LANGUAGE

AND
CULTURE
Presented By Group 10 BSEd English
1-A
 OBJECTIVES
Determine the relationship between
language and culture.
Identify the different categories in
language.
Explain the reasons why culture is
one of the factors of speech variety in
society.
 LET’S PLAY A GAME!
Categorize the following images by using
these colors.

Person Animal Place Thing

WHAT CATEGORY?
WHAT CATEGORY?
WHAT CATEGORY?
WHAT CATEGORY?
WHAT CATEGORY?
 PRESENTERS

CRISTINE JOY CEZANNE PAUL STANLEY MARK ANGELO

SANGALANG SUWECO TACMO TAGASA

GROUP
LEADER
ALDREI VINZ
SANGALANG
 TOPICS
Culture
Categories
Kinship Terms
Time Concepts
SANGALANG,
ALDREI VINZ
 WHAT
IS
CULTURE?
 CULTURE
We use the term culture to refer
to all the ideas and assumptions
about the nature of things and
people that we learn when we
become members of social
groups. It can be defined as
“socially acquired knowledge.”
 LANGUAGE AND
CULTURE
The particular language we learn through the process of
cultural transmission provides us, at least initially, with a
ready-made system of categorizing the world around us
and our experience of it.
With the words we acquire, we learn to recognize the types
of category distinctions that are relevant in our social
world.
LANGUAGE AND
CULTURE
Dog and Horse = Bow-bow
Foods = yum-yum
Toys and Games = play-play
 LANGUAGE AND
CULTURE
In other native cultures, some species or things doesn’t
exist that is why there were no words for them.
We must have a conceptual system that includes people,
things, and ideas as distinct and identifiable categories in
order to use grouping or category words.
CATEGORY
UNDER LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
 CATEGORY
A category is a group with certain features in common and
we can think of the vocabulary we learn as an inherited
set of category labels.
These are the words for referring to concepts that people in
our social world have typically needed to talk about.
 IN CATEGORY
Some languages may have lots of different words for types
of “rain” or kinds of “coconut” and other languages may
have only one or two.
Although the Dani of New Guinea can see all colors of the
spectrum, they only use names for two of them, equivalents
of “black” and “white.”
 IN CATEGORY
Black and White DANI OF NEW GUINEA

Black, White, Red, INUIT OF GREENLAND

Green, and Yellow
Black, White, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, ENGLISH
Brown, Purple, Pink, Orange, and Gray
 IN CATEGORY
It seems that languages used by groups with more
technology have more color terms.
Observing this difference between the number of basic
color terms in languages, we can say that there are
conceptual distinctions that are lexicalized in one language
and not in another.
IN CATEGORY
EXAMPLE OF
LEXICALIZED AND NOT:
Inuit English
qanniraq pale white
qannit bright white
KINSHIP TERMS
UNDER LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
A RIDDLE FOR
YOU
A father's child, a mother's
child, yet no one's son.
Who am I?
YOU’RE RIGHT!
A father's child, a mother's
child, yet no one's son.
Who am I?
ANSWER: DAUGHTER
 A RIDDLE FOR
YOU
When is your uncle's sister not
your aunt?
YOU’RE RIGHT!
When is your uncle's sister not
your aunt?

ANSWER: WHEN
SHE’S YOUR MOTHER
KINSHIP TERMS
are words used to refer
to people who are
members of the same
family.
KINSHIP TERMS IN ENGLISH
 KINSHIP TERMS IN OTHER
LANGUAGE
All languages have kinship terms (e.g. brother, mother,
grandmother), but they don’t all put family members into
categories in the same way.
In some languages, the equivalent of the word father is used
not only for “male parent,” but also for “male parent’s
brother.”
KINSHIP TERMS IN OTHER
LANGUAGE
IN WATAM (SPOKEN IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA)
The English term uncle is translated as either :
aes (father’s brother)
akwae (mother’s brother)
 KINSHIP TERMS IN OTHER
LANGUAGE
MOPAN MAYA ( BELIZE, CENTRAL AMERICA)
Each of the following words is (and is not) a translation of the
English word uncle :
suku’un: older brother and parent’s younger brother
tataa’: parent’s older brother and grandfather
It would seem that distinctions in age among “uncles” is
important in Mopan Mayan culture.
 KINSHIP TERMS IN OTHER
LANGUAGE
IN NORWEIGAN
farmor = father’s mother
mormor = mother’s mother

In English we use the term grandmother regardless the

family side.
TIME CONCEPTS
UNDER LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
 TIME
CONCEPTS
(An abstract example) we
learn a conceptual system that
operates with amounts of time
as common categories.
 TIME CONCEPTS
We can think of time by using the following
phrases/words or similar phrases/words that
uses units of time :

week and weekend

one hour, three days, two
weeks, one month, five
years
 TIME CONCEPTS
HOPI LANGUAGE (ARIZONA)
There were traditionally no terms equivalent to
most of our time words and phrases (two hours,
thirty minutes).
HOPI ENGLISH
seven days = week
Saturday and Sunday = weekend
 TOPICS
Linguistic Relativity
Sapir Whorf Hypothesis
Snow
SANGALANG,
CRISTINE JOY
SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS
states that there are certain thoughts of an
individual in one language that cannot be
understood by those who live in another
language.

from the two American linguist, Edward Sapir

and Benjamin Whorf
SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS
Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf produced
arguments that the languages of Native
Americans, such as the Hopi, led them to view
the world differently from those who spoke
European languages.
clouds and stones are “animate”
 Sampson (1980), let us imagine a tribe with a
language in which differences in sex are marked
grammatically, so that the terms used for females,
such as girl and woman, have special markings in
the language.
They use the expressions la femme (“the woman”), la
pierre (“the stone”) and la porte (“the door”).
The problem with the conclusions invited in both the
Hopi and French cases is that there is a confusion
between linguistic classification and biological
classification
LINGUSTIC RELATIVITY
the structure of our language, with its predetermined
categories, must have an influence on how we perceive the
world.
cultural differences in thinking are accompanied by linguistic
differences between cultures.
People who speak different languages perceive and think about
the world quite differently from one another.
Our first language seems to have a definite role in shaping
“habitual thought,” that is, the way we think about things as we
go about our daily lives, without analyzing how we’re thinking.
LINGUSTIC RELATIVITY
the story is about Lia Lee, who is diagnosed
with severe epilepsy. Within the Hmog culture,
epilepsy is not described in the same way that
Western medical doctors describe it; epilepsy is
described as qaug dab peg or “ the spirit
catches you and fall down.”
LINGUSTIC DETERMINISM
“Language determines thought”
The languages we use to some extent
determine the way in whch we view and
think about the world around us.
LINGUSTIC DETERMINISM
LINGUSTIC DETERMINISM
KUUK THAAYORRE
 SNOW
Eskimos have many words for “Snow”
(qanik , “snow in the air” and aput, “snow on the
ground”)
the speakers of Tuvaluan (in the central Pacific)
developed many expressions for different types of
“coconut.”
” In Hawai’i, the traditional language had a very
large number of expressions for different kinds of
“rain.”
 LEXICALIZED
expressed as single word
- “sleet”, “slush”, and “snowflake”

NON LEXICALIZED
not expressed as single word
- ”fresh snow”, “powdery snow”, and
“spring snow”
We inherit a language used to report knowledge,
so we would expect that language to influence
the organization of our knowledge in some way.
However, we also inherit the ability to
manipulate and be creative with that language
in order to express our perceptions.
When the Hopi borrowed the word santi
(“Sunday”) from Englishspeaking missionaries,
they used it to refer to the period beginning with
one santi and ending with the next santi,
essentially developing their own concept of our
“week.”
 TOPICS
Cognitive Categories
Classifiers

SUWECO,
CEZANNE
 COGNITIVE
CATEGORIES
Language structure can be
used to analyze cognition,
or how people think for
hints rather than causes.
COGNITIVE CATEGORIES
CLASSIFIERS
We know about the classification of
words in languages like Yagua
because of grammatical markers
called classifiers that indicate the
type or “class” of noun involved.
 TOPICS
Social Categories
Address Terms

TACMO, PAUL
STANLEY
 SOCIAL CATEGORIES
Some words, like uncle or grandmother, are examples of
social categories. These are ways of organizing society
based on how we relate to others.
We can give precise definitions (for example, "brother of
the father"), but often a word like uncle is used for many
more people, including close friends, who are not in the
group of people that the precise definition includes.
 SOCIAL CATEGORIES
The word brother is also
used by many groups for
someone who is not a
relative. We can use these
words to categorize people
socially, that is, to show that
they belong to a group
based on social ties.
 ADDRESS TERMS
are the words or phrases that we use to refer to the
people we are talking or writing to, such as "you",
"father", "the beard", or "friend". Address terms can
show the relationship between the speaker and the
addressee, such as their closeness, solidarity, or
power difference.
 ADDRESS TERMS
For example, if a stranger asks you for money
using the address term "brother", he is trying to
create a sense of familiarity and equality with you.
But if he uses the address term "sir", he is showing
respect and acknowledging your higher status.
 ADDRESS TERMS
Use a title or a title plus last name to address
someone with higher status, such as
Doctor
Professor Buckingham
 ADDRESS TERMS
But if you have a more equal relationship, you might
use first names or nicknames, such as
Bucky
Jenny
Paul
 ADDRESS TERMS
This is what happened to the Quaker Richard Davis in the story
at the beginning of this chapter. People with less power had to
use vous or you to people with more power.
This is called non-reciprocal usage. But nowadays, more people
use the tu forms to each other, even if they are not close friends,
but just in the same situation. This is more common among
young people, like students.
 ADDRESS TERMS
In English, there are different ways of addressing people without
special titles, such as Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Ms. These forms of
address reveal something about the person's social status,
especially for women.
For example, a woman who is called Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Frank
Smith is showing that she is married to a man named Frank
Smith. This system reflects a historical situation where women
were defined by their relationship to a man, either as a wife or a
daughter. These forms of address act as social category labels,
distinguishing women based on their marital status.
 ADDRESS TERMS
In English, there are different ways of addressing people without
special titles, such as Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Ms. These forms of
address reveal something about the person's social status.
Example:
A woman who is called Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Frank Smith is
showing that she is married to a man named Frank Smith.
This system reflects a historical situation where women were
defined by their relationship to a man, either as a wife or a
daughter. These forms of address act as social category labels,
distinguishing women based on their marital status.
 TOPICS
Gender Words
Gender Speech
Gender Interaction
TAGASA, MARK
ANGELO
 GENDER
Gender is a range of
characteristics used to
distinguish between males and
females, particularly in the cases
of men and women and the
masculine and feminine
attributes assigned to them.
 GENDERED WORDS
are terms that are associated with a specific
gender, typically male or female.
Examples:
Waiter / Waitress
Steward / Stewardess
King / Queen
These examples highlight how gendered words are embedded in
language to denote distinctions between males and females in
various relationships and roles. However, there is an increasing
awareness of the need for gender-neutral language to promote
inclusivity.
 GENDERED WORDS
Another Examples:
In Sidamo, spoken in Ethiopia, there are some words used only by
men and some used
only by women, so that the translation of “milk” would be “ado” by
a man, but “gurda” by
a woman.
In Spanish, gender agreement is required between
nouns and definite articles as in la muchacha, “the
girl“ versus el muchacho, “the boy“,where feminine
definite articles “la“ must precede feminine nouns
and masculine definite articles“el“must precede
masculine nouns
GENDERED WORDS
English (Non-gendered):
Neutral: "The teacher" (doesn't specify gender)
Spanish (Gendered):
Male: "El profesor"
Female: "La profesora"
French (Gendered):
Male: "Le médecin"
Female: "La médecin"
 GENDER SPEECH
Men have longer vocal tracts, larger larynxes and thicker vocal
folds than women. The result is that men typically speak in a lower
pitch range (80–200 Herz) than women (120–400 Herz). The
term pitch is used to describe the effect of vibration in the vocal
folds, with slower vibration making voices sound lower and rapid
vibration making voices sound higher.
The more frequent use of hedges (sort of, kind of) and tag
questions have all been identified as characteristic of women’s
speech.
 GENDER SPEECH
Men tend to use more assertive forms and
“strong” language.
Examples:
It’s too damn cold in here!
Why on earth is the Wi-Fi so slow in this place!
Other researchers have pointed to a
preference among women, in same-gender groups, for indirect speech
acts rather than the direct speech heard more often from men in same-
gender groups.
 GENDER SPEECH
Examples:

Women Men
Could I see that photo? Gimme that phone
I am going to get this phone I’mma get this phone
GENDER INTERACTION
THANK YOU FOR
LISTENING