similar experiences, the common meaning of a word is understood by

them all, yet the meaning of a word may be different for a different group.

A language is a part of culture and a culture is a part of language; the two are intricately

interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either

language or culture. In other words, language and culture cannot be separated. Culture does

affect the language spoken. As Hjemslev puts it (1961:52 cited in Rivers 1981:319) “ Each

language lays down its own boundaries within the amorphous ‘thought-mass’ and stresses

different factors in it in different arrangements, puts the centers of gravity in different places

and gives them different emphases.”

Language is used in a context and the context is specified by the culture. For successful

communication, one has to be aware of those cultural elements that will carry the meaning to

the listener. To go one step further, one cannot really understand the relationship between

language and culture unless one comprehends the exact place of language in communication

(Kirch, 1973).

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Connotation and Denotation

Where words seem to correspond in meaning in their denotation, they may carry different

meanings in their connotation. Connotation and Denotation are two principal methods of

describing the meaning of words. Connotation refers to the wide array of positive and

negative associations that most words naturally carry with them, whereas denotation is the

precise, literal definition of a word that might be found in a dictionary. Connotation represents

the various social overtones, cultural implications, or emotional meanings associated with a

sign. For example, the name ‘Hollywood’ connotes such things as glitz, glamour, tinsel,

celebrity, and dreams of stardom. In the same time, the name ‘Hollywood’ denotes an area of

Los Angeles, worldwide known as the center of the American movie industry (Bashforth,

2010, October). The English word “Nigger” denotes black people whereas it has offensive

and negative connotations for Americans. However, the connotation of the word nigger is

incomprehensible in a culture where there is no black and white racism.

THE COMPONENTS OF MEANING

In a useful analysis, Bever (1972:101 cited in cited in Rivers 1981:320) speaks of “the

different kinds of knowledge that are components of every concept indicated by language.”

These he distinguishes as:

1. semantic meaning,

2. cultural ideas (of which linguistic ideas are a subset),

3. Personal ideas.

1. Semantic Meaning represents the denotational or referential aspect of meaning, which is

shared across cultures because human beings have had similar experiences in a common

physical reality.

2. Cultural ideas are much more of a stumbling block in the conveying of meaning across

languages. Cultural ideas are not critical to the semantic meaning but represent the

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nonsemantic aspects of a concept which derive from shared life in the culture. “She is in

mourning” conveys the notion of the wearing black to an Italian, but the wearing of white to a

Korean. The semantic meaning conveyed to both is visible expression of grief at the death of

some person. The cultural idea of black or white as appropriate for ‘mourning’ does not affect

the essential semantic meaning of the term ‘mourning,’ although lack of knowledge of the

cultural idea implied by the statement may result in inappropriate behavior and

miscomprehension (“she is not mourning! She is wearing white!”).

Linguistic ideas refer to the way the structural forms of a language shape the message

conveyed and perceived. For example, the question “What do you do ?” may be expressed in

Turkish.

3. Personal Ideas further cloud the issue, and these must be taken into consideration, both in

interpersonal relations and in interpreting artistic expression (in songs, paintings, poems, or

other forms of literary expression). For instance, with one family “I can’t go out! My aunt’s

coming!” may be clearly understood because visits by aunts are always preceded by thorough

housecleaning. In another family, one would expect: “I can see you tonight as long as I am

home by ten. My aunt’s coming.” In this case there are no special preparations. The ideas

implicit in the statement at this level are idiosyncratic and culture independent to a large

degree.

Conclusion

To put it simply, when one learned to make these distinctions of meaning they will begin to

observe many things for themselves which will help them to understand and absorb the

culture.

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References

Bashforth, Retrieved October 17, 2010 from

http://www.csun.edu/~bashforth/098_PDF/06Sep15Connotation_Denotation.pdf

Wikipedia , Retrieved October 17, 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

Kirch, M.S. (1973). Language, Communication and Culture. The Modern Language Journal,

57/7, 340-343.

Rivers, Wilga. M. 1981. Teaching Foreign Language Skills. The University of Chicago

Press:

Chicago. Second Edition.