Relationship between Language, Culture and Identity

Relationship between Language, Culture and Identity

Introduction

It may not appear to be a great deal, however, language poses a considerable effect on the manner, people are professed and the extent of deference they are imparted. Culture of a society entails the practices, values, customs and most importantly languages, that lead to the worldly perceptions to define the social groups like the ones founded on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, region, or shared interests. Something that is very important for the sense of people regarding their own selves and the way they are associated to other, is cultural identity. A robust cultural identity may add to the overall welfare of the people. Language, by this means, has a special significance, for the reason that language is the key tool to shape the culture and the cultural identity of a person. Language is inherent for the manifestation of culture. By serving to be a channel for the communication of beliefs, values and customs, language holds an imperative social and cultural occupation and it promotes the stance to solidarity as well as group identity. It is the course which is usually employed to deliver and conserve a culture, its related customs and the mutual values (Joseph, et.al, 2001).

Relationship between Language, Culture and Identity

Culture and language are obscurely associated to and reliant upon one another. Language is shaped by culture while culture is greatly swayed and influenced by the language. Language is the means of communication for a culture; this can be plainly observed in case of the colonist societies, like America. These colonists are habituated to a particular language and hence, in spite of adaptation, would persist to use and sustain it, producing diverse and cultured societies in this unfamiliar place in order to sustain the language.

Moreover, language besides being a manifestation and parade of history and heritage, also serves as the constituent of culture, making it distinct and maintaining a disparity from one to another. The differences in language are also frequently taken as the indication of a different culture, and these differences very regularly produce discordance amongst the neighboring societies and even amongst variant groups residing in the same country. This demonstrates the way language serves as a conduit to culture (Trudgill, 2002).

The language and culture combined silhouette the personality and identity of a person. This reflects the relationship of language and culture with the identity of an individual. Every person comes into this world in the same way and lives through the same phases in their lives. However, the major difference is the milieu wherein each person is brought up and the language they acclimatize to. This leads to the creation of identities of a particular language and culture, making a person distinct and discrete form the others.

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is a theory put forward by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf which declares that the edifice of a language establishes and greatly impacts the approach to thinking and the behavioral features of the culture where ...