Linguistic Sciences

WHAT IS CULTURE

Defintion: Culture includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, customs, and any other habits acquired by man as a member of society.

HOW DOES CULTURE IMPACT LANGUAGE

·         A specific language is usually associated with a particular group of people.

·         You interact with the culture of the language's speaker when you communicate in their language

·         The vocabulary of a language derives its meaning from its culture.

·         Language is used to convey and to understand information. This would imply a relationship in which both the language giver and receiver assume one or more roles.

LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY HYPOTHESIS

• A ‘neutral claim’ which claims that there is little or no relationship between the two. ( what about  the process of communication?)
• The first relationship or what is named the Whorfian hypothesis refers to the proposal that the particular language one speaks determines /influences the way one thinks about reality.  In other words, the structure of the language determines how people see the world.

 

Strong claim (linguistic determinism)  vs  Weak claim(linguistic relativity)

• The second proposed relationship suggests that people in a culture use language that reflects their particular culture’s values. This is the opposing view of Sapir and Whorf hypothesis. In  this claim it is the ‘thoughts’ of a culture which are reflected in the language and not the language which determines the thought.

Summary about the Sapir- Whorf hypothesis

·         Individuals’ use of language predisposes certain choices of interpretation about how we view the world.

• Language  is somehow the guide to your reality structuring your thoughts. It offers the framework through which you make sense of the world.

 

QUESTIONS WORTH ASKING

Ò  Do we teach language through culture,or do we teach culture through language?

Ò  Could you cite  some examples   of misunderstanding  that occured to you?

Ò    When do we   feel that language alone cannot help to communicate?

 

HOW DOES CULTURE IMPACT LEARNING AND TEACHING

1. Translation
2.  comprehension
3. understanding

 

• Translation: the translator has to focus on the passage of the same information from the source text to the target text, without losing any concept as well as pay attention to the style used in the target language. In addition, every translator should have a linguistic and cultural background of the languages they translate, because only with this knowledge he/she is able to understand the true meaning of a sentence and translate it in the best way possible.
• Some of the translation problems involve the interaction between cultural and linguistic problems. It is the role of the translator to understand the applications and connotations of words and determine suitable equivalents in specific contexts
• For the linguistic and grammar differences, we can notice that the order or the types of sentences are the main problems. There are two main types of sentences, nominal and verbal: English has verbal sentences only, while Arabic has both nominal and verbal ones. The nominal sentence requires no verb, but it consists of two nouns: English has a noun in every sentence, but it is followed by a verb, while in Arabic there can either be a noun plus a verb or two nouns. In addition, the basic structure of sentences and word order in English is SVO (Subject +Verb +Object), in Arabic it could be SVO, but the frequent one is VSO (Verb+ Subject+ Object).

·          Understanding and comprehending: Cultural variables affect the degree of understanding between two language communities. As a result, language is an integral part of culture because the vocabulary of a language derives its meaning from its culture. Arabic, for example, is associated with specific cultural and social norms quite different from those, associated with other languages.  Translation from English to Arabic is normally bound to be into Standard Arabic rather than colloquial Arabic. Although Arabic has colloquial equivalents for many English terms, Standard Arabic has limited terms which are included in a formal register.

• Both 'understand' and 'comprehend' mean to grasp the meaning, significance, or nature of something.
• “Understanding” stresses the fact of having attained a grasp of something.
•  'comprehend' can imply a deeper level of understanding beyond a superficial or surface-level interpretation. “ Comprehension” involves mental process of arriving at a conclusion or result.
• Example: He did not comprehend the significance of the teacher's remark. ( comment)

·          

EXAMPLES

Ò  The biggest source of confusion is that British people tend to understate things, and Americans take that literally. The classic example is the response to "How are you?" A typical American response is "Great!" or "Good". If someone responded like that to me in the UK I'd have been surprised and considered them arrogant. An appropriate British response is "Oh, surviving". "They haven't killed me yet". When I first moved to the US and responded like that, people would be genuinely concerned. "Hey Jeremy, how's it going?" "Well, it's been worse." "Oh, are you OK? Anything I can do to help?“

Ò  A garden is a yard in the US (in the UK, it would be a yard if it had no soil or grass). A vegetable garden is a garden (at least I think that's what it is). So one does yard work when one mows the lawn, cuts the hedge, etc. But if you pay someone to mow the lawn, cut the hedge, they're a gardener.

Ò  Washing up, in Britain, means to wash dishes. You don't wash up anything except dishes. To an American, one washes up before dinner, meaning to wash your hands. So washing up liquid is the stuff you use for washing up (i.e. washing dishes), but if you ask an American for washing up liquid, they're confused. I still don't know what it's called. I've tried asking for dish washing soap or dish washing detergent, but then I get the stuff you use in the dishwasher, not the stuff you use in the sink.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-colloquial-English-and-spoken-English

 

How to deal with linguistic and cultural differences in a language  classroom

 

Ò  Close attention should be  paid to your learners( monolinguals, bilinguals, multilinguals).  ( cross Misunderstanding may occur  in cross-cultural communication.

Ò  Use repetitions, reformulations to check understanding.

Ò   Welcome translanguaging  as a pedagogical/learning  tool.Students already know the meaning of a word in their first language and only need to learn the word (but not the meaning); translanguaging can offer the tools to connect all linguistic repertoire and comprehend better. Using multiple languages together allows a more natural process of understanding.

Ò  Use plain, correct language  (English)

Ò   Explain with examples ( cross- cultural differences)

Ò  Avoid using  idioms or cultural references, or complext grammatical  structures  with  beginners.

Ò  Avoid cultural assumptions, and try to be open to other’s culture.

Ò   Be patient!

 

CONCLUSION

Ò  Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf have separately worked on this problem and concluded that the structure of one's language affects how we perceive the world (our expression of customs, beliefs, and behaviors). 

Ò  From a teaching /learning aspect,  we should as educators   take advantage of all available resources to offer interesting learning experiences where individual learners can explore new language content with their full repertoires and respective life experiences to cater to all cultural and linguistic differences. Threfore, we can  progressively introduce  less common  grammatical, lexical or cultural aspects to deal with effectively.