Chapter 10



Chapter 10 Society, Culture and Language

One cannot teach a language long “without coming face to face with social context factors which have bearing on language and language learning” (191). So one needs to understand the relationship between society, culture and language.

The most general studies of social life that interests the language teacher are sociology, ethnology, ethnography, social and cultural anthropology and sociolinguistics.

Sociology

Sociology essentially studied and provided answers about the social development of modern industrialized nation states in the Western world during the nineteenth century.

First stage of growth: 1850 to 1900 --Influenced by the social philosophies of the ‘fathers’ of sociology and anthropology: Comte, Spencer and Marx; had the ambitious aim of studying the “whole life and history of the human race” (192)

Second stage: till end of 20th century -- Influenced esp. by by Durkheim (1859 – 1917) in France, Weber (1864- 1920) in Germany.

Durkheim

Social facts have a reality and power; social forces have an effect on the individual.

Social facts exist regardless of any individual but have a coercive power on each person in a society.

He postulated a conscience collective, the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to ordinary citizens of the same society.

Influenced Saussure in recognizing the supra-individual/social nature of language (langue)

Weber

Analyzed capitalist society by comparing it with other social systems like medieval feudalism and the great civilizations of the East.

Other sociological studies

More descriptive, empirical and fact-finding;

Led to the social survey (e.g., Booth’s survey of poverty in London (1889/91); and

Sociological descriptions of groups or communities (e.g., Thrasher’s study on the behaviour of 1313 Chicago gangs in psychological and environmental terms (1927))

A recent trend:

a search for meaning in the study of simple inter-personal face-to-face relationships like medical interviews, psychiatric examinations and marriage.

Sociology today therefore:

Consists of “a body of theory with a set of basic concepts for the analysis of society and schemes for classification” (194).

“…a way of looking at Man’s behaviour as conditioned by his membership of social groups…” (Worsley , qtd 195)

Operates with notions like social institution, role, status, group, function, social structure, culture, social class, kinship group, bureaucracy and stratification.

Anthropology

Defined as the “description and explanation of the similarities and differences among human ethnic groups” (Greenberg) or the study of “man under the three rubrics of race, language and culture” (Sapir)

Not concerned with the study of the individual human organism, but the individual only as a representative of a race or ethnic group.

Difference between anthropology and sociology:

Anthropology: focuses on pre-literate or pre-industrial societies

Sociology: focuses on modern industrialized societies

Topics covered in general anthropology

Physical variations among human races; geological and biological premises and race; human origins, early man and prehistoric archeology; language; invention; subsistence; economic organization of primitive people; social life; government; art literature, music and dance; and mythology, folklore and religion (195)

Boas

Insisted that each society be studied in its own terms and in its own historical setting by the best empirical means available, i.e., culture should be studied in such a way that the anthropologist came to understand it from the perspective of the native participant.

Sapir

Culture is carried by individuals as members of the society; therefore anthropologists should study ordinary social relationships rather than exotic kinship patterns (e.g., does the father act as indulgent guide or disciplinarian to his son).

Wanted language, individual and society to be studied in close association, an approach congenial to language teachers.

Benedict

Patterns of Culture, (1934)

The customs in a society formed a discernible pattern and gave a culture a distinct life-style unique to that society.

Mead

Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), Growing up in New Guinea (1929):

Western views of adolescent problems are a product of training processes and social expectations during the processes of growing up rather than an inevitable stage of adolescent biology

Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies: roles attributed to women in society are culturally determined and may vary from society to society

Radcliff-Brown

Culture should be treated as a coherent system and studied as a social structure or network.

Malinowski

A Culture must meet three needs: the basic needs of the individual, the instrumental needs of the society and the symbolic and integrative needs of both the individual and society. All three levels need to be studied.

During and after WWII…

a number of studies claimed to show a relationship between aspects of child training and basic personality patterns in different nations (Japan, Russia and Germany!).

These sweeping studies were not confirmed but later studies showed that CULTURE determines CHILD TRAINING, CHILD TRAINING influences PERSONALITY, and PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS, in turn, reflects on PREVAILING BELIEFS AND VALUES.

Language in anthropology and sociology

Both sociologists and anthropologists, have always been aware of language as an essential factor in social life.

One minimum requirement for a society: ” a system of communication” (Bottomore)

Anthropologists have studied the relations between language and culture

Sapir and Whorf

associated with the theory of linguistic relativity (also known as the Whorfian hypothesis, or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or the linguistic Weltanschaung (world-view) problem)

argue that language determines thought and world view

Sapir: “We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation”

Whorf: Language organizes experience -- The study of grammatical categories would lead to deep cultural insights and would help uncover unconscious predispositions in our own thinking.

The consensus of research on linguistic relativity

Languages reflect rather than create sociocultural values and orientations.

Languages throughout the world share greater number of structural universals that previously thought.

Languages and societal behaviours are equal partners in conversation and interaction.

On the relationship between culture and language:

Malinowski (Anthropologist): “An utterance becomes only intelligible when it is placed within its context of situation”, i.e., its cultural context.

Firth (Anthropologist): Descriptive linguistics included the sociology of language (the context of situation), i.e., the language event was to be studied in relation to:

the relevant features of the participants:

1 the verbal interaction of the participants;

2 the non-verbal interactions of the participants:

the relevant objects; and

the effect of the verbal action.

Weinrich (Sociologist):

Language problems could be studied from three perspectives together- linguistic, psychological, and sociological. From the linguistic perspective he studied interlingual interference, i.e., the influence of one language, dialect or other linguistic variety upon another, its phonology, grammar and vocabulary. From the psychological perspective he studied the psychology of the bilingual person. From the social perspective he studied the social problem of communities in language contact.

Bernstein

argued that there was a systematic relationship between social class and language use.

Conclusion 1:

Thus society, culture and language are closely interrelated.

The insights into language use provided by sociology and anthropology are extremely important for language pedagogy.

Conclusion 2:

The language learner should not only study the cultural context (‘language AND culture), but that s/he should be aware of the interactions between language and culture (‘language IN culture’ and ‘culture IN language’)

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