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Chapter eight is the chapter that deals with the notion of language and
culture and language is something people frequently underestimate in terms of
having the ability to influence your perception and your concept of reality
some other things discussed in this chapter are
uh... functions
the idea of language and meaning, language and culture different things regarding using
language
and uh... as well as interpreting and translating
and communication technology as well as competence
this discussion of using language here predominately what that is going to
relate to is the idea
uh... well your text book is going to go into some specific languages and in this section
uh... i will probably shut off
the webcam altogether
and simply scroll through the rest of the particular power point because there's a
lot of details on the powerpoint slides and so you can certainly stop and
take notes and review so we'll go quickly
it's just one way to keep this particular chapter lecture a little bit
on the shorter side. So let's dive in
talking about the functions of language here we're predominately dealing with the
notion of social interaction and that's just has to do with a lot of the
functionality
and what we go through the
daily use of language whether that's getting change for a dollar whether
that's getting directions etc. social cohesion has to do with the sense of
community which ends up being very critical
and identity
ab
your language has a lot to do with your
concept of who you are particularly
your national identity the United States does not have a national language
and there's been a lot of debate over that
uh...
and so if you look at some of the debates you see the idea and the power
uh...
of language
language
and meaning
uh... what is language... language is by the definition at the bottom
of page two forty-seven textbook
that's basically a set of shared symbols or sign
that cooperative group of people as mutually agreed upon to help them create
meaning
so symbols and signs. Language is merely a representation
for something else
and if you get a fair felt a little frustrated with the inadequacy of
language than you've experienced some of that symbolic nature of language
symbols and their meaning are often arbitrary in other words it's randomly
assigned that's not necessarily a whole lot of logic or a lot of connection
between the language
and the semble that it represents
the discussion of language variations is where you get into the idea accents
uh... dialect
of argots
and jargon
and there are or rather slang is the third one
uh... there are a lot of interesting uh... research on the idea of language
variations the field is called a etymology and if you really want to get into
it gets pretty interesting
I'm going to show you a small audio clip I believe it's next in the learning unit
where it sort of stresses how settle the differences are
in accents and how that can completely change
The meaning in other languages
Conversational taboos; these are certain off uh
Sort of hot topics things that they aren't necessarily culturally talked
about
and it varies from place to place obviously obvious ones would be things like sex in
you know things like that
but there are other
cultures where it's not appropriate for you to ask how's your family
uh... because that's a conversational taboo
so that is what that is in reference to
uh... the idea of synergy between language and culture
that has to do with the influence and the role that the language has
on perception
and that uh...
inseminationalquotes that uh...
you might read in the book
for example "The superior war of hypothesis and
and some sutter quotes they go along with that is the idea quote the limits
of my language at the limits of my world
uh... that type of thing
really stressing the notion language influences your worldview and
your perception far more then you can even begin to comprehend and
understanding
uh... and in terms of the cultures
language or vocabulary emphasizing what's important
a simple example i think what illustrate this
think about how many words you can come up with
for snow
and
you know maybe it's four or five i'm not sure how many happy depends on if you're
an avid skier or snow boarder
it's been said that
traditional Eskimo
language in that tribal language they have over twenty-seven different words
that illustrates snow
and you don't and i don't in classical arabic there are over two
thousand ways to refers to a camel
and I'm not sure how many you can come up with
but I'm sure its a far cry from two-thousands
and yet if I were to ask you I took my blank to the shop meaning your car, your vehicle
your automobile
you'll start throwing in brand names for example
uh... I drive a Toyota, and so it a, its an import, it's a Radford, it's a mini SUV
it's a
a
what year is it, a 2006
it's an automatic it's an, I call it betsy or whatever and uh literally we could take
each type of vehicle and probably come up with five or six names
for that particular type of vehicle
and then i can even throw in logos and if I were to simply flash the logo
for Toyota, you would know what that means.
So that's the idea that, within our culture
the concept of the automobile or of the vehicle is extremely important and
therefore our language has a
myriad of different words
that can denote that particular object
now I want to get into this section talks about using language and here i'm
gonna go relatively
quickly and this is specific
cultural differences in language and your book talks about
uh... Spanish language
and you can look at this - is some of the highlights
northeast asian which encompasses several different countries
uh... Arabic etc
very interesting given today's uh... society
and then the English language
So, lastly the chapter closes with a discussion uh... interpreting and
translating
and this has a lot to do with the idea that uh...
there is a difference between interpretation and translation
interpretation frequently has to do with oral communication; translation
has to do with written communication
signed communication by the way for example like ASL type thing can be either interpretation
or translation
and then it gives suggestion the chapter get some suggestions are
on working with interpreters
and translators and how that works
and then as always
this chapter deals with closes with the section on competence and how to
become more enter culturally
competent
and how to improve that and there you have five suggestions for improving
this from a language point of view and that is being very mindful of being very aware
far more than you are normally
uh
to be considerate of your speech rate and the rate in which you communicate your
language of the terms in which use that you avoid things like argot and jargon
and that
closely attuned toy your nonverbal behaviors things that might not be at all
significant
within an English culture American culture have profound meaning
in a culture that is high context
and checking is the idea of feedback and things like that
developing a second language
is an important and some of the benefits are listed there... a joke that I've often
heard that unfortunately is sadly true
is that of
which it goes like this... what do you call somebody that speaks two languages
ok, bilingual. What do you call somebody that speaks three languages.... Trilingual!
What do you call somebody
that speaks one language...
American!
sad but uh... it's certainly true
so the more you can begin to grasp that even basic fundamental words in another
language is very beneficial to you
so that's it for now uh, it's about nine minutes we got through this relatively fast and
i'll see you online