CONTEXT AND CULTURE

UNIT 6

CONTEXT AND CULTURE

In linguistics, however, language is very obviously abstracted from experience in order to be better understood as a system, enabling grammatical regularities to be seen more clearly, even perhaps providing an insight into the representation of language in the mind. For applied linguistics, such analysis of language are relevant to understanding the eperience of language in use, but they must be combined with another kind of analysis to.

In the actual experience of language its for parameters are neither as discrete nor as static as the model is sometimes taken to suggest. Yet it is a different kind of abstraction from description of the formal system of grammar and sound, and it views, language from a different perspective.

These other factors are many. All of the following, for the example, might be involved in interpreting a real encounter: tone of voice and facial expression, the relationship between speakers, their age, sex, and social status, the time and the place, and the degree to which speakers do or do not share the same cultural background. Collectively, such factors are known as context and they are all relevant to whether a particular action or utterance is, to use  Hymes’ term, appropriate.

A.     Systematizing context: discourse analysis

To demonstrate this, applied linguistics has drawn upon, and also developed, discourse analysis, the study of how stretches of language in context are perceived as meaningful and unified by their users. Three areas of study which contribute to this field are paralanguage, pragmatics, and genre studies.

When we speak we do not only communicate through word. A good deal is conveyed by tone of voice, whether we shout or whisper for example, and by the use of our bodies, whether we smile, wave our hands, touch people, make eye contact, and so on. Such communicate behavior, used alongside language, is paralanguage.; convincing research suggest that paralinguistic messages can outweigh linguistic ones, especially in establishing and maintaining relationships. For this reason, understanding of paralanguage is relevant in any professional activity involved with effective communication, developing effective communication in others, such as media training, speech therapy, and language teaching.

Writing has paralanguage too. Written words can be scribbled, printed, painted, and their meaning can be amplified or altered by layout, accompanying pictures, and diagrams. Indeed, we must use some facial expression when we speak or make some choice of script or front when we write.

At a time when new technologies mix writing and visual effects in ways which may be altering fundamentally the nature and process of communication, there is a pressing need to integrate findings from these areas. The study of visual communication and computer-mediated communication (CMC) are growing areas in applied linguistics, and likely to be increasingly important in the future.

Pragmatics in the discipline which studies the knowledge and procedures which enable people to understand each other’s words. Its main concern is not the literal meaning, but what speakers intend to do with their words and what it is which makes this intention clear. Meaning in other words, varies with circumstances and it is easy to think of situations in which all of these responses might be both effective and appropriate. Meaning also changes with the kind as communicative event to which words belong.

Events of this kind are described as genres, a term defined by the applied linguist John Swales as a class of communicative events which share some set of communicative purposes. Other possible examples of genres include conversations, consultations, lessons, emails, web pages, brochures, prayers, news bulletins, stories, jokes, operas, and soap operas.

All these elements of discourse interpreting paralanguage understanding pragmatic intention, and distinguishing different genres are part of a person’s communicative competences integral to their use and understanding of language.

B.     Culture

As with languages, there is disagreement over the degree to which cultures, for all their obvious disparity, reflect universal human attributes. Some argue that the differences are superficial and that cultural conventions everywhere realize the same basic human needs. With cultural conventions, however, the consequences may be less apparent but more damaging. There is not only an absence of understanding, but potential for misunderstanding too.

The same costumes, in others words, can send quite different signals, with potentially disastrous results for cross-cultural understanding. In major role for applied linguistics is to raise awareness of the degree to which the meaning of behavior is culturally relative, thus combating prejudice, and contributing to the improvement of community relations and conflict resolution in general.

C.     Translation, culture, and context

Theories and practices of translation have changed but at their heart is a recurring debate, going back to classical times, about the degree to which a translator should attempt to render exactly what is said, or intervene to make the new text flow more smoothly, or achieve a similar effect as the original. This is by no means a simple matter. Word-for-word translation is impossible if the aim is to make sense. This is clear even when translating the most straightforward utterances between closely related languages.

In many cases translation decisions can be a major factor in cross-cultural understanding and international affairs. In every translation something must be lost. One cannot keep the sound and the word order and the exact nature of the phrase.

D.     Own language : rights and understanding

This accounts for the widespread notion in literary and religious study that something essential is lost if texts cannot be read in the original. To a agree this view is motivated by some vague belief in the spirit of the language, more precisely it derives from a belief that important ideas and traditions are specific to a particular language.

These needs, which have been reffered to as language right, have clear implications for language planning. They are implicit in a good deal of national and international legislation, ensuring the possibility of own language use both in formal transactions and schools. On the other hand, there are many context where language rights are denied and linguistic majorities impose upon minorities, often through oppressive legislation. Which increasing frequency such conditions contribute to languages dying out completely. In extensively multilingual and multicultural societies there are pressure groups seeking to preserve linguistic diversity and others seeking to restrict it.

E.      Teaching culture

At first glance it seems sensible, when learnig a language, also to study the culture of the people who speak it. For example, while learning Icelandic would expect to study the lifestyle of the Icelanders. Thus, teaching materials could reasonably include an element of Icelandic studies with descriptions of the treeless landscape, the historic links with Denmark, the importance of the fishing industry, and so on. For students such material would be both necessary and motivating as they are luckily to be studying the Icelandic language if they are not also interested in Icelandic culture.

Such variations, and the role of English as a global lingua franca, raise doubts about the association in many EFL materials of the English language with specific culture practices, usually those of the dominant mainstream culture in either Britain or the USA. For some learners, whose need is to engage directly with one or other of these, such cultural bias may be valid, but for others, whose need is to use English outside such communities or who do not wish  to absorb either British or American culture, the issue is considerably more complex.

This in turn, raises the larger issue of whether language and culture can be dissociated, and whether English can become the vehicle not only of specific local cultural identities but of ‘world culture’ as well.

In linguistics the linguistic relativity hypothesis, which hold that language determines a unique way of seeing the world, has fallen from favour under the influence of Chomsky’s emphasis on language as a biological rather than a social phenomenon. Yet, whatever the degree to which the language which we speak can determine our ways of thinking, it is certainly true that the linguistic choices we make within that language both reflect our ideology and influence the opinion of our audience.

Cook, Guy. 2003. Applied Linguistics. Oxford University Press: New york.