The document discusses the relationship between language and culture/society in 3 main points: 1) Language is intrinsically tied to culture and thinking - when we learn language, we learn the associated beliefs and perspectives of the culture. 2) The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that language influences thought and culture, though it does not fully explain their formation. Other researchers see language and culture evolving together through diffusion and assimilation. 3) Cross-cultural communication requires recognizing linguistic differences between cultures while also finding common ground, like in trade, to facilitate understanding between groups.

1. Talk Isn’t Cheap
Language and Society

2. Language learning/social learning
 Language is essential to
culture and society
• When we learn language we
learn more than words we
learn how to think about
our natural and social
worlds.
• The words we learn are
associated with beliefs
and perspectives that we
share with others

3. The words we use express
social and cultural values
 There are weeds in your lawn. Why do we recognize only some of
them by name and leave knowledge of others to “experts”?
 Do we know their names because we care about them or do we care
about them because we know their names?

4. Sapir-Whorf: language
determines our knowledge
Linguistic Determinism Linguistic Relativity
 Are we “prisoners of  The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
language” Amy Stafford is a tool to help us
understand the perpetuation
• The idea that language of cultural differences. But
precedes thought has not it doesn’t explain the
proven to be strictly true, formation of either language
but it does help us or culture.
understand the assumptions
 Other researchers follow the
that are implicit in the
historic growth of language
words we choose. and the movement of the
people and culture who spoke
• The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
those languages.
holds that cultural biases
influence the language we  They see culture and
use and the language we use language growing and
reinforces cultural bias. changing together.

5. Language spreads with culture:
both change in the process through
diffusion and assimilation
http://www.biblemysteries.c
om/library/indoeuropean.htm

6. Cross-cultural communication
 Language reflects the differences between
cultures.
• Values, norms, practices may be a little different
or completely different. This will be reflected in
the way people in a culture speak.
 Some languages have patterns of speech and vocabulary
that are separated by gender, so that there men and
women would express the same thought differently, even
to the point of using a different grammar. A native
speaker would know which gender the speaker was from
just the words that were used.
 We need to recognize these differences and
respect them when we interact with different
cultures.
 At the same time, the more similar our goals
are (say foreign trade), the more advantageous
it is to each side to understand the other.

7. Learning Language: Is it “all over by 3”
 The skills for reading literacy are based in
language and knowledge acquisition. It is not
enough just to know words but we much also have
what many call “deep word knowledge”
• This means that we are familiar with:
 the concepts a word represents
 multiple meanings of a word
 associations the word evokes
 how a word is used in
 conjunction with other words
 grammar (how a word behaves in a sentence)
 other words that sound like it
• Source for the list above and more information: click here