Relationship between culture and language in linguistics

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Culture is important to sociologists because it plays a significant and important role in the production of social order. Rooted in the theory of classical French sociologist Émile Durkheim, both material and non-material aspects of culture are valuable in that they hold society together. The values, beliefs, morals, communication, and practices that we share in common provide us with a shared sense of purpose and a valuable collective identity. Durkheim revealed through his research that when people come together to participate in rituals, they reaffirm the culture they hold in common, and in doing so, strengthen the social ties that bind them together. Famous Prussian social theorist and activist Karl Marx established the critical approach to culture in the social sciences. According to Marx, it is in the realm of non-material culture that a minority is able to maintain unjust power over the majority. He reasoned that subscribing to mainstream values, norms, and beliefs keep people invested in unequal social systems that do not work in their best interests, but rather, benefit the powerful minority [3].

Many definitions of language have been proposed. Henry Sweet, an English phonetician and language scholar, stated: “Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.” The American linguists Bernard Bloch and George L. Trager formulated the following definition: “A language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates.” Any succinct definition of language makes a number of presuppositions and begs a number of questions. The first, for example, puts excessive weight on “thought,” and the second uses “arbitrary” in a specialized, though legitimate, way.
Both language and culture play a significant role in shaping your personality.
Culture tells you how to interact with others and helps to shape values and ethics. Besides, it keeps you close to like-minded people and thus, the sense of belonging strengthens your bond with society. On the other hand, language is like a tool using which you express your culture. In fact, cultural ideas and beliefs are transmitted ahead via language. Furthermore, both the culture and language allow us to peek into the past and shape our ideas. We think, speak and interact with others around us is determined by our cultural values. Likewise, language also impacts human thoughts. As mentioned earlier, language and culture continue to evolve and so does our personality. As we meet people belonging to different cultures, we get to learn more and explore more, and interaction with them can impact your personality as well.
Wardhaugh defines language to be: a knowledge of rules and principles and of the ways of saying and doing things with sounds, words, and sentences rather than just knowledge of specifi c sounds, words, and sentences [ 9 ]. While Wardhaugh does not mention culture , the speech acts we perform are inevitably connected with the environment they are performed in, and therefore he appears to define language with consideration for context, something Thanasoulas more directly compiled in the following [ 2]. Language does not exist apart from culture, that is, from the socially inherited assemblage of practices and beliefs that determines the texture of our lives. Goodenough explains culture in terms of the participatory responsibilities of its members. He states that a society’s culture is made up of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves.
Consequently, in composing a definition for culture, we can see that the concept is often better understood in the context of how the members of a culture operate, both individually and as a group.