Chapter 9 Culture.ppt

Introduction to Culture What is Culture? In a broad sense, culture means the total way of life of a people, including the patterns of belief, customs, objects, institutions, techniques, and language that characterizes the life of the human community. In a narrow sense, culture may refer to local or specific practice, beliefs or customs, which can be mostly found in folk culture, enterprise culture or food culture, etc. There are generally two types of culture: material and spiritual. The relationship between L C Language expresses cultural reality, reflects the people’s attitudes, beliefs, world outlooks, etc. ABC The culture both emancipates and constrains people socially, historically and metaphorically. Discourse community Culture also affects its people’s imagination or common dreams which are mediated through the language and reflected in their life. American dream The relationship between L C On the one hand, language as an integral part of human being, permeates in his thinking and way of viewing the world, language both expresses and embodies cultural reality; on the other, language, as a product of culture, helps perpetuate the culture, and the changes in language uses reflect the cultural changes in return. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Edward Sapir (1884 - 1939) and Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941) Our language helps mould our way of thinking and, consequently, different languages may probably express speakers’ unique ways of understanding the world. Linguistic determinism: L may determine our thinking patterns. Linguistic relativity: different languages offer people different ways of expressing the world around. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf, proclaimed that the structure of the language people habitually use influences the ways they think and behave, i.e. different languages offer people different ways of expressing the world around, they think and speak differently, this is also known as linguistic relativity. Sapir and Whorf