PART III

Words at Work
 9. Words and culture
the relationship between language and culture
is a kind of relationship between the sounds,
words, and syntax of a language and the ways
in which speakers of that language experience
the world and behave
 the use of the term culture is not in the sense of ‘high culture
i.e., the appreciation of music, literature, the arts
But
in the sense of knowledge a person must know in order to
function in a particular society
a knowledge to get through the task of daily living a manner
acceptable to ‘a society’
 relationship between language and culture

 the structure of a language determines the way in which

speakers of that language view the world
 influential in predisposing (inclined to specified attitude,
action, or condition ) speakers of a language toward
adopting a particular world-view

e.g.
literature
the culture of a people finds reflection in the language
they employ: because they value certain things and
do them in a certain way, they come to use their
language in ways
that reflect what they value and what they do
 Whorf

Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

particular language which has become the medium of

expression for their society language as means of solving
specific problems of communication or reflection

the language habits of our community predispose certain

choices of interpretation.
the background linguistic system (in other
words, the grammar) of each language
is not merely a reproducing instrument for
voicing ideas but rather is itself the
shaper of ideas, the program and guide for the
individual’s mental activity, for his
analysis of impressions,
in his work investigating the origins of fires, Whorf
found that speakers of English would use the
words full and empty in describing gasoline
drums but only in relation to their liquid content;
consequently, they would smoke beside ‘empty’
gasoline drums, which were actually ‘full’ of gas
vapor.
He found other examples
of such behavior and was led to conclude that ‘the
cue to a certain line of
behavior is often given by the analogies of the
linguistic formula in which the situation is spoken
of, and by which to some degree it is analyzed,
classified, and allotted its place in that world which
is “to a large extent unconsciously built up on the
language habits of the group”’
In the Whorfian view, language provides a screen or
filter to reality; it determines how speakers perceive
and organize the world around them, both the
natural world and the social world.
Consequently, the language you speak helps
to form your world-view.
It defines your experience for you; you do not use it
simply to report that experience.
The domains of experience that are important to
cultures get grammaticalized into
languages . . .
[and] no two languages are sufficiently similar
to be considered as representing
the same social reality.’
 Kinship
kinship terminology, describing how people in
various parts of the world refer to relatives by
blood (or descent) and marriage
It is important to remember that when a term like father, brother,
or older brother is used in a kinship system, it carries with it
ideas about how such people ought to behave toward others in
the society that uses that system.
Fathers, brothers, and older brothers are assumed to have
certain rights and duties.
In practice, of course, they may behave otherwise. It is the
kinship system which determines who is called what; it is not
the behavior of individuals which
leads them to be called this or that.
 Taxonomies

classification in language and society.

Language itself has its own classes of
units: vowels and consonants; nouns and verbs;
statements and questions; and
so on.
People also use language to classify and categorize
various aspects of the world in which they live, but
they do not always classify things the way scientists do;
 Color

The terms people use to describe color give us

another means of exploring the relationships
between different languages and cultures
All languages make use of basic color terms. A basic color term must be a
single word, e.g., blue or yellow, not some combination of words, e.g., light
blue or pale yellow.
Nor must it be the obvious sub-division of some higher-order term,
as both crimson and scarlet are of red. It must have quite general use; i.e.,
it must not be applied only to a very narrow range of objects, as, for
example, blond is applied in English almost exclusively to the color of hair
and wood.

Also, the term must not be highly restricted in the sense that it is used by
only a specific sub-set of speakers, such as interior decorators or fashion
writers.
 Prototypes

Rosch (1976) has proposed an alternative to the

view that concepts are composed from sets of
features which necessarily and sufficiently
define instances of a concept.
Rosch proposes that concepts are best viewed as
prototypes: a ‘bird’ is not best defined by reference
to a set of features that refer to such matters as
wings, warm-bloodedness, and egg-laying
characteristics, but rather by reference
to typical instances, so that a ‘prototypical bird’ is
something more like a robin than it is like a toucan,
penguin, ostrich, or even eagle.
Prototype theory, then, offers us a possible way of looking
not only at how concepts may be formed, i.e., at the
cognitive dimensions of linguistic behavior,
but also at how we achieve our social competence in the
use of language.
We judge circumstances as being typically this or typically
that, and we place people in the same way. One person
appears to be a ‘typical’ teacher, jock,
burnout, teenager, or American, etc.
 Taboo and Euphemism

‘meaning,’ specifically about how cultural

meanings are expressed in language.
language is used to avoid
saying certain things as well as to express them
Certain things are not said, not
because they cannot be, but because ‘people don’t talk about
those things’;
or, if those things are talked about, they are talked about in
very roundabout
ways. In the first case we have instances of linguistic taboo; in
the second we
have the employment of euphemisms so as to avoid
mentioning certain matters
directly.
Taboo is the prohibition or avoidance in any
society of behavior believed to
be harmful to its members in that it would
cause them anxiety, embarrassment,
or shame. It is an extremely strong politeness
constraint.
Euphemisms
they employ metaphors or otherwise manipulate expressions,
they are always fully aware of the semantic implications.’
Apparently, the Nupe have developed indirect ways of referring
to tabooed matters, ways they can employ on those occasions
when it is possible to free themselves from normal constraints,
e.g.,in certain kinds of story-telling or on specific festive
occasions.
 10. Ethnographics
Speech is used in different ways among different groups
of people
each group has its own norms of linguistic behavior.
how different groups of people use their language
A society that encourages a wide variety of kinds of talk

the various ways in which people communicate with one another,
in an attempt to see what factors are involved.

function of communication is social maintenance ,communication
is directed toward keeping an individual society going

Language is used to sustain

reality of everyday life and at how they use language as one of the
means to do
 Variety of talk
various examples to provide some insight into
how speech, or talk, is used in certain societies
very differently from the ways we might be
accustomed to hearing it used.
Those ways, of course, derive entirely from the
norms we have internalized or from others
with which we have become familiar
Silence is also used as a kind of sympathizing
device after someone dies: you
are silent in the presence of ‘people who are
sad,’ and you should not further
disturb those who are already disturbed by
grief
 11. Solidarity and politeness
When we speak, we must constantly make
choices of many different kinds: what
we want to say, how we want to say it, and the
specific sentence types, words,
and sounds that best unite the what with the
how.
How we say something is at
least as important as what we say; in fact, the
content and the form are quite
inseparable, being but two facets of the same
object
certain linguistic choices a speaker makes
indicate the social relationship that the
speaker perceives to exist between him or her
and the listener or listeners
 Address Terms

How do you name or address another? By title

(T), by first name (FN), by last
name (LN), by a nickname, by some
combination of these, or by nothing at all,
so deliberately avoiding the problem?
What factors govern the choice you make?
Is the address process asymmetrical; that is, if I call
you Mr Jones, do you call me John?
Or is it symmetrical, so that Mr Jones leads to Mr Smith
and John to Fred?
All kinds of combinations are possible in English: Dr
Smith, John Smith, Smith, John, Johnnie, Doc, Sir,
Mack, and so on
Dr Smith himself might
also expect Doctor from a patient, Dad from his son, John
from his brother,
Dear from his wife, and Sir from a police officer who
stops him if he drives too
fast, and he might be rather surprised if any one of these
is substituted for any
other, e.g., ‘Excuse me, dear, can I see your licence?’
from the police officer.
 PPoliteness

Politeness

Any communication is a risk to

face; it is a risk to one’s own face, at the same
time it is a risk to the other person’s.
We have to carefully project a face for
ourselves and to respect the face rights and
claims of other participants. . . . “There is no
faceless communication”
general Javanese linguistic system, to become
one more type of sentence
among those available, to be selected for use
in certain special contexts and for
certain special purposes.’
There is reason to believe that many choices in
Javanese are determined by a wider need to
maintain the existing social arrangement
rather than by any individual’s need to address
his or her momentary wants.
Japan offers us another example
 12. Talk and action
• classify utterances in any one of a variety
of ways

• with what utterances do and how they can be

used, and, specifically, with how we use them
in conversation.
• classify them by grammatical structure along a
number of dimensions, e.g., their clausal type
and complexity: active–passive; statement–
question–
request–exclamatory; various combinations of
these; and so on
• We may even
try to work out a semantic or logical structure for each
utterance. But it is also
possible to attempt a classification in terms of what
sentences do, i.e., to take
a ‘functional’ approach, but one that goes somewhat
beyond consideration of
such functions as stating, questioning, requesting, and
exclaiming.
 Speech Acts

 utterances do is make propositions

they do this mainly in the form of either
statements or questions but other
grammatical forms ( constative utterances)
Each of the following is a proposition: ‘I had a busy day
today,’ ‘Have you called your mother?,’ and ‘Your dinner’s
ready!’
Such utterances are connected
in some way with events or happenings in a possible
world, i.e., one that can
be experienced or imagined, a world in which such
propositions can be said to
be either true or false.
 Phatic utterances do not really communicate
anything; rather, their use allows
communication to occur should there be
anything of consequence to say
A different kind of proposition is the ethical proposition, e.g., ‘Big boys
don’t
cry,’ ‘God is love,’ ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ ‘You must tell the truth,’ and even
‘Beethoven is better than Brahms.’
Just like an ordinary proposition, an ethical proposition may be true or false,
although not in the same sense. But truth and falsity are not the real
purpose of ethical propositions; their real purpose is to
serve as guides to behavior in some world or other. ‘Big boys don’t cry’ is
obviously value-laden in a way in which ‘Your dinner’s ready!’ definitely is
not.
Another kind of utterance is the ‘phatic’ type, e.g., ‘Nice day!,’ ‘How do
you do?,’
and ‘You’re looking smart today!’
 Austin divides performatives into five categories:

(1) verdictives, typified by the giving of a verdict, estimate, grade, or appraisal (‘We
find the accused
guilty’);
(2) exercitives, the exercising of powers, rights, or influences as in
appointing, ordering, warning, or advising (‘I pronounce you husband and wife’);
(3) commissives, typified by promising or undertaking, and committing one to
do something by, for example, announcing an intention or espousing a cause
(‘I hereby bequeath’);
(4) behabitives, having to do with such matters as apologizing, congratulating,
blessing, cursing, or challenging (‘I apologize’);
(5) expositives, a term used to refer to how one makes utterances fit into an
argument or exposition (‘I argue,’ ‘I reply,’ or ‘I assume’).
Thankyou