Chapter 4 LANGUAGE CULTURE Scientists have noticed that

Chapter 4 LANGUAGE & CULTURE

• Scientists have noticed that dialects differ not only for social variations but also for other ‘cultural’ factors. • This approach to the study of Language originated in the work of Anthropologists who have used ‘language as a source of information in cultural studies.

Culture • Culture: – All the ideas and assumptions about the nature of things and people that we learn when we become members of social groups. – Def. “socially acquired knowledge” – We acquire without conscious awareness – The ‘language’ we learn provides us with a ready-made system of ‘categorizing’ the world around us and shaping our experience. – We learn by time how to categorize the distinction between different concepts. / thus, we develop a more elaborated conceptual system that is relevant in our social world/culture. • E. g. ‘dog’ or ‘horse’ for a child is just a ‘bow-wow’ • Some of the cultures do not have horses so they don’t have that concept in their language

Categories • Category: – A group with certain features in common. – The vocabulary we learn through our first language is the set of category labels we inherent. / they r the words we use for referring to concepts. – Organization of external reality varies according to the language being used to talk about it. • E. g. ‘rain’ ‘coconuts’ ‘dates’ • Colors for New Guinea speakers and English speakers. • Clip # 2 (colors, directions, & snow) – Thus, there are conceptual distinctions that are Lexicalized: “expressed as a single word” in one language and not in the other.

Kinship terms • Kinship terms: – One of the examples of lexicalized categories: words we use to refer to members of the family. • E. g. ‘father’ & ‘uncle’ in English vs. other languages lexicalized the distinction in English • ‘female parent’s brother’ /the distinction isn’t lexicalized in English. / but it is in Arabic ( )ﺧﺎﻝ ﻋﻢ • Age is also important in some languages for the distinction between family members. / Mayan e. g. • Norwegian the distinction between ‘male parent’s mother’ & ‘female parent’s mother’ is lexicalized but not in English nor in Arabic.

Time Concepts • An abstract e. g. of conceptual system. • English has words for units of time “two days”/ shows that we think of time in amounts the same way we treat physical things “two people” • In Hopi lang. time is not treated the same/ no terms • Clip # 3 (Hopi and their time concept)

Linguistic Relativity • First proposed by European linguists in the 18 th c. to analyze the connection between language & culture. • Linguistic Relativity: – Our Language influences our thought/ the structure of our language, with its predetermined categories, affects how we perceive the world. / first language. – weak version • Linguistic Determinism: – Language determines thought/ suggests we are prisoners of our own lang. , i. e. , we will only be able to think in the categories provided by our language. – strong version • Language Thought – E. g. ‘snow’ for English speakers vs. Eskimos – Clip # 1

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis • Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: – 20 th c. / American linguists – They suggested that: the language of the ‘Hopi’ led them to view the world differently from those who spoke European languages. • E. g. ‘time’ to the Hopis as duration not exact numerals • Different distinction between ‘animate’ & ‘inanimate’ in their grammar/ they treat ‘clouds’ & ‘stones’ as living creatures because their lang led them to do so • Unlike English speakers, because their grammar does not mark them as ‘animates’

Arguments presented against the hypothesis: – French lang uses feminine grammatical structure with some ‘inanimate’ things, however they do not believe that they are ‘female’ entities just like woman ‘la femme’ • E. g. ‘la pierre/ stone’ ‘la porte/ door’ – Therefore, while the Hopi language has a particular classification for ‘stone’, it does not mean the people worry about stepping on living creatures when they step on stone.

• It is the human who is thinking about the experience and determining what will be expressed, not the other way around (not the language) – E. g. 1/ Snow – English does not lexicalize the distinction between different forms of snow unlike the Eskimos. / however, English speakers manipulate their language to refer to different kinds of snow (powdery snow, dirty snow…) – So, we cannot say that language controls thought, but, it is thought that determines language • Thought Language

• E. g. 2/ Dates- coconut- rain- money - Our languages reflect our concern • We inherit the language we use to report knowledge, and we also inherit the ability to manipulate and be creative with that language in order to express our perceptions. • If thinking and perception were determined by language then the concept of language change would be impossible! • E. g. 3/ computers • Human manipulates the language not the other way around.

Cognitive Categories • We can look at language structure as a way of analyzing cognition (i. e. how people think) – The Hopi treat clouds and stones as ‘animate’ entities in their language system/ thus it can tell us sth about their culture and how they think/ as ‘having special importance in life’ and not as ‘having life’ as in English.

Classifiers • Classifiers: – Grammatical markers that indicate the type or ‘class’ of noun involved. – As a type of cognitive categorization. – In Swahili (prefixes are used as classifiers to distinguish between humans and non-humans) – Japanese e. g. (classifiers are associated with the shape of the objects) – English e. g. (classifiers are mostly associated with expressing quantity/ ‘unit of’) • Countable (a shirt/ an apple) • Non-countable (expressions: ‘a piece of furniture’/ ‘a bit of information’)

Social Categories • Social Categories: – Categories of social organization that we can use to say how we are connected or related to others. • E. g. uncle/ brother – Can be used for close friends as well as family members. – We can use these words as a means of social categorization, that is, marking individuals as members of a group defined by social connections.

Address Terms • Address Terms: – A word or phrase for the person being talked to or written to. – They function as social category labels. – Solidarity/ being the same in social status • ‘brother’ – Unequal relationship/ higher or lower status • ‘Sir’ • Titles (Dr. / professor) – Equal relationship/ similar status • First names / nicknames ‘jenny’ – Pronouns/ socially close vs. distant • Old English (thou/ you)

• In English, people without special titles are addressed as: – Mr. , Mrs. , Miss, Ms. – Only the women’s address terms include information about their social status.