Introduction
Language is one of the most important aspects of culture since it facilitates understanding among members. Language offers meaning to events and situations implying that each language has its own dynamics (Clark 1996, p. 87). In a culture, language permits individuals to view things from a similar perspective, comprehend societal rules and regulations, reproduce what the society demands, and share things.
Language is an aspect of culture that has existed since the creation of man. The first man used various forms of communication to pass information. Language might take three major forms, including verbal, numeric, and symbolic. Through language, human beings have evolved to be what they are in the modern society.
The mechanistic communities used simple languages to communicate ideas, views, and events. In the modern society, language has been regularized implying that people can study various languages and belong to various cultures. Before understanding the role of language, it is important that the meaning of culture is first understood (Chen 1990, p. 21).
Culture refers to the ways of doing things among various groups. Each group has its own unique ways of conducting business. Language is the main mode of communication among groups. For an individual to belong to a certain group, he or she must first understand how language is used. Culture is something that develops over time. It is passed from one generation to the other through language.
Therefore, language is an important aspect of culture that determines the inclusion or exclusion of an individual (Ruscher & Hammer 1994, p. 543). Culture defines human behavior in societies. Through culture, a society acquires values, works of art, fashion, living style, and music.
It is not surprising that each community has its own fashion, lifestyle, principles, and music. In terms of music, some communities are inclined to specific songs, such as reggae among Jamaicans (Fowler & Levy 1994, p. 45).
Language as a Medium of Representation
As earlier stated, culture is an aspect of society that develops over time. Therefore, due to time difference, scholars have divided culture into two main categories, including archaic culture and popular culture. Archaic culture entails the norms and values of the simple societies, which were passed from generation to another through language.
Popular culture is the modern culture that defines the ways of living of the majority in the modern society. These would include the eating habits, entertainment forms, common music, and sports. Stuart Mill referred to this form of culture as mass culture, which is also passed from one group to the other through language.
In the modern society, many perceive that culture must be characterized by openness, free market economy, democracy, respect for human rights and individual freedoms whereby an individual should exist without the interruption from government, family and the church (Rubini & Semin 1994, p. 358).
This would mean that people are to exist as agents but they should not be captive by structures such as family rules, state laws, and religious regulations. This form of culture is passed from one part of the world to the other through language. In the Arab countries for example, the administrations exercised autocratic powers whereby individuals have no powers to determine their destinies in society.
Life in the Arab countries is a communal affair implying that the family, community, religion and the state influence the behavior of individuals. Through language, individuals in the Arab states wanted to be associated with modern culture.
The information accessed in the internet encouraged individuals in the Arab states to rise up to fight for their rights. Language serves an important role as far as distribution of cultural values is concerned (Wilson & Schooler 1991, p. 183).
From the above analysis, language is a means of representation, which permits individuals to interact and offer meaning to events, situations, and behaviors in a certain culture. Through language, people would develop a culture in which they would have a collective viewpoint as regards to societal happenings.
In his works on representation, culture representations, and signifying practices, Stuart Mill observed that the way people view things and the way people represent things helps in offering meaning. From the reasoning of Stuart Mill, language offers meaning to culture. Groups would only offer meaning to things if they represent them in form of opinions or words (Wilson, Hodges, LaFleur 1995, p. 22).
Presentation of thoughts or words would in turn give meaning to a culture. There is no better way of presenting thoughts other than using language. Language is important because it acts as a channel through which an individual could present ideas to the society that he or she belongs. In other words, thoughts enable an individual to define his or her surroundings.
Through communication, an individual presents his or her thoughts in form of language to the wider society. Language might be presented in form of symbols, verbal, written or numbers, depending on which form is better understood by the society (Smith & Shaffer 1995, p. 1051).
Individuals who use similar language tend to be stable, logical, and homogeneous in terms of culture. This means that individuals are controlled by cultural systems that are self-reliant and independent since a single individual cannot influence them. Individuals use language to pass cultural values from one generation to the other but it cannot be altered through the effort of a single individual.
However, individuals have the freedom to use language within a culture as they wish since they are agents of free will. Individuals are autonomous decision makers in any culture.
Since individuals have the power to use language as they wish, it is unpredictable to master its usage among members of a certain culture. Individuals would modify the existing language to suit their internal motives (Wold 1992, p. 12). Through language, an individual could be identified as belonging to a certain culture.
Social Identity
Individuals use language since they believe to share a certain historical background. Histories of various groups in society are defined by membership in various societal groupings. People are born in certain social groups, which influence their language use in society. These social groups include sexual category, social class, faith, and race. The above groups use language differently. An individual would be born a male or a female.
This classification categorizes individuals into different cultures. For instance, men are expected to belong into a different culture. Furthermore, an individual could be born into a certain social class that would define his or her culture in society (Wilkes-Gibbs & Clark 1992, p. 185). An individual could belong in a poor class, middle class, or a rich class. Each class has its own distinct culture.
Religion defines the social position of an individual. People could belong to various religious groups, including Christian, Islam, and Jews. Each group has its unique culture that is understood through language. For instance, religious practices differ greatly among religious groups. Muslims believe that the dead must be buried immediately in order to maintain the environment clean.
Christians on the other hand would want to undertake some rituals before disposing off their dead. Apart from the above aspects, the geographical region can also influence the culture of an individual.
Each region has its unique cultural aspects that are acquired by individuals through language. People are categorized depending on their region such as Chinese, Italian, African, American, and Arabian. Each of the categories has a distinct culture (Traxler & Gernsbacher 1993, p. 334).
An individual cannot claim to belong to a group if he or she does not understand the key tenets of the culture. Such tenets cannot be comprehended without effective understanding of language. Apart from acquisition of membership through birth, individuals acquire membership to groups through the process of socialization. Throughout life, individuals undergo various processes, such as schooling, which exposes them to new things.
Social institutions such as the school, family, government, church and the workplace play a critical role in an individual’s life because they expose him or her to new aspects. Social institutions influence the kind of role-relationships formed by individuals. In a family setting, each individual has his or her position and a specific role to play.
A child would be expected to behave in a way benefiting a child the mother would be expected to show qualities of a mother, as inscribed in the culture. A family member cannot be said to belong to the family if he or she does not fulfill his or her role. In the places of work, various positions exist, including supervisor, manager, subordinate, and colleague.
The positions define the roles of individuals in the organization (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler 1990, p. 56). Each individual knows his or her role. Roles are always passed from one individual to the other through language. An employee might behave in manner suggesting that he or she does not support the manager as regards to a certain policy.
Various group memberships in society, together with principles, views, and attitudes are important as far as social identities are concerned. Social identities are not simply aspects of culture that individuals fulfill intentionally. Social identities entail histories that individuals develop over time. Individuals inherit histories that were developed by other groups through language.
For example, if an individual were born in a white family that practices farming in US, his or her life chances would be different from those of another individual born in a different family from a different country. The individual born in a white family practicing farming would tend to associate well with other individual exhibiting similar features.
This does not mean that an individual born in a white family practicing farming in UK would be the same as another individual with the same features in the US (Ros, Cano & Huici 1987, p. 243). Therefore, a number of factors influence the behavior of an individual. Middle class woman in Russia would portray different features as compared to the other woman middle class in China.
According to Bourdieu, historical background, socially constituted knowledge, skills, values, and outlooks that make up social identities constitute a habitus. The habitus predisposes individuals to believe in some things and perceive the world in a particular manner. Moreover, individuals are capable of judging others through their culture, a scenario referred to as ethnocentrism.
People evaluate the external environment using the ascribed and appropriated social identities. If individuals note that the behavior of others is similar to their own, they would tend to associate with such individuals. The understanding of other people’s culture is facilitated by language. Culture differs from one society to the society. It is not surprising to note that members of similar society might have different cultural values.
Therefore, the process of socialization influences the behavior of individuals. Individuals have certain expectations that are acquired through socialization (Rundquist 1992, p. 431). People carry their own expectations to social groups. Members of a group might share similar expectations and would believe that they are capable of achieving certain goals and objectives in life.
Language use reflects the expectations and beliefs held by individuals of certain cultures. Before various social groups use language to share their cultural values, they usually define their roles in society by asking themselves who they are in a certain society.
Moreover, people would wish to define the positions of others in society before employing language in passing ideas. For there to be a cultural exchange, members of the opposite social group must explain the position of the opposing group as regards to culture.
Contextual relevancy of social identity
It is factual that each social group has its own group identify. However, not all social identities are relevant. Relevance of a social identity is based on the dynamism and responsiveness of the culture. This would mean that culture is only understood under a particular context. Language would be used in different ways to express cultural values, depending on group goals and the positions of the participants in society.
The case scenario of a tourist who chooses to travel to another foreign country would serve as an example. Through interactions, the members of the foreign country might single out national identity to be relevant as opposed to gender and societal position. This would mean that the culture of Spaniards, Americans, Australians, and Britons would be expected to differ.
In the US, blacks have been accused of muggings, carjacking, rape, and kidnappings. On the other, Japanese are associated with money laundering mainly because of their ambitious culture. Blacks are known to be non-courteous, which makes other cultures to associate them with societal evils. Language use plays an important role in categorizing social groups into various labels.
In the world, Americans are frequently associated with affluence and richness. Any tourist from the US would be expected to own an expensive car. However, the context of evaluation would be also influence judgment. Social groups usually enact identities using various techniques.
In 1992, a scholar by the Philipsen undertook a study to establish how men make cultural laws. The study was undertaken in town referred to as Teamsterville. The study showed that enactment of laws depends on the context under which such laws are enacted. In the study, men believed that an individual qualifies to participate in male related activities if he attains a certain age.
Moreover, an individual’s ethnicity and occupational status were also considered during the enactment of laws. Men of the same age, occupational status, and ethnicity engaged in serious talks as opposed to men from different age groups (Maybin 2006, p. 9). Engaging men from different age sets in serious talks amounted to violation of cultural laws.
The ability to assessment own views and those of members from different cultures depend group identities. In one culture for example, a parent would be expected to advice his or her child using a particular technique defined by culture.
In some cultures, a parent does not have a right to advice his or her child since the role is reserved for other societal institutions not the family. In other cultures, children are expected to learn by observing meaning that no help is to be offered to a child (Byram 1996, p. 86).
Theoretical Perspective of Social Identity
Giddens observed that social interactions could be understood through his structuration theory. Giddens postulated that an individual is a semiotic activity that must be created continuously. Moreover, an individual agent must be sustained through application of laws and values. Individuals are believed to shape the society around them, by influencing the outcome of activities.
On the other hand, individuals are expected to be guided by societal values, what Giddens referred to as social structures. Social structures such as culture set the rules that must be followed when doing things. In the daily lives, individuals create and reproduce structures, which would later influence their lives (Block 2007, p. 78). To Giddens, time and space the two important aspects that influence human behavior.
Social structures cannot exist without reproducing them at all times over a considerable period. Continual reproduction and utilization of social structures leads to the formation of a social system. A social system refers to patterns of actions existing among social groups. These patterns of actions exist in all groups, ranging from small groups to large organizations.
Giddens noted that language is very important as far as transfer of values is concerned in society. An individual cannot claim to belong to any group if he or she does not understand the language. In the structuration theory, Giddens suggested that individuals exist as agents.
Agents have the ability to influence the world around them. However, the social structures such as the family have the ability to control the behavior an individual (BĂĽhrig & Thije 2006, p. 38). Therefore, agency-structure is an attempt to relate the activities of an individual with the larger society.
The works of Giddens on structuration is not important as far as social identity is concerned but they help in understanding the relationship between structure and agency. The idea that agency and structure are inextricably interwoven offers much to the understanding of the relationship between culture and language (De Fina, Schiffrin & Bamberg 2006, p. 54).
Bourdieu is another scholar who delved into the debate surrounding the relationship between culture and language. Bourdieu noted that a set of bodily outlooks, which are obtained through involvement in everyday activities, is referred to as a habitus.
Such activities encourage individuals to behave in certain ways. Individuals usually carry their experiences to social places. Through experience, a group’s social habitus is reconstituted (Hall, Slembrouck & Sarangi, 2006, p. 14).
Conclusion
Language plays an important role in preserving the culture of a group. Social groups usually reproduce beliefs, values, and principles and pass them to the next generation through language. Each group has its unique values that distinguish it from the rest of society.
An individual cannot claim to belong to a group yet he or she does not understand its basic cultural aspect, which is language. Social group in society are formed based on gender, social class, ethnicity, race and geographical region. Surprising, each social group has a culture that is distinct from that of the other group.
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