Chapter TenLanguage, Culture, & Society

1. Language and Culture

What is culture?

Broadly speaking, it means the total way of life of a people, including the patterns of belief, customs, objects, institutions, techniques, and language.

In a narrow sense, it refers to local, specific practice, beliefs or customs.

1.1 The relationship between L & C Generally, the relation of L to C

is that of part to whole, for L is part of C.

The knowledge and beliefs that constitute a people’s culture are habitually encoded and transmitted in L.

Heritage of L and C study

An anthropological orientation: the study of L in sociocultural context Malinowski,& Firth in England Boas, Sapir, Whorf in the States

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942): Field work in Trobriand Islands

1. The meaning of a word greatly depends upon its occurrence in a given context.

2. Language functions as a link in human activity, a mode of action.

Paved the way for a cultural, contextual study of L in Britain.

J. R. Firth (1890-1960): theory of the context of situation

1. The relevant features of the participants: persons, personalities.

2. The relevant topics, including objects, events, and non-linguistic, non-human events.

3. The effects of the verbal action. “who speaks what to whom and

when and to what end”

Boas, Sapir, Whorf documented a lot of language data about American Indian language and came to the importance of culture in the study of L.

Dell Hymes (1927- ): Ethnography of communication

1. Speech situation.2. Situation, event, and

act.3. SPEAKING: situation,

participants, ends, act sequence, key, instrumentalities, norms, and genres

Communicative situation, event, & act Communicative situation, event, and act

are three units of interaction. put together, they form a hierarchy that can be used to study how members from a given community speak to each other.

Speech acts are part of speech events which are, in turn, part of speech situation.

communicative situation being the general setting (such as a dinner party) and creating the broad context of communication.

communicative events refer to specific activities (such as a joke).

Communicative acts are treated as the minimal unit  of analysis (such as greeting).

Components of ‘SPEAKING’

In ethnography of communication, the key components of analysis are often subsumed under the mnemonic code SPEAKING, in which each letter represents one aspect of a communicative event. These are the following:

Setting and Scene: the circumstances Participants Ends: the purpose and expected outcome Act sequence: order of actions, message

form, and message content. Key: the general tone of interaction. Instrumentalities: medium of

communication (i.e. spoken or written).

Norms: norms of interaction and interpretation

Genres: categories of communication, e.g. poetry, prayer, or lecture.

A speech community consists of members who not only speak a common language but also  interpret the interaction in a similar way.

Our language helps mould our way of thinking and, consequently, different languages may probably express speakers’ unique ways of understanding the world. L may determine our thinking

patterns. Similarity between L is relative. This hypothesis has

alternatively been referred to as linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Language and culture?Chicken or egg?

Argument: all languages refer to the same world, all people have much the same basic experiences and perceptions,and all languages have he same broad functions. Human reasoning relies on universal logical principles.

Counter-argument: different languages “cut up” the world in different ways, imply different worlds, and influence perception. “If Aristotle had spoken Nootka, then we would have a different logic.

Very influential but controversial Hypothesis concerning language,

thought, and culture Strong and weak versions of the

hypothesis (p.163) Evidence and proof-evidence

evidence: Hopi drastically differs from English

Proof-evidence: Universal evolution process of color voc.

Linguistic evidence of cultural differences Terms of address Greetings Thanks and compliments Privacy and taboos Color words

烫手的山芋 vs. hot potato

雨后春笋 vs. spring like mushroom

kill the goose that lays the golden eggs” vs.“杀鸡取卵”

Diamond cut diamond. 棋逢对手

Why study culture in L teaching?

P. 169

2. Language and Society

2.1 Sociolinguistics The sub-field of linguistics that

studies the relation between L and society, between the uses of L and the the social structures in which the users of L live. Micro-studies Macro-studies

Micro-studies: To look at society from the point of view of an individual member within it.

Macro-studies: To look at society as a whole and consider how L functions in it and how it reflects the social differentiations.

Variationist perspective: People who claim to be users of

the same language do not speak the language in the same manner.

Varieties related to the user are normally known as dialects and varieties related to use as registers.

Regional dialects are linguistic varieties used by people living in different regions.

Regional dialect boundaries often coincide with geographical barriers such as mountains, rivers, or swamps.

English Scottish

It needs washing It needs washed

Social-class dialect, or sociolect, refers to the linguistic variety characteristic of a particular social class. Social dialect has to

do with separation brought about by different social conditions.

Upper class: America, cake, helping, ice, lavatory, looking glass, pudding, relatives, rich, Royalties, scent, scurf, sick, sofa, spectacles, writing paper

Lower class: the States, pastry, portion, ice-cream, toilet, mirror, dessert, relations, wealthy, Royals, perfume, dandruff, ill, settee, notepaper, glasses

Speaker A Speaker B

I did it yesterday. I done it yesterday.

He hasn’t got it. He ain’t got it.

It was she that said it. It was her what said it.

In Britain, accent = marker of status RP: a non-localized form of

pronunciation, refers to the particular way of pronouncing standard English, an indicator of a public school education and thus a high social status on the part of the speaker.

EE: Estuary English, commonly used by educated people in the region around London. Less rigid than RP but more standard than Cockney.

Cockney: lower class dialect of East London, considered non-standard by educated people.

Genderlect Compared with men,

women tend to use such adverbs: horridly, abominably, immensely, excessively, amazingly, so, most, etc.

Female: so good, such fun, exquisite, lovely, divine, precious, adorable, darling, fantastic.

Neutral: great, terrific, cool, neat

Women have their own vocabulary for emphasizing certain effects:

Aside from specific lexical items, there are differences between the speech of women and that of men in the use of particles that grammarians often describe as “meaningless”. Male: Shit, damn,

darn it, the hell Female: Oh dear,

dear me, goodness me, my goodness

Women use more tag questions. Women use more statement

questions with a rising intonation at the end.

Women’s linguistic behavior is less direct and more polite.

Idiolect is a personal dialect of an individual speaker that combines elements regarding regional, social, gender, and age variations.

Register L varies as its function

varies; it differs in different situations.

The type of L which is selected as appropriate to the type of situation is a register.

Visitors would make their way at once to the upper floor by way of the staircase. (frozen)

Visitors should go up the stairs at once. (formal)

Would you mind going upstairs please? (consultative)

Time you all went upstairs now. (casual)

Up you go, Chaps! (intimate)

Language is not always used to exchange information as is generally assumed, but rather it is sometimes used to fulfill an important social function – to maintain social relationship between people.

“You are what you say”

One’s use of language is influenced by a range of social (e.g., class, age, gender, race, education, occupation, religious)

and situational factors. In this sense, users of the same

language all speak differently. The social and situational background

can also be reflected in language, and often have an effect on the pronunciation, the vocabulary, grammar, and the way of speaking.

When we speak we cannot avoid giving our listeners clues about our origin and our background.

Sociolinguistic study of society

To know more about a given society by examining the linguistic behavior of its members. Bilingualism & Multilingualism Language planning and L

standardization

Monolingual: Speakers of a single language control different varieties of that language.

Bilingual: People develop some ability in a second language.

Monolingual speech communities are rare; monolingual countries are even rarer.

Bilingualism —— the two languages are in contact.

This contact may lead to interference. Pidgin, Creole, diglossia

Pidgin: not a native language of anyone. learned informally in

contact. used esp. as trade

language. involves the mixture of

two or more Ls. Eg. Nigerian Pidgin

English; Vietnamese Pidgin French; New Guinea Pidgin German, etc.

上海话中的洋泾浜英语 “ 蹩脚”（ BILGE ，船底污水，引申为肮脏

的、下三滥的、劣质的） “ 大兴”（ DASHY ，浮华的，华而不实的，

引申为假的、冒牌的、劣质的） “ 肮三”（ ON SALE ，二手货贱卖，引申为

垃圾货、形容人的品质低劣） “ 瘪三”（ BEG SIR ，乞丐先生，用来形容

叫花子、难民、逃荒者等各式穷人，后引申为最广泛的骂人用语之一。

“ 赤佬”是英语“ CHEAT” （欺骗）和中文“佬”的混生词语，一个鲁迅时代最流行的洋泾浜俚语（隐语）。

What implication from socio-?

Socio- in language classroom Socio- in law courts Socio- in clinic settings (p. 175)

3. Cross-cultural communication Guidelines to successful cross-

cultural communication: The speakers can see, feel, and

understand issues from the other party’s point of view.

Both parties know each other’s intentions.

Both parties adopt a dynamic dialogue pattern.