The Relationship Between Language & Culture

Language and Culture Teaching as a Way of Ensure Language Acquisition

The question about if do we teach language using culture or do we teach culture using language? Is a question that teachers and learners keep in mind even if they are not learning a foreign or second language. Thus, it is impossible to teach language without consider the culture from what this came from. Although, the initial fragmented views of culture show a connection-disconnection between language and culture, these should be considered as a start point to understand their relation. Besides, the teaching of foreign or second languages fail at some degree in the absence of acculturation processes that are the key piece in the puzzle between language and culture. In contrast to these acculturation processes arises the possibility of language acquisition without being related to a specific culture mindset.

To begin with the initial fragmented views of culture that show a relation of connection-disconnection between language and culture. In the 40’s through 50’s the views about culture were fundamentally based in categories such as relationships, ideas, descriptive, historical, psychological, structural, interaction, association, territoriality, learning, defense, etc. So, the focus was mostly on abstract dimensions of culture than the visible ones. Later, in the 60’s through 70’s the use of categories continued; the relationship of culture and language start to be discussed between anthropologists and linguists. Scholars started to research about culture in the field of language learning and arose the first attempt of culture teaching for foreign language learning. Then, since the 80’s through present days some authors related culture into the process of second language learning as the process of acquiring the culture-specific and culture-general knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for effective communication and interaction with individuals from other cultures. It is a dynamic, developmental, and ongoing process which engages the learner cognitively, behaviorally, and affectively (Paige et al., as cited in Pourkalhor & Esfandiari, 2017).

Taken from Library of Congress

On the other hand, the teaching of foreign or second languages tend to fail at some degree in the absence of acculturation processes. Understanding acculturation as “the process to adapting to a new culture”. (Ellis, 1985, p.292)  The first example that can be propose  in relation to the importance of acculturation in EFL or ESL is the acquisition of language meaning through cultural references such as idioms and slang; both of them have subtle meanings beyond the mere words that are written or said, meanings based mainly in a cultural references that are particular marks into the language. The second example are the differences between American, British and Australian English that is a cultural difference too, as the preference for the use of words like apartment and flat to refer to the same piece of property. The final example is the difference between English accents in the same country and how these stablish another culture mark e.g. in the United States the southern accent is very different to those from the northeast coast, west coast or the rest of the country.

On the contrary, the possibility of language acquisition without being related to a specific culture mindset is a reality. This is the particular case of bilingual or multilingual schools and classrooms, where teaching language and culture through a variety of cultural refences give as a result the learning of the language as a whole. Some examples of these cultural references are the celebration of what are national holidays (Presidents’ Day, Independence Day, Queen’s Day, etc.) for some of the countries that have as a first language the language that students are learning as a L2. In fact, language acquisition does not mean culture acquisition if we take as example standardized tests that normally although consider a set of language skills in a variety of contexts these do not involve a specific culture mindset. There is also a change of personality when speaking and communicating in a foreign or second language and this change not always respond to an specific culture mindset, even if the individual suffer a process of acculturation the tendency to cultural adaptation will be happen because the different cultural influences that touch the individual’s life, as when people travel for work across cultures and languages. Regarding to this last example the author Schumann’s in his acculturation model gives an explanation regarding why second language learners often fail to achieve a native-like competence; they may be cut off from the necessary input as a result of social or affective (psychological) distance. Social and affective distance affects the amount of contact learners can have with the target language.  (Schumann, as cited in Pourkalhor & Esfandiari, 2017).

In conclusion, culture can be fragmented in many categories and in the beginning was even studied unlinked to language learning, but the main points to highlight are that language and culture are related to each other. Culture as a social process need communication and communication is just possible through language. This is the reason because language and culture cannot be unlinked to learn a foreign or second language either to learn about another cultures. Nowadays, it is imperative to learn foreign languages through communicative approaches, what lead us to know about world cultures even if individuals live in the same country and never travel overseas. The globalization processes and the internet have become the new way of communication, learning, traveling and shaping relationships without moving out of home.

Language and Culture Approaches

Interview to English Teacher Marcos Ospina

Conclusions Unit 1

• Culture and language are inevitably joined because they depend one from another. Language is necessary for the transmission of the culture and culture is necessary to give language its meanings.
• While learning a foreign or second  language, learners are learning as well the culture from what that language come from. However, this experience is not the same that learners had when they learnt their mother tongue. Hence this depends on the teaching-learning experience that learners have and the levels of inmersion that they could experience while learning the language.
• This is essential to include in English classes aspects from the culture and not only study the language in isolation from the culture.
• In English we can find the influence of the culture in language for instance, in the accents around a country and between countries too.
• The understanding of the culture through the language is important in order to achieve a more effective communication process decreasing the gaps and opportunities of missunderstanding between people.

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