Recently, there has been a lot of hype over the research and conclusions drawn by Dunn, M., Greenhill, S. J., Levinson, S. C., & Gray, R. D. (2011). Their research draws conclusions about language families and tries to run in opposition to Chompsky's Universal grammar theory.
Its a good read if you are interested;
but if you want the scientific stuff;
I want to use this moment to better define the organic language acquisition by stating how it relates to this news and how it differs.
The state of affairs
Many linguistics spend their time trying to understand where languages came from, finding the root language and whatnot.
There is actually a list of unsolved linguistic problems which defines/ consumes linguistic research throughout the world
once you have read it, ask yourself which are the most relevent.
OK, so what's the take then?
Simply put, anything which helps an individual learn a language is considered priority. Therefore, language acquisition research is crucial. Not that other research is irrelevant merely a lower priority.
It's a strong stance but it has its reasons.
The explanation?
Easy....cultural relativity. What defines a language, how can one analysis it and therefore seek order amidst the chaos?
I once read that some linguistics believe that language can either determine how a person will think/rationlise or influence how they think/rationalise. These theories are called linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity respectively. The language you speak will, at minimum, influence how you think....sound right? Not to me.
How about this, culture is was once defined as the things that people have in common, which include but is not limited to; weather, history,language, beliefs, religion, superstition, food, art, manners, behaviour, etc.
Considering that people can break away from their culture and choose what people to associate with, it stands to reason that there are many layers to the phenomenon of culture
national culture (patriotic pride)
regional culture (north vs. south)
city culture (NYC vs Miami)
area culture (north London vs. south London)
family culture (family names and honour)
personal culture (hobbies and institutes defining the individual)
race culture (for countries and areas lacking racial variety/ have a strong sense of racial pride)
you get the idea.
So, what's the point?
Well, a person has choice, thereby trumping cultural determinism, hence the best fit and the most rational is cultural relativity. Meaning that culture influences how a person thinks.
Research done into this is extremely compelling, and I am aware of an author whose books illustrate some interesting insights into cross-cultural communication: Richard Lewis
check out the diagram.
Here he explains how different cultures prioritise values.
Crude examples could be, British English being overly polite contrasted with American English which is considerably more direct, displaying how on culture values politeness and non-confrontational behaviour whilst the other values directness and efficient usage of time.
Or how about Arabic nations valuing a speaker who raises his voice, and displays what could be considered as anger, as a passionate speaker. (without the displays, people might consider him passionless and therefore bad at what he does)
Or how about Latin cultures (pretty much all of them) valuing the personal relationship with business partners to the point of having long meetings where a lot of time is spent just purely developing the relationship i.e. talking about life and family and whatever else.
The conclusion, please?
Ok, ok!! enough already. Basically it relates to studying a language. A culture can completely change the rules of the language and lexical items within the language.
To have a craft = to be good enough with your hands to rely on your skill as your profession
to be crafty = to be devious
The etymology of the word will tell you they once had the same/ similar meaning, but thanks to drift of meaning or "catachresis", meaning changes and people don't really pay attention.
Grammar too. “love” is defined as a stative verb which cannot be used in the continuous tense. i.e. “I know her”, not “I am knowing her” or “I believe in God” not “I am believing in God”.
However, popular culture has changed this, i.e. McDonalds “I'm loving it” or “I am loving the new season of the Simpsons”.
Culture strongly influences language (collocations), thought (rational), values (priority of what is important) and linguistic forms (grammar).
Therefore, to learn any language, you must study it from within the culture. Otherwise what you study is a neutered alternative of the original healthy specimen. Thereby creating two different versions of a language; the classroom neutral and the culturally relative. (depending on how many cultures, there might be more than one, such as British English vs. American English.
Cultural relativity is the stance of this approach.
"and displays what could be considered as anger, as a passionate speaker." - could I be considered Arabic? :-)
ReplyDeleteWow! Ok. There is so much to take on board. I am not sure how you are doing this. I am struggling over here to learn basic Thai!! Maybe that's the intonation bit but thanks to you I am able to recall a lot of what I learn.
Now to throw culture into it as well...can I have a rock to hide under please? ;-D
~xXx~