Culture and

Language
Development
Varela, Lielane R.
 “The suspicion does not appear
improbable that the progenitors of
man, either the males or females,
or both sexes, before they had
acquired the power of expressing
their mutual love in articulate
language, endeavoured to charm
each other with musical notes and
rhythm.”

Charles Darwin, 1871

In Charles Darwin’s vision of the
origins of language, early humans had
already developed musical ability prior
to language and were using it “to
charm each other”.

Some type of spoken language must

have developed between 100,000 to
50,000 years ago, well before written
language (about 5,000 years ago). Yet,
among the traces of earlier periods of
life on earth, we never find any direct
evidence or artifacts relating to the
Language and Culture
Culture refers to all the ideas and
assumptions about the nature of
things and people that we learn
when we become members of social
groups. It can be defined as “socially
acquired knowledge”. This is the kind
of knowledge that, like our first
language, we initially acquire without
conscious awareness. The particular
language we learn through the
process of cultural transmission
Language and culture are
inextricably linked and impossible
to separate in real life.

The human being acts on the

environment as the environment
acts on it. Thus, the human being
can never be separated from the
context of development.
3 Aspects of Language and
Culture
The words people utter refer to common
experience. They express facts, ideas or
events that are communicable because
they refer to a stock of knowledge about
the world that other people share.

Language expresses cultural reality.

Members of a community or social group
also creates experience through
language. They give meaning to it
through the medium they choose to
communicate with one another.
The way in which people use the spoken,
written, or visual medium itself creates
meanings that are understandable to the
group they belong to, for example,
through a speaker’s tone of voice,
accent, conversational style, gestures
and facial expressions.

Through all its verbal and non-verbal

Language is a system of signs that is seen
as having itself a cultural value. Speakers
identify themselves and others through
their use of language; they view their
language as a symbol of their social
identity.

The prohibition of its use is often

perceived by its speakers as a rejection of
their social group and their culture.

Thus, language symbolizes cultural

reality.
 Language and Language Acquisition
 During the first two or three years of
development, a child requires interaction
with other language-users in order to bring
the general language capacity into contact
with a particular language such as English.

 The particular language a child learns is not

genetically inherited, but is acquired in a
particular language-using environment. In
order to speak a language, a child must be
able to hear that language being used.
Learning could be considered a
movement from the outside
(interpersonal) toward the inside
(intrapersonal).

The role of language in socially

organized activities (e.g. bedtime
stories and author’s chair) becomes
fundamental to how learning unfold
through interactions.
As the linguistic repertoire of the child
increases, it is often assumed that the
child is, in some sense, being “taught”
the language.

Children may repeat single words or

phrases, but not the sentence structures.

Example:

The dogs are hungry – dog hungry

 Learning Second
Language
 Acquisition – used to refer to the gradual
development of ability in a language by using
it naturally in communicative situations with
others who know the language.

 Learning – applied to a more conscious

process of accumulating knowledge of the
features of a language, such as
pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar,
typically in an institutional setting, with
teachers. (Mathematics, for example, is
learned, not acquired.)
Native speakers are those who speak
the language as the L1 (Language 1).
Those individuals whose L2
(Language 2) exposure is primarily a
learning type of experience tend not
to develop the same kind of general
proficiency as those who have had
more of an acquisition type of
experience.
 Barriers
People usually encounter the L2 during
their teenage or adult years, in a few
hours each week of school time (rather
than via the constant interaction
experienced as a child).

There are some individuals who seem

to be able to overcome the difficulties
and develop an ability to use the L2
quite effectively, though not usually
sounding like a native speaker.
The optimum age for learning may be
during the years from about ten to sixteen
when the flexibility of our inherent capacity
for language has not been completely lost,
and the maturation if cognitive skills allows
a more effective analysis of the regular
features of the L2 being learned.

There are individuals who can great

expertise in the written language, but not
the spoken language.
If we are stressed, uncomfortable,
self-conscious or unmotivated, we
are unlikely to learn very much.
Learners who have other personality
traits, such as self-confidence, low
anxiety and positive self-image,
seem better able to overcome
difficulties encountered in the
learning space.
 Culture and Socialization
One of the distinctive characteristics
of the human species is the it
transmits both social skills and
cultural knowledge to its young.

The transmission of cultural

knowledge has been referred to as
enculturation (Mead 1963), but a
term that covers transmission of
both procedures (‘knowing how’) and
Socialization might be viewed as the
transmission of cultural knowledge that
is shared by adult members of the
society to which a child belongs.
Socialization is complete when a child
has acquired this knowledge.

Socialization
is a lifespan experience.
Throughout our lives, we are socializing
and being socialized by those we
encounter (including by our own
children).