Culture and Language

Culture and language go hand in hand. Culture is defined in our textbook as “the language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and material objects that are important enough to pass on to future generations of a society”. On Dictionary.com culture is defined in several ways: the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.; a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period; and the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group.

Language plays an important role in culture. The language you speak identifies you with that county. An example from our textbook would be how some Spanish immigrants have trouble giving up speaking Spanish to adapt to American culture. That language they are expected to give up is part of their culture, where they came from, and who they are. Different cultures also have different words and sayings that are unique only to their county or region that they are from. Even in the United States there are examples of this such as people up north calling soft drinks “pop” or people from the south saying “y’all”.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is defined in our textbook as a hypothesis that the structure of a language determines a native speaker’s perception and categorization of experience. In my own words this means that how you speak represents how educated you are. For example if someone has an advanced vocabulary you would think they had a good education and an important job. If someone speaks poorly you would think they were ignorant, had no education, and had a low class job. Language is a very important aspect in culture and you can learn a lot about someone by just having a simple conversation and observing their language they use.