Language
and Culture
A.
Introduction
Language is interwoven with culture, that is affects
how we think and behave, and is affected by how we think and behave. For the
next we will investigate a hypothesis about the connection between laguage and
culture, which extremely radical, and goes far beyond the truism we would all
be ready to admit.
B.
Defenition of Language and Culture
Merriam-Webster's
Collegiate Dictionary in Ilic (2004), as 5a/, defines culture as 'the
integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief and behavior that depends upon
man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding
generations'. Lazear (1997) the definition usually includes some notion of
shared values, beliefs, expectations, customs, jargon, and rituals. Shelling in
Lazear (1997) Language is the set of common sounds and symbols by which
individuals communicate.
C.
The Sapir and the Whorf hypothesis
Culture says Sapir may be defined as what a society
does and think. When linguist, anthropologists, and philosophers study the
relation between language and culture they are not, however, concerned with
culture in such a broad sense as this. Certainly they are concerned with men’s
ideas, conceptions, and beliefs, but not with everything men do.
We decided that words and sentences are not labels
given to some quite separate mental entities. But when Sapir and Whorf talk to
connection between language and thought, they particular thought, but in the
connection between whole areas of language, and whole areas of human intellectual
phenomena. For example, the connection between how men think, about the nature
of time, and the grammar of the language they use to talk about the time.
It was argued that very often one cannot identify
what a man is doing independent of understanding the words he uses to describe
it. This is not the sort of connection that interests Sapir and Whorf. They are
concerned with how whole ways of talking affect whole modes of behavior.
It is best to regard the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis as a
challenge to a commonly accepted conception of the language/culture relation.
It is commonly thought that language reflect a pre-existing reality of which
men are pre-linguistically aware. Language is then devised to describe that
reality. Since this reality is pretty much the same for all people, since
environment is fairly similar, one expects that all language will be basically
similar in their modes of describing that reality.
These assumptions are strongly challenged by Sapir
and Whorf. For them, language is no mere passive recording instrument, which
reflects are pre-existing reality of which we are aware. Rather it is the
essential factor in forging what our conception of reality is, and how we
perceive it. Not only our connection and perceptions, but also our attitudes
towards them are largely dictated to us by the language we happen to possess.
Nor is it the case that language shares any great similarities, they different
radically, and as result, the ways in which men conceive, perceive, evaluate,
and behave will differ radically. Put in an extreme form, the hypothesis is
that makes no sense to speak reality. What reality is for person will be
function of the language he employs, and there will be as many realities as
there are radically distinct languages. Since there is no super-language, from
the stand-point of we can judge actual language, there is no way in which it is
possible to choose between different conception of reality, different forms of
evaluation, and different ways of perceiving. We are committed to complete
relativity, with no prospect of making objective tests of divergent systems of
thought.
People in different societies perceive, behave in,
conceive of and take attitudes towards the world in radically different ways
and these different are largely to be explained in terms of their possessing
radically different language.
No one, I take it, would deny that there are many
variation in culture corresponding to variations in language. It is not mere
confidence the Eskimos have more words for snow than we do. Nor is there a
chance correlation between the hippies’ attitude to life and their use of a
special vocabulary containing expression like ‘do your own thing’. Up tight’,
‘that’s not my bag’, and so on. Nor need we deny that, in many ways, we are
free to classify what we perceive in different ways. For example, there is no
necessity to divide up the spectrum in just the way we do with our colour
vocabulary. Another language need contain no exact synonym for’ yellow’. We can
further happily admit that some people lack of some of our concepts, and that
this will correlate with a lack of certain words in their language.
If the Sapir/Whorf hypothesis is to be interesting,
it must be saying something far more radical than the above points, which
everybody would happily admit. And they are saying something far more radical.
They are saying that not only do different people classify what they perceive
differently, but that they actually perceive differently as a result of having
different language. They are saying that not only do certain attitudes vary
with language, but those whole systems of norms and morals differ as a result
of linguistic differences.
Before we can establish that language causally influences
culture, o more modest point must be establish-namely, that there are
significant correlations between linguistic differences and cultural
differences.
1)
The first problem is the problem of
translation. Clearly we must translate other languages properly before we can
assert that these languages differ in significant and relevant respects from
our own.
2)
A second, even more serious
methodological is this. If a significant correlation is to be established
between A’s and B’s, it is necessary that the A’s and B’s be separately identifiable.
D.
Two test cases
1.
Colour perception; this type connection
between language and culture is the one that is most free from the conceptual/
methodological problems mentioned in the last section.
a.
The first thing to realize is that color
terminology does vary considerably from society to society. This is not
surprising.
b.
The second thing to realize is that
perceptual abilities vary from society to society.
The question is: is there any correlation between
differences in colour terminologies and differences in discriminatory
abilities?
2.
Kinship terminology, it is discuss the
possible connection there might be between (1) kinship terminology, and (2) the
various attitudes taken towards kinsmen, and the various norms governing
inter-kin behavior, which exist in different societies.
a.
The first thing to note is that kinship
terminologies do, in certain respects, definitely vary from culture to culture.
For instance, the Ngaranyin of western Australia, employ a single word ‘wuniji’
to apply to what we would describe as a man’s father’s brother-in-law, his own
brother-in-law, his son-in-law, and his sister’s son’s child.
b.
The second thing to realize is that
attitudes towards kinsmen certainly do differ, in certain ways, from society to
society.
E.
Language and conceptualization
We have seen that it is highly misleading to speak
of there being a correlation between linguistic differences and conceptual differences
among societies. Concept differences consist in linguistic differences. Concept
difference consist in (1) the fact that certain words belong to very different
groups in different societies, and (2) the fact that the explanatory analogies
employed in different societies may be different.
F.
The correlation between language and
culture
1.
It is peculiarly self-defeating to
insist that one cannot understand the concept of another, radically different,
society.
2.
It is surely an exaggeration to say that
language ‘determines’ our thinking, in the sense that a person is incapable of
thinking except in the terms dictated to him by his language.
