A Critical Essay on Language in Culture

A Critical Essay on Language in Culture

Respectfully Submitted to

Mr. Francis Reil J. Nodado

ENGL 6 Adviser

A.Y (2014 - 2015)

Submitted by

Lovely Marie C. Guinta-ason

Ab – English 3

This critical essay seeks to define language and culture from the viewpoints of some linguists; explicate language in the context of culture; and the role of language in a culture.

Language is a form of social behavior (Schwatrz, 1963). A society is mainly composed of humans or people, and these people use language to converse thoroughly with each other. This can be realized through the use of vocal symbols, as Edgar H. Sturtevant (1875) define language as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by which members of a social group cooperate and interact. The arbitrariness of language makes a language different from the other languages. Some terms in a language varies from the other languages, this may be in the semantic aspect, phonological aspect or may be in other sub-Branches of Linguistics that depends on the personal, psychological and even on the cultural background of a person. The definition also emphasizes the systematic side of a language by which in return used by a group of people or a community to cooperate and interact. Since this social group is interacting, exchanging thoughts and opinion they are using a language that is agreed by everybody to use. Thus, the speakers are expected to have a common interests and aspirations in the community. With so, another noted linguist and anthropologist, Edward Sapir (1884) view language as a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols. He describes language as a purely human way of communicating for only humans know how to speak and use language as a medium of communication. It is also non instinctive because humans create the language to be used based on a certain setting. For instance, an individual can choose what to say and not what to say depending on the speaker and the interlocutor. The definition of Sapir (1884) of language can also be acquainted to the distinctiveness of the language in which only human can do or perform. This refers to the Human/Open Call System that only humans have. The capability of an individual to store and combine meaningful sounds and meanings to communicate is a useful tool of a person in his daily activities (Culture and Language, n.d). These facts explicate the human distinctiveness of human’s language. Nevertheless, human communication is made possible by the presence of voluntarily produced symbols. These symbols are the words