Language and Culture

Relationship between Language and Culture

Like Chicken and Egg

Culture influences the type of language “the invisible ritual used imposed by culture on language users” - Kramsch, 1998

Language determines how people think and what people think about

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis“language determines what we think” - Kramsch, 1998

Culture and Language

In Korea, respect for elders is very important hence there are many variations of “I” and “You” (ie. Na, Jor, Chaih/ Nor, Tang Shin, Chanae)

Due to ConfucianismSimilar case for my mother’s dialect group

Toilet Talk in Korea

Culture and Language

In some languages, words simply do not exist hence people are unable to grasp the concept

Idea of “Cooling” and “Heaty” food in Singapore

What I feel

Language and culture are interdependentThey influence each otherIf one changes, the other changes too

Examples: “Period” and SMS talk

It is impossible to tell now whether culture influenced language first or the other way around

The End

:)