The Influence of Culture and Language Towards One Another
Culture and language
People use language to express their ideas, feelings and thoughts, however variation in language seem to have an effect on how people interpret and act within their surroundings. Culture and language matters. This paper entails answering the question on how language and culture influence one another (Dueck, 2012).
Cultural differences influence on language so does the language difference has on culture.
Language can influence culture in various ways. For example, it can affect the way a society perceives the world, and build society through the use of different languages and dialects in various regions. This means that it can influence the way a community interacts in the world and form a cultural identity different from others in culture in the world.
Language has four main aspects whereby the most important aspects are only two; words and constructions of grammar (Smitherman, 2000). Words in a language are progressively evolving over time. The definition of words is changing over time because of advances in technology. The word in a language influence how a person perceives the world. This is as how culture influences the world. As a child grows with certain aspect of the language, so does he or she retains when he grows up. Speech which is formed by language is a key way of educating children about their culture.
A culture that does not have words that relate to the modern society may have challenges in understanding the characters of people whose lives are dominated by cultural aspects. For example, if one has never heard of Bluetooth, he or she cannot understand the character of someone walking around speaking to himself. Likewise, the construction of grammars does affect thoughts.
Cultural identities can be formed by language that is used, and the entire community may define themselves founded in the form of the language they speak. For example, as one moves from north to south through the Americas, the Spanish language becomes more rampart and like Castilian Spanish, which is the Spanish spoken in Spain (Smitherman, 2012). However, those who speak Castilian Spanish are usually taken as more cultured and intellectual than those who speak more informal parlances. In Belgium, most of the people speak either French or Belgian.
The two groups feel that they are superior to one another. Their cultural identity is determined by the form of the language they speak. Languages are influenced by culture because in any community culture play a major role in determining the language and beliefs of the community. Culture enriches language and as a result different languages from their respective cultures assist in understanding and appreciating the evolution of the world and its people from the origin of man.Conclusion
Although language and culture are assumed to be related, language can be seen as a verbal manifestation of culture. Language is used to sustain culture and cultural bonds. Language gives people many of the categories they use for expression of thoughts, hence it is natural to make an assumption that peoples’ thoughts are influenced by the language they use.
On the other hand the customs and values or the culture that people grow in shape the way they think. Beside, culture is defined as from specific community shared and favored knowledge, behaviors and attitudes which influence one language. Therefore various languages are founded on different cultural concepts.
References
- Dueck, A. (2012, June 22). Culture, Language, and Integration. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 21, 23.
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- Smitherman, G. (2000). Talkin that talk: language, culture, and education in African America. New York: Routledge.
