Language and
Culture
Chapter 2
Part I
Language Reflects
Culture
 Language tends to reflect the larger culture
 Example:
 Inuit have many words for snow and seal, whereas
English does not (pg.18)
 Inuit language is an agglutinating language that strings
ideas into long words
 English is an isolating language that puts separate
ideas into separate words
Language Reflects
Culture
 The Inuit deal much more with seals and snow than
most English-speakers do, so this should make sense
 This is called cultural emphasis:
 Languages have areas of linguistic emphasis for aspects
they deem important
Cultural Emphasis
 In Shinzwani (Comoro Islands off the coast of Africa)
 There is one word (mama) that means ‘mother’ and
‘aunt’
 In this culture, both women help raise the children and
therefore there is not a distinction
 In English, we have two words, but only one word for
‘cousin,’ though other languages make a distinction
between male/female cousins or cousins on
mother’s/father’s side of family
English
Hawaiian/Iroquois
Cultural Emphasis
 In Marshall Islands (Pacific)
 There were traditionally only two words for birthing
troubles or birth defects
 After nuclear tests in the 40s and 50s, there are now
many words to describe different birth defects because
so many more exist
 The language changed as the culture/environment
changed
Language Change
 History of English language
 http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-did-english-evolve-
kate-gardoqui
Ethnosemantics
 After studying cultural emphasis, the next step is to try
to understand how speakers see their world through
understanding their language
 Try to understand how they categorize things
 This is ethnosemantics: identify how words people
use reveal underlying meanings and perceptions
 Different from ethnography, which is a detailed study
of a culture because it focuses on language
Ethnosemantics
 1. Identify the way people divide language into
cultural emphasis; this is called semantic domain
 2. Determine the categorization system and use this
as a model to understand the speaker’s mental map
 3. Use this to create an ethnoscientific model that
shows the scientific categorization of the speaker’s
world
Ethnosemantics
 You can use this in the field to learn a new language
from the native perspective
 The goal is to try to get from the etic (outside)
perspective to the emic (inside) perspective
 Create a semantic domain
 Collect as many words for each domain as possible
 Create a taxonomy
 Conduct a componential analysis to find culturally
important aspects of the language
Prototype Theory
 Developed in the 70s and 80s to help explain
complications between categories in different
languages
 This theory says we categorize by prototypes, or the
best examples of things, and then use these examples
as a way to determine what words go into which
categories
Prototype Theory
 Example: “bird”
Different Meanings
 Let’s go through some words that have different
meanings in different languages
 Can you see how it is easy to have linguistic
misunderstandings?
Linguistic Relativity
 Different languages have different semantic domains
 These seem arbitrary, meaning there is not really an
obvious reason in the physical world that something is
categorized in a certain way
 Example:
 Sun/Moon
 In French, moon/night/woman are connected and
sun/day/man are connected
 Why are these seen as male or female?
Linguistic Relativity
 The answer is worldview
 Linguistic Relativity: languages are different, they use
arbitrary categories, and knowing one language does
not allow you to predict another
 Example: Rainbow
 ROY G BIV
 Do we really use indigo as a basic color term?
 Most English speakers use six colors
Linguistic Relativity
 Let’s look more at color
 Some languages combine color categories (blue/green)
and some divide color categories into more specific
colors (light blue/dark blue)
 The semantic domain of color is not experience
exactly the same in all humans
Are There Universals?
 Linguists want to know if there are universals that are
the same across all languages
 In 1969 Berlin and Kay tried to find a universal
pattern with colors
 They compared focal points (main categories) of color
across languages and stated that all languages had a
common system to name colors
 They also said that those with fewer categories were
less advanced than those with many categories
Are There Universals?
 Stage I: Dark-cool and light-warm (this covers a larger set
of colors than English "black" and "white".)
 Stage II: Red
 Stage III: Either green or yellow
 Stage IV: Both green and yellow
 Stage V: Blue
 Stage VI: Brown
 Stage VII: Purple, pink, orange, or gray (English goes here)
Are There Universals?
 They showed that societies with few categories (I, II,
III) were technologically simpler than those with more
categories
 Also that modern industrialized societies were the
only ones to reach stage VII
 What are some problems with these results?
Are There Universals?
 It ranks (puts values) on cultures!
 It is ethnocentric because English is in the most
advanced category
 It used categories with multiple meanings (orange is a
color and a fruit)
 It stated it would not use borrowed words, but “blue”
is from French and therefore English should only be in
stage IV
Assignment
 Video Log: Linguistic Relativity
(http://vimeo.com/42744105 )
 Give a definition (in your own words) for this term
 Are some languages better than others? Explain
 Article: Linguistic Relativity
 HW: Do You Speak American?
Article
 1. How does language affect people’s perception of
space?
 2. What about the perception of time?
 3. Shapes/substances?
 4. Objects (specifically grammatical gender)?
 5. Is it possible to understand another person’s
perspective on the world? Explain
Part II
Review
 Remember from last lecture that language and culture
are interconnected
 Linguistic Relativity: languages are different, they use
arbitrary categories, and knowing one language does
not allow you to predict another
 In this view, your culture determines how you perceive
the world, and therefore influences your language
Linguistic Determinism
 A second view is linguistic determinism
 Language influences and can determine people’s ability
to perceive the world around them
 Proposed by Sapir and Whorf
 Sapir (student of Boaz) analyzed the “tyrannical hold
that the linguistic form has upon our orientation of the
world”
 Whorf (student of Sapir) studied how words
influenced actions
Sapir and Whorf
 Whorf created his principle of linguistic relativity
 Different languages have different grammatical
structures and rules
 These grammatical categories direct how speakers think
and see the world
 Example is Hopi Language (pg. 33)
 Single-action vs. Repeated-action verbs
 English speakers would not understand these categories
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
 Another name for linguistic determinism
 Two forms:
 Strong Whorf: language is a prison from which you
cannot escape
 Weaker Whorf: language is a room that gives a specific
perspective, but lets you leave or go to other rooms
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
 Cannot test the Strong Whorf form
 Since we can learn and understand other languages,
the Weaker Whorf form seems more correct
 Example:
 Comparing English with Yucatec language
 Yucatec group items by material (everything made of
wood goes into one category)
 English group items by shape (a table has a specific
shape but could be wood, metal, plastic)
Space
 The way we describe space uses deictic concepts, or those
that name space around our bodies
 These are egocentric, or always relating back to your own
body (to the right of, above, in front of…). This creates
relative systems of space
 The description between the two pictures would be different
because of the position of the bodies
Space
 Some languages use absolute reckoning systems, such
as cardinal directions, that are not dependent upon
where the body is
 North will always remain north, even, if you move
 This is geographically based, not biologically based
 How might this cause speakers from these different
languages to see the world differently?
 How can this be influenced by the physical
environment?
Los Angeles
New York
Experiencing LD
 To fully experience language determination, you must
be aware that to use a new language comfortably, you
must understand its concepts
 This includes rules that are different from your native
language
 In English, if I give money, I lend it; if I get money, I
borrow it
 In Shinzwani (Comoros Islands), there is no
distinction; money is just transferred (kopa)
Experiencing LD
 In the Ukraine, there are two types of love
 Liubov (general love)
 Kokhannia (romantic love)
 For time:
 Czech: 9:15 is a quarter of ten
 English: 9:15 is a quarter past nine (pg. 39)
 The goal is to be able to think in these terms and
switch back and forth
Language, Culture, and
Thought
 Video: Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to
Understanding the Brain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B_ONJIEcE
 Min 1-13
 How do we understand or remember language?
 What did Sapir and Whorf contribute to this?

Language, Culture, and
Thought
So research on color, shapes, time, and space has shown
that language does affect how we see the world
 Then there is the language that is symbolic and not
straightforward
 Example: Time

English: a straight line with equal units (hour, day, week,
year, century, etc.)

Hopi: cyclical, remembering and connecting to past events
 Non-observable things have only the present tense, so ‘two
days’ is ‘one day and another day”
 ‘Five years from now’ would be ‘this year and the next year,
and the year after that…’
Language, Culture, and
Thought
 The culture of American English is very time-oriented
 We have many metaphors to show how valuable it is:
 Time is money
 Wasting time
 Running out of time
 Other cultures don’t have this
 Africa Time
Metaphors and Frames
 We see the world and speak about the world through
frames
 These help us understand the cultural meaning behind
something
 Are attached to ideology, or ideas about how things
should be
 Robert Levy analyzed hypocognition, or the lack of
frames
 He suggested that high suicide rates in Tahiti were
influenced by the language not having words to express
grief
Metaphors and Frames
 If something does not fit your frame, it is easy to
dismiss
 The media can also persuade your opinion by the
frames they use to present information
Native vs. Borrowed
 What is a native word?
 What is a borrowed one?
 Does English borrow from other languages or do other
languages only borrow from English?
 “West to the Rest” fallacy
 We will discuss this more in chapter 9
Guess which words are native or foreign
 Moose
 Lemon
Admiral
 Bandage
 Skunk
Nippy
 Elixir
 Tapioca
Squash
 Bathroom
 Llama
Coffee
 Delicatessen
 Handbag
Syrup
 Bonkers
 Typhoon
Fahrenheit
 Capital
 Stone
Cliché
 Garage
 Canoe
Futon
Floor
Guess which words are native or foreign
 Moose
 Lemon
Admiral
 Bandage
 Skunk
Nippy
 Elixir
 Tapioca
Squash
 Bathroom
 Llama
Coffee
 Delicatessen
 Handbag
Syrup
 Bonkers
 Typhoon
Fahrenheit
 Capital
 Stone
Cliché
 Garage
 Canoe
Futon
Floor
Guess which words are native or foreign
 Moose (NA)
 Bandage
 Elixir (Greek)
 Bathroom
 Delicatessen
(Ger)
 Lemon
(Persian)
 Skunk (NA)
 Tapioca (SA
Indian)
 Llama (SA
Quechua)
 Bonkers
 Handbag
 Capital
 Typhoon (Chi)
 Garage (Fr)
 Stone
 Canoe (NA
Indian)
Admiral
(Arabic)
Nippy
Squash (NA
Indian)
Coffee (Arabic)
Syrup (Arabic)
Fahrenheit (Ger)
Cliché (Fr)
Futon
(Japanese)
Floor
Globalization
 Estimated that up to 9,000 languages have disappeared
 Half the remaining 6,900 languages are endangered
 Globalization affects this because it promotes the success
of few languages that can be used widely
 More people now speak English as their second language
(350 million) than as their first language (320 million)
 This is closely tied to national and ethnic identities so
preservation is important
 Why don’t we want to lose these languages?
Assignment
 Article “Does English Still Borrow Words” and
questions
 Video Log: Endangered Languages
(http://www.voanews.com/content/rosetta-projectpreserves-key-to-endangered-languages/1713317.html)
 Why is it important to document languages spoken by
small groups?
 How can this help us understand other languages
(“decoder ring”)?
HW #3

“Lost for Words”

Questions (also on class webpage):

1. Everett argues “that the Piraha’s peculiar language is shaped not by some
innante language instinct,… but by their extraordinary culture.” Do you
agree with this? How does this connect to Whorf and linguistic relativity?

2. Describe how the Piraha have a “practical” view of their spiritual world.
Give examples.

3. How does their culture prevent them from using numbers or counting?

4. How does this language provide evidence against universal grammar?

5. The Piraha language has very few phonemes (sounds). Is it a simple or
‘less-evolved’ language?