![]() ![]() ![]() Knowing the language of a people means understanding its culture and its people. Then, it is possible to see that culture influences the vision of the world, and it also contributes to the shaping of language. In the same way, the proverb “Save for a rainy day!” makes sense in English but it does not in Arab because if the rain has a negative cultural connotation in English culture, it has a positive one in the Arabic. If we think on a natural element like the sun, we can see, for example, that as in the Arab culture is seen as oppressive, especially in summer, on the contrary, in the English culture it is seen as lovely. On the other side, the deepest part, the “subconscious part” of the culture, which includes assumptions like the concept of self, of childhood and adulthood, of gender, sex, age, social class, time, etc.įrom this underwater part of the iceberg origins the idiomatic language use, as this type of language is based on assumed knowledge. According to Hall, as we dip below the surface, we find the 90% of the rest of the culture: on one side the “unspoken rules” like nonverbal communication, patterns of speech, the way to interact with emotions, the vision a culture has of personal and social space, behaviour, beauty, etc. In the same way, when we get in touch with a new culture, we first perceive the more visible part of it: food, festivities, music, arts, games and language as well as the physical characteristics of their people, their behaviours, gender or clothes. Hall, culture can be described as an iceberg.Īs known, the top of the iceberg we can see it is just a little part of the entire piece. Certain expressions can be special of a particular geographical or social area and can change from one place to another, even if they belong to the same language.Īccording to the anthropologist Edward T. Language is an important cultural element, and its rules of speaking and writing vary even within a same culture. We can think on culture as a rotating wheel full of elements which are interrelated and can change through time. On the other hand, non-material culture means beliefs, values, rules, ethics, literature, arts, traditions, social roles… everything that is not physical, that cannot be touch. Material culture includes homes, schools, places for worship, clothes, utensils, roads, decorations, tools, goods and products, etc. ![]() We can image culture as a wheel, composed by MATERIAL and NON MATERIAL elements –as we have defined before, tangible and intangibl– all the physical objects, resources and spaces are part and define the culture of a determined group of people. There are different interpretations of the concept of culture. In this module, we will deepen the concepts of culture, language, cultural interpretation and combining language and culture learning in an adult education context. The question is what kind of cultural elements we can include or exclude. Language and culture are inseparable things and therefore inclusion of cultural components throughout a language learning process is something indispensable. Douglas Brown stated, “A language is a part of a culture and a culture is a part of a language the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture”. As the professor, emeritus of ESL at San Francisco State University H. ![]() In this module, we will discover that the relationship between language and culture is so significant that we can come to consider them as a whole. For many times, teaching a foreign language meant to teach grammar rules and correct expressions, relegating culture as a supplementary topic, often teaching some piece of literature or reading something about typical festivities, traditions and celebrations. Thinking on teaching a foreign language, we have to ask ourselves if are language and culture interrelated or not. ![]()
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