LANGUAGE AND

CULTURE:
INTRODUCTION
Meeting 1
 Facts
O Only humans have language
O Only humans have culture
 Fundamental questions
O What is language?
O What is culture?
O What is the relation between
language and culture?
O How do the two connect?
 What is language?
O Language is “a knowledge of rules and principles and of
the ways of saying and doing things with sounds, words,
and sentences rather than just knowledge of specific
sounds, words, and sentences” (Wardhaugh 2002, p. 2).
O Language is a guide to social reality [...] Human beings
do not live in the objective world alone [...] but are very
much at the mercy of the particular language which has
become the medium of expression for their society [...]
No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be
considered as representing the same social reality [...]
(Sapir 1929).
 What is language?
O Language is:
O governed by arbitrary rules of grammar
O expressed orally as sounds and are linked
to objects or concepts
O used creatively to communicate
unlimited numbers of ideas
O shared by a speech community as a tool
of communication
 What is culture?
O Culture is a system of shared symbols
and meanings.
O Culture is a system for differentiating
between in-group and out-group people.
O Culture is “a social glue”.
O Culture is made up of whatever it is one has
to know or believe in order to operate in a
manner acceptable to its members, and to
do so in any role that they accept for any
one of themselves (Goodenough 1957, p.
167).
Relation between language and
culture
O …language does not exist apart from culture,
that is, from the socially inherited assemblage
of practices and beliefs that determines the
texture of our lives (Sapir 1970, p. 207).
O Some words and phrases are so connected to
the language and culture that they are used,
that they are difficult to translate into another
language.
O For example, Japanese is filled with
utterances that humble the speaker and raise
the level of the person being spoken to.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
O Language and culture are
intrinsically linked.
O Language is a guide to social
reality... it powerfully conditions all
our thinking about social problems
and processes.
O Language predisposes people to
see the world in a certain way
guiding behavior.
 Brief history of
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
O The hypothesis was first discussed by
Edward Sapir in 1929. It became popular in
the 1950s following posthumous publication
of Whorf's writings on the subject.
O After vigorous attack from followers of Noam
Chomsky in the following decades, the
hypothesis is now believed by most linguists
only in the weak sense that language can
have some small effect on thought.
Edward Sapir (1884-1939)
O American anthropologist-linguist; a
leader in American structural
linguistics
O Born in Lauenberg, Germany
O Author of Language: An Introduction
to the Study of Speech
O Pupil of Franz Boas, teacher of
Benjamin Whorf
 Benjamin Lee Whorf
(1897 – 1941)
O He graduated from the MIT in 1918 with a degree
in Chemical Engineering.
O Although he later studied with Edward Sapir, he
never took up linguistics as a profession.
O Whorf's primary area of interest in linguistics was
the study of native American languages. He
became quite well known for his work on the
Hopi language.
O He was considered to be a captivating speaker
and did much to popularize his linguistic ideas
through popular lectures and articles written to
be accessible to lay readers.
 Whorf’s work
O Whorf contrasted the Hopi linguistic structure with that of
English, French, and German. He found that these three
languages share many structural features that he named
‘Standard Average European’ (SAE). Whorf came to the
conclusion that Hopi and SAE differ widely in their structural
characteristics.
O For example, Hopi grammatical categories provide a 'process'
orientation toward the world, whereas the categories in SAE
give SAE speakers a fixed orientation toward time and space so
that they not only 'objectify' reality in certain ways but even
distinguish between things that must be counted, e.g., trees,
hills, and sparks, and those that need not be counted, e.g.,
water, fire, and courage. In SAE 'events occur', 'have occurred',
or 'will occur’, in a definite time ; i.e., present, past, or future.
To speakers of Hopi, what is important is whether an event can
be warranted to have occurred, or to be occurring, or to be
expected to occur.
O Whorf believed that these differences lead speakers of Hopi
and SAE to view the world differently.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
O Strong version (Linguistic determinism)
O Language determines certain non-linguistic
cognitive processes, that is, language
determines our perception of the world
O Linguistic categories create cognitive
categories
O Weak version (Linguistic relativity)
O People who speak different languages
perceive and think about the world quite
differently from one another
 Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Does language affect how we perceive
colors?
 Color terms
O Berlin and Kay (1969), Basic Color
Terms: Their Universality and
Evolution
O There are universal constraints on
color naming, but at the same time,
differences in color naming across
languages cause differences in color
cognition and/or perception.
 Color term inventories
(Berlin & Kay, 1969)
O If 2  black and white

e.g. Dani (Papuan) and Burarra (Australian)

O If 3  black, white and red

Note: no languages distinguished less than two colors

 Color terms
O Lucy (1996, p. 46, taken from Skotko, 1997)
reported that Hanunóo, a language from the
Philippines, has four terms that seem to refer
to what we would call white, black, green, and
red but which under further analysis turn out
to mean roughly lightness, darkness, wetness,
and dryness. Such observations imply that
some cultures interpret colours based on their
language, such as with Hanunóo, where it
appears that speakers view the colour red as
more of a feeling than a colour.
 Wano language
(Burung, 2017)
O Complex morphological analysis about nouns
O abut ‘his child of male’, aburi ‘his children of male’
O ayak ‘her child of female’, acui ‘her children of female’
O ninyabut ‘our male child’, ninyaburi ‘our male child’
O ninayak ‘our female child’, ninyacui ‘our female child’
O ninayak-ninyabut
O ninacui-ninyaburi

O Concerning sibling relationship, when ego and

sibling are of the same sex, age determines the
choice of referring expressions.
 Culturally salient words
O Each culture has certain items which are very salient
to that culture.
O Japanese has many words for fish and sea products.
O Some names of a fish change as they grow.
O English ‘seaweed’ - Japanese nori, wakame, konbu,
mozuku, hijiki
O Different words for rice depending on if it is raw or
cooked and how it is served.
O Raw uncooked rice - kome
O Cooked rice served in a bowl - gohan
O Cooked rice served on a plate – raisu
Japanese Seaweed
nori wakame

konbu

mozuku hijiki
Japanese Rice
kome gohan raisu
 Snow for the Eskimos
tlapa: powder snow
tlacringit: snow that is crusted on the surface
kayi: drifting snow
tlapat: still snow
klin: remembered snow
naklin: forgotten snow
tlamo: snow that falls in large wet flakes
tlatim: snow that falls in small flakes
tlaslo: snow that falls slowly
tlapinti: snow that falls quickly
kripya: snow that has melted and refrozen
tliyel: snow that has been marked by wolves
tliyelin: snow that has been marked by Eskimos
blotla: blowing snow
pactla: snow that has been packed down
Strong version or weak version?
O The structure of a language
determines the way in which speakers
of that language view the world or, as
a weaker view, the structure does not
determine the world-view but is still
extremely influential in predisposing
speakers of a language toward
adopting their world-view (Wardhaugh
2002, pp. 219-220).
High vs. low context cultures
O In low context cultures, everything is
made crystal clear; no need to read
between the lines.
O The opposite is true for high context
cultures. If you don’t read between the
lines and understand the cultural
context of the words used, you won’t
get the meaning of what was said (non-
verbal communication for the
Japanese).
Is culture always verbal?
O Nonverbal behaviors may occur in
communication.
O Nonverbal behaviors: all behaviors
that occur during communication
that do not include verbal language.
O Nonverbal channels are more
important in understanding meaning
and emotional states of speakers
than verbal language.
 Some types of non-verbal
behaviors
O Culture and Gestures
O The American OK sign is an obscene gestures in
many cultures of Europe

O Culture and Gaze

O Contact cultures engage in more gazing and more
direct orientation when interacting with others

O Culture and Interpersonal Space

O Arabs and Latin Americans interact with others at
closer distance than Americans