Language and Culture: An Exploration of Their Interconnectedness

Posted on Apr 30, 2024 in Teaching & Education

 Language and culture

  1. 1. LanguagE & CuLturE
  2. 2. Theoretical Part Outline: I. Definition of language
    II. Definition of culture
    III. Cultural differences IV. Race and ethnic groups V. Sociolinguistics By the trainee teachers: Supervised by: Adbelhadi Ezzahiri Imad eddine Jamati Prof. Lachguar Ouadal Mohamed Mengal Mohamed Abdelmajid Belmekki Naima Taoubih Azzedine El Alami Rida Qassar
  3. 3. Language and CultureLanguage and Culture 1. What is Language? 2. Language from a cultural perspective 3. Properties of Human Language 4. Functions of Language 5. How does Language Work? 6. Language as a Shaper of our Thought 7. Language as a Social Practice 8. Language and Culture 9. What is Culture? 10. Composition of Culture 11. Components of Culture 12. Social Control and Sanctions 13. Ways of Looking at Culture 14. Variations in Culture 15. Cultural Change 16. Teaching Culture 17. Strategies for Teaching Culture 18. Techniques for Teaching Culture EZZAHIRI ABDELHADI AZZEDINE EL ALAMI
  4. 4.  The words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them, as used and understood by a large group of people.  A systematic means of communicating ideas by signs or marks with understood meaning. Webster’s New Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 1996 Edition
  5. 5.  Language is not only a rule–
    Governed system with its own internal rules and logic, but a system of tools for the constitution of social life and culture.  Language is used both as a means of communication as well as a carrier of culture. Language without culture is unthinkable, so is human culture without language. (Wei, 2005)  “A language is the roadmap of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going” ( Rita Mae Brown)
  6. 6. Discreetness  Words are composed of discrete sounds that are combined to communicate a meaning.  The alphabet is an example of discreteness. We string together letters from the alphabet to from words.  /t/, /a/, /r/ rat, art, tar
  7. 7.  The ability of humans to talk about objects, people, things and events that are remote in time and space Cultural Transmission
     The process whereby a language is passed on from generation to the next  We are born with a predisposition to acquire language, but not with the ability to produce utterances in a specific language  We can acquire language within any culture
  8. 8. Instrumental Language  What we use to get what we want, to satisfy needs or desires It can take more sophisticated forms such as making polite requests, persuading, or arguing Regulatory language  Using language to control the behaviour of others, or getting them to do what we want them to do  It includes giving orders, manipulating or controlling others
  9. 9.  Establish and define social relationships and involves language that we use in group situations  To work cooperatively, enjoy companionship Personal Language  To express individuality, personality  Strong feelings and opinions are part of personal language  Through personal language students establish their own identities, build self esteem and confidence Imaginative Language  To create a world of one’s own, to express fantasy through dramatic play, poetry, stories
  10. 10.  To explore, to investigate, to acquire knowledge, to do research, to acquire understanding.  It is the language for thinking , figuring things out Informative LanguageInformative Language  To communicate information, to report facts or conclusions  It is the language of teachers. It also involves giving information and helping synthesizing information  Information should be given in format people learn best
  11. 11.  Language is one of the main ways by which we send and receive messages.  Children learn the language of their community by mastering an enormous amount of information about individual sounds, sound combinations, meanings and rules  The linguistic units (sounds and words) and the rules for combining them make up what is called grammar
  12. 12. Sapir- Whorf Hypothesis  Emanated from two famous linguists : Benjamin Whorf, and his teacher, Edward Sapir.  The central idea behind their theory is that language is not merely a tool for reporting experience, but more importantly it’s a shaper of ideas.  In other words, a language does not merely record and transmit
  13. 13.  Traditionally, language is viewed as a code in the sense that it is made up of words and a series of rules that connect them together. Viewed in this sense, language learning just involves learning vocabulary and the rules for constructing sentences  Language is more than just the code: it also involves social practices of interpreting and making meaning
  14. 14. 1) What is culture? 2) Componenets of culture 3) The relationship btw language and culture from different perspectives ——————————————————- 4 Teaching culture 5 The benefits of teaching culture 6 Teaching culture techniques
  15. 15. The National Center for Cultural Competence defines culture as an “integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thoughts, communications, languages, practices, beliefs, values, customs, courtesies, rituals, manners of interacting and roles, relationships and expected behaviors of a racial, ethnic, religious or social group; and the ability to transmit the above to succeeding generations” (Goode, Sockalingam, Brown, & Jones, 2000). This means that language is not only part of how we define culture, it also reflects culture.
  16. 16. We use the term culture to refer to all the ideas and assumptions about the nature of things and people that we learn when we become members of social groups. It can be defined as « socially acquired knowledge » this is the kind of knowledge that, like our first language, and hence of our culture, only after having developed language. The particular language we learn through the process of cultural transmission provides us with a ready made system of categorizing the world around us and our experience of it.