Language Cognition and Culture

PRESENTERS:

MICHAEL SURYA TANANDJAJA (61420010)

ARYA PRATAMA HERRYAWAN (61420016)
 Introduction

Cognitive Linguistics (CL) was Created in the matrix of

cognitive sciences as a distinctive and highly indisciplinary
method in linguistics. Underlying articles such as Lakoff
(1987), Langacker (1987), and Talmy (2000) drew upon long
but in most times, ignored the traditions in cognitive
psychology, especially gestalt psychology (Sinha 2007).
 What is Culture?

The word of “culture” means it has been the subject in many

arguments. A frequently quoted early definition of this word
is that on the 19th century that a british anthropologist E. B.
Taylor stated:

“that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art,

morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities including the
habits that acquired by someone as a member of society.
 Anthropological Prespectives

To be simple anthropology is a conceptualization

changes in a culture, and this means that humans
living in different groups were considered as an
existing complex in the universal scale of complexity.
As Lewis Henry Morgan (1877) stated that both culture
and society evolved from “savages” and “barbarians”
into a civilization. Morgan also stated that this
evolution can be considered Eurocentric and racist.
 Psychological Prespectives

A phylocultural but racist basis during the 19th century stated that the non-Europeans
as “barbarian-minded” and “childish” than the real white Europeans. Stated by Tylor
(1865 : 125):
“Between our clearness of separation of what is in the mind from what is out of it, and
the mental confusion of the lowest savage of our own day, there is a vast interval”.

The term of ‘mental confusion’ later changed by an anthropologist and sociologist

Lévy-Bruhl (1910) into ‘pre-logical primitive thought’ which he finally denied because
he felt that this term is still too “Eurocentrism”. Pertierra (1983), after quoting from
Lévy-Bruhl (1949), later changed the terminology again into the better sounding term
“the mode of thinking of pre-modern societies”.
At the end Lévy-Bruhl’s theory can be said successfully bridged the gap between the
imperial and racial fantasies about phylocultural complex.
 Linguistic Relativity

The theory of linguistic relativity has it’s own

foundation from the European philosophical and
cultural theory, to be precise it is on the foundational
research by polymath and educator Wilhelm von
Humboldt (1999 [1836]), who stated that:
“Diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and
sound but a diversity of worldviews”.
Note: Humboldt quoted it from Trabant (2000)
 Semiotic Meditation

On this case the cognitive linguistics begins from a point where the
idea that language can provide us a “window” to our own mind.
Since languages is made out of human cognitive progress, that
means the study of language will go on as well within the cognition
study and on the other hand, cognition also made language
studying even more possible to define what is semiotic meditation.

This definition has been first stated by a philosopher Maurice

Merleau-Ponty (1962: 146) who said that our body is a general
medium for a cultural world.
 Cultural Linguistics

This terminology can be said the newest for this context of

sociolinguistic for a very long history of language cognition
and culture, as Palmer (1996: 36) designated this as a
synthesis from von Humboldt’s work.

While according to Shafirian (2017) there is a “system” inside

human that relates and synergizes with features in human
language that created new concepts culturally with human
experiences in language.
 What About Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?

Quoted from simplypsychology.org, there are some criteria in order to

be recognized as a culture which consists of; values, norms, and beliefs.
Sapir-Whorf theorized that language usage formed prespectives of this
world, where in people live in different area or region in a country also
speaks in different languages too.

As one of the authors of this theory, Whorf thought that language and
culture affected each other. So that’s why Whorf felt that the structure
of a language having an impact to how the speakers act, how to sense
this world, and the most influential the culture.
 Real Life Examples from Sapir-Whorf ‘s Theory

As mentioned before in the previous slide, Sapir-Whorf’s theory

about the relationship between both language and culture is not
just a “theory” since there are so many real life examples that
can be seen.

For instance some words in regular Javanese language and the

“Suroboyoan” Javanese shows difference, where the regular
ones used outside of East Java province, while the “Suroboyoan”
ones usually used inside the East Java province especially on
Gerbangkertosusila region.
 Another Real Life Examples from Sapir-Whorf ‘s Theory

The other real life examples of this theory can be found in Mandarin and Japanese
language since both of these languages linguistically shared the same root which
can be seen from its alphabet. Hanzi for Mandarin and Kanji for Japanese, both of
these have similarities in shape but different romanizations.

For numbers, cited from a book authored by Janet Holmes (2013), both Mandarin
and Japanese have the same number. And that “same” number is 3, where in both
languages pronounced as “san ( 三 )” in these languages. This works well with
numbers larger than 10, with same Hanzi/Kanji scripts. The example number for
this case is 11 ( 十一 , shí yī in Mandarin, and jū ichi in Japanese) and the
Hanzi/Kanji script writing system goes the same for number 12 up to 19.
 Research by Mortensen and Tranekjær

Mortensen and Tranekjær from Roskilde University in Denmark done

a research at 2020 about questioning a question in LCC. Tranekjær
discovers and finally found out that every team leaders in a laundry
company uses multifunctional questioning as a part of interaction and
the understanding of how the workers move.

While Mortensen shares her observation result about cultural

differences in USA and her homecountry Denmark. Where she found
the differences in acknowledging the question control and coercion
between the different lingustic cultures.
 Research by Pavlova & Vtorushina

Next is a research by Pavolva and Vtorushina from Nosov Magnitogorsk

State Technical University in Russia, about how important to develop
students’ cognition skill in order to learn foreign languages successfully.

In their research they concluded that the teaching method used on the
university students in order to increase their cognition culture, they used
this method:
social cultural information transfer and gap, sociological poll, cultural
works anlaysis, and lastly a project by making a comparison between the
electronic such as news on the internet and printed mass media like
newspaper.
Thank you for paying your attention to our PPT presentation
today :)