Language and Culture

Explain the concept of Language and culture and illustrate with examples

1) cultural differences are one of the most major factors leading to sociolinguistic variation

2) Saphir Whorf hypothesis
-proposes that the way one 's language is organised will determine how one percieves the organisation of the world in general

-linguistic determinism
->hopi Indians pereive the world differently coz of their language.
-Whorf ascribes the different interpretation to the difference in the language that they speak.

-linguistic relativity
-> language influences thoughts, perceptions and behaviour

However, if the saphir whorf hypothesis is entirely true, it would mean that people from other countries will not be able to distinguish and categorise things which are not found in their own language.

More salient point of Saphir Whorf hypothesis proposes that language influences culture and vice versa

Eg : english - the meaning of the same utterance with the same linguisitic content may be interpreted differently depending on the culture background of the person.

this means that the interpretation of the utterance is determined by the cultural background. In this case, there might be a cultural misunderstanding if interpretation of utterances differ

Eg: British English - 'really' is used to encourage the speaker to continue elaborating
SSE - 'really' is interpreted as questioning the vailidity of the spoken statement
-> this can lead to cross cultural misunderstandings and breakdown in cultural processes.