Culture and language can be termed as brothers since they go together. It is proven that no language or culture that can stand by itself. The reason behind it is that where you will find a culture, there will be a certain language. For instance if you go to America you will find the culture there goes together with the language.
Like in when a child is born, definitely the child will be exposed to the surroundings and this plays a great role in enabling him or her become part and parcel of the cultural team. Both culture and language in a child is modeled by the people around them. (Jandt, 2004, p.187)
A variety of disciplinary perspective for many years showed the relationship between language and culture. Different philosopher like linguists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists among other had different views in understanding cultural issue manipulating the facet of human behavior including cognition, perception, language and communication.
It was during this time when An American linguist and anthropologist, Edward Sapir introduced the power of language to echo culture. (Jandt, 2004, p.188) In his hypothesis he confirmed that the manner in which we reflect and analysis the world verifies our language. He added that the cases of cultural language disparities have proven that some languages have precise words for thought while other languages utilize numerous words to stand for a precise notion.
It is in this article where Edward Sapir showed that cultural differences have also been renowned in the method in which language is used practically. In their culture, innovative skills are normally trained and taught through oral tuition. It also said that in other cultures, innovative expertises are trained through nonverbal watching. He finally added that the dissimilarities in the societal tasks of adults and children are influenced by the language used. (Soler & Jordan, 2008, p.12)
The connection of language and culture attracted the interest of both theorectians and practitioners. It was during this period when Robert Lado the first person to compare the native culture and target culture and connected them to be a source of culture and language.
In between 1970 and 1980, many areas in the world especially America, their researchers researched and debated the verbal discrepancy viewpoints. These viewpoints challenged anybody who never used Standard English and did not have an official language and termed that as verbally poor living.
Even though the oral view point has been confirmed unacceptable, it is clearly understood that the research done was to either sustain or dishonor that perspective as it was said by Bernstein one of the philosophers. This spiritual thought led to the differences in the way s language is used in different cultures and the way in which the language reflects the culture and it’s worldwide. (Soler & Jordan, 2008, p.15)
It was during this time when Bereiter and Engelmann dug deep in researching the language and culture as the article clarifies. These people did a lot in studying language dissimilarities among social groups including focal point and inferior income collection and tribal groups.
The central part of the research recognizes precise dissimilarities in the way children from dissimilar socioeconomic and racial settings used language in and out of school. The suggestion of this research according to the article shows that it was widely argued and understood in dissimilar ways. (Jandt, 2004, p.192)
Like in 1971, Basil Bernstein came up with dissimilar linguistic system used by children from inferior to central income families in England. This system led to different systems in level of living since the inferior income families used “restricted code” while the central income families used “elaborated code” (Jandt, 2004, p.193) where as the differences were not left behind even to places like in schools that led to a total difference in culture and language.
It is also in this article, where it proofs that the language used by African American children was not an official language. They therefore opted that these children required serious coach in English in the school setting as it was researched by both Bereiter and Englemann.
This was brought about in order to stick in the culture and language of the area. (Soler & Jordan, 2008, p.18) There after another researcher came to defend the African America who saw how black people were seen inferior and argued that they should be given room to have their English.
In his statistics it straight confronted the oral deficit theory since it recognized the detailed and systematic linguistic belongings of Black English. In his research he argued that the Black English should be given room to stand by their own pertaining language. By doing this, the differences in which language and culture reflected each other were seen worldwide. (Jandt, 2004, p.195)
Conclusion
Language and culture are two terms that go together and they have a great impact in the world we live in. it has been proven that language and culture starts from the beginning of someone’s life. For instance you will find that a child will definitely grow according to the language and culture he or she has found. Although mingling of people is trying to cut short culture and language, every society is trying to put its language and culture in to existence.
References List
Jandt, F. (2004).Intercultural communication: a global reader. SAGE, pp.185-225.
Soler, E., & Jordan, M. (2008).Intercultural Language Use and Language Learning. Springer, pp. 11-29.