Cultural Values and Language

1
Cultural Values and Language

• Understanding beliefs in context

2
Why is Language Important to the Study of
Cultural Values and Beliefs?

• Language, its grammatical structures can
  influence our worldviews
• the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis the grammatical
  structure of a language influences the way we
  perceive the world. E.g. lack of past and future
  tenses in Hopi.
• however, language may influence perception, but
  not determine it, e.g. gender distinctions in
  French, Italian and Spanish.

3
Example of Gender Symbols in Medical Textbooks

• What is a symbol? Something that represents
  something else. All language is symbolic.
• In the medical textbooks of the 1980s,
  conception was viewed through the conventional
  ways that scientists interpreted existing gender
  relations.
• 1950s-1980s models of conception relied on a
  perception that the sperm was active and the egg
  was passive.
• Late 1980s models gradually changed to show that
  both egg and sperm contributed to conception.
• But sometimes, conventional gender stereotypes
  still prevailed egg is represented as a
  temptress that entraps the sperm.
• National geographic concept of the active sperm.

4
What are the Characteristics of Language?

• 1. It is universal. All human cultures possess
  language.
• 2. It is symbolic i.e. in language, an
  abstract symbol stands for something else.
  Consider the example of the word dog. How is it
  expressed in different languages?
• Do these abstract symbols look like a dog, smell
  like a dog, act like a dog? NO.
• In language, signs represent something completely
  different than themselves.
• 3. It is conventional There is no necessary or
  inherent relation between the symbol and what it
  represents. The fact that the symbol d-o-g
  represents a four-legged furry animal is a
  product of culture and history.
• 4. It is productive humans can combine words
  and sounds into new utterances that have never
  been used before.
• It can express displacement. This means that
  through language, you can express things that
  happened in the past, in geographically distant
  places, and what might happen in the future.
  This is possible due to the abstract and symbolic
  character of language.

5
Self and Other in the Structure of Language

• Universe of young infants seen as a continuum.
• Distinguishing self and other in the mirror
  phase involves a recognition that the infant and
  its caregivers are separate.
• Recognition of the self as separate from others
  forms a basic dyad of language.
• SelfSubject of Action, OtherObject of Action
• Language and naming breaks up the world into
  separate objects.
•    Binary Oppositions Bringing Order out of
  Chaos. The fact that language is based on binary
  distinctions means that gender becomes an
  important metaphor for social differences. Other
  important binary distinctions are
  nature/culture, night/day, up/down
  inside/outside.
•   Key Symbols Often the human body is used as a
  symbol to express differences between Self and
  Others, Self and the Outside World. Parts of the
  body that leave us are often treated with
  taboos e.g. urine, blood, feces, hair,
  fingernails, sweat, mucous. They bridge the
  boundary between self/other and hence have the
  potential to break up the natural order of
  things.