LANGUAGE,

CULTURE and
SOCIETY
 LANGUAGE, CULTURE
and SOCIETY
Background concepts
LESSON 1
In this lesson, you are going to learn:
• Language and its functions
• Language diversity
• Language, Thought and Representation
• Language, Culture and Society
• The Sapir – Whorf hypothesis

The interrelationship of Language, Culture and Society

What is Language?
• “Language is a systematic way of combining smaller units into
larger units for the purpose of communication.”
Thomas, L. et al (2006, p.6)
Example: We combine phonemes → lexical items → grammar
structures → sentences → meanings …

What language?
• “ Language shapes our perception of reality.”
Gary Goshgarian (1995, p.5)
• Language refers to “general faculty, which enables human beings to
engage in the verbal exchange of information. The exchange may take
place by means of speech, writing, signing or Braille.”
H. Jackson and P. Stockwell (1996, p.1)

What language?
• Systematic
Ex: “I love you” not “You love I” or “Love I you”
• Creative
Ex: McDonaldisation; Googling; Texting; Facebook (v) …
• Diversified
Ex: Can I pay by credit card?
Can, can, can (In Singapore)
• Powerful
Ex: “Bags on the floor. Coats off. Everyone sit quietly, please”
• Communicative
Ex: “Luv and hugs XXXXX” (an email ending)

Language features - Thomas, L. et al (2004)

• Its referential function:
- is associated with what objects and ideas are called and how events
are described.
Ex: A table → description of what?
- communicates information
Ex: Pilots discussing paths with air traffic control.
• Its affective impact
- shows power and establishes social relationship
Ex: Put the newspaper down on the table.
Can you put the newspaper on the table?
I wonder if you’d mind putting the newspaper on the table, please?
Put the ****ing paper down on the ****ing table right now!

Language: multiple functions – Thomas, L. (2004)

• “Languages do not vary only between countries; they also vary within
countries.” (Thomas, L. (2006, p.9)
• “Language is a system, or rather a set of systems (a system of sounds,
a system of grammar, a system of meaning); variations in usage are
often systematic as well.” (Thomas, L. (2006, p.10)
• “How individuals use the systems available to them varies according
to who the speakers are, how they perceive themselves, and what
identity they want to project.” (Thomas, L (2006, p.10)
- situations: public or private, formal or informal …
- informants
- power
…

Language diversity
“Culture, unlike language, does not contain fixed rules. It is
different from society to society and even from individual to
individual. What is right in one culture may not be right in another
culture.”
Levine and Aldeman (1993)
“As for the relation between language and culture, most of
language is contained within culture”
Hudson (1982, p.81)
Culture affects the way language is expressed, and language
contains many factors of culture in turn.

Language and Culture

Why study language?
• In August 2017, Ariana Grande cancelled her concert in Ho Chi Minh city,
Vietnam 5 hours before the show. → Vietnamese people have a new term “as
fast as Ariana cancels her show”
• To Whatsapp/ Google/ Tweet (Twitter) …
• “Thị Nở”, “Lý Thông” …
• Red light (traffic) …
• The case of Edward Snowden in 2013 releasing classified materials relating to
British and American surveillance programmes. → his action a ‘whistle-
blower”/ “patriot” and a “traitor” → critical language awareness.

Language thought and representation

Saussure and language as a representational system
• Saussure terms the sound sequence which makes up a label a signifier and the
meaning or concept associated with it the signified. But the actual sign is not
one or the other, it’s the association that binds them together.
+ Languages label the same concept with different signifiers (e.g. tree (English)
arbre (French))
+ Signs partially derive meaning from their relationship with other associated
signs (e.g. werewolf and wolf – not a wolf now)
+ Language users partly derive their understanding of signs by contextualising
them in the current system of use. (E.g. chicken – a kind of meat and chicken – a
kind of poultry)
(Thomas, L. et al (2004, p. 22)

Language thought and representation

• Scholars have claimed that there is a causal relationship between
culture and language since the time of the Ancient Greeks.
• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which was later developed by Franz
Boas, Edward Sapir, and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf, provided
the initial evidence for the existence of culturally based speech
patterns.

The Sapir – Whorf hypothesis

• Because of the arbitrary relationship between signifier and
signified, and because signs take their meaning from their
relationship to other signs, there is no single way for languages to
describe reality. This is linguistic diversity.
• The world can be described in any number of ways and
languages differ in terms of the signs that comprise them.
(Mooney, A. and Evans, B., 2015, p.26)

Linguistic diversity
How we look at the world is determined by our thought processes
and our language limits our thought processes.
▪ Language shapes our reality, our perspectives of the world
▪ People speak different languages have different world views
E.g. the word “snow” in some countries.

The Sapir – Whorf hypothesis

• The principle of linguistic relativity and linguistic
determinism, according to which the languages people
speak have an impact on how they think and how they
perceive the world, respectively.
• In Whorf’s explorations of relativity and determinism, he
posited a relationship between linguistic representation,
cognition and behavior.

The Sapir – Whorf hypothesis

The Sapir – Whorf hypothesis:
• Linguistic relativism: the languages of different cultures
comprise distinct systems of representation which are not
necessarily equivalent.
• Linguistic determinism: a language not only encodes certain
‘angles on reality’ but also affects the thought processes of its
speakers.
Thomas, L (2004, p.25)
• “Language is linked to ‘unconscious habitual thought.”
Gumperz and Levinson (1996, p.22)

The Sapir – Whorf hypothesis

Linguistic determinism: If a linguistic sign is not available for a
particular concept, that concept is difficult or impossible for the
speaker to imagine. → Language determines concepts and
thoughts.
Benjamin Whorf: people behave according to the way things are
labelled rather than in terms of what they really are.

The Sapir – Whorf hypothesis

Linguistic determinism: influences the way we think, we
concept, we shape our thoughts.
E.g. Whorf’s example of language determinism
In certain storage facilities
“gasoline drums” → dangerous
and
“empty gasoline drums”
→ signifies they are safer

The Sapir – Whorf hypothesis

Linguistic relativism: relating to how language influences
the way we normally think (rather than language determines
thought)
E.g.
+ The Hopi have one word for "insect", "aviator", and "airplane".
+ The Eskimo have over 100 words for “snow”
+ In English the verb indicates the time of occurrence of an event you
are speaking about: It's raining; It rained; It has rained …
+ In Vietnamese: Trời (đang) mưa, Trời đã mưa

The Sapir – Whorf hypothesis

Political correctness:
❑ An attempt to change communication through terminology and references.
(Baldwin, J. et al, 2014, p. 338)
❑ People tend to have strong views about their own language and may fervently
resist any changes made to it, especially if it means that they have to change their
own linguistic behaviour.
(Mooney, A. and Evans, B, 2019, p. 19)
❑ Language can be used in a way that doesn’t discriminate or demean. This position
is often referred to as ‘political correctness’. Linguists often refer to this as
‘language reform’ because it has at its heart a concern with what we could call
representational justice.
(Mooney, A. and Evans, B, 2015, p. 38)

Language, Thought and Representation - Political correctness

Some examples of ‘political correctness’ language (Mooney, A and Evans,
B., 2015, p.40)
Winterval: a portmanteau of winter and festival – marking religious and secular
events but then referred to as ‘war on Christmas’.
Ethnic minorities: rather than racial minorities
Coffee without milk: instead of black coffee (similarly, chalkboards, not black-
boards)
Differently abled: not the crippled (similarly senior citizens, not old people)
Comb free: not the bald.

Language, Thought and Representation - Political correctness

In Vietnam:
Chương trình “Cặp lá yêu thương”: from the idiom “Lá lành đùm lá rách”.
Những người yếu thế trong xã hội:
Bình đẳng giới: equality for the Vietnamese women.
Cộng đồng giới thiểu số/ Cầu vồng …: LGBT groups

Language, Thought and Representation - Political correctness

 Men Can't Be Nurses
John and Mary are two best friends who work at the same hospital. Though John initially wanted to
be a doctor, he later changed his mind and decided to be a nurse like Mary. John was often teased
about his career choice. He was told that 'A man should be a doctor, not a nurse' by several
acquaintances. Though John's friends and relatives never teased him about his job, John noticed that
whenever they explain his occupation to others, they refer to him as a 'male nurse.' However,
whenever he heard others speak about Mary's occupation, they called her a 'nurse.'
John wondered why he and Mary's positions were referred to by two different titles when they both
performed the exact same job. He also wondered if the language that others were using to refer to his
occupation was at all related to culture's sexist view that men cannot be nurses.
http://study.com/academy/lesson/sapir-whorf-hypothesis-examples-and-definition.html

By referring to John as a 'male nurse' and his friend Mary as just 'nurse,'
the language is shaping our society's view that being a nurse is a woman's
profession and men should not be nurses.

The relationship of language, culture and society

The Sapir – Whorf hypothesis