Language structure influences Social structure

Language is a system of communication used by a particular country or

community. According to Ronald Wardhaugh in the social study of language there
are several possible relationships between language and society. One of them is
that linguistic structure may either influence or determine social structure.
Language is a so powerful medium of communication that actually affects how
individuals see the world and influences the way they think, behave and creating a
cultural identity.
ulture is a set of ideas, customs, practices and beliefs which make up the
societies are different from each other! the cultures are transmitted from one
generation to another through the language. "n this way there is a close
relationship between language and culture. #herefore the language plays an
important role influencing the lives of the individuals within a given society. Such as
$uranti %&&' () states* +A child separated from his blood relatives and brought up
in a society different from the one in which he was born will grow up to be a
member of the culture of his adoptive parents. Largely through language
sociali,ation, he will ac-uire the culture .language included/ of the people he lives
with.0 "n this aspect the language may be considered as a tool that influences
individual1s culture and even their thought processes and determines the way to
reproduce e2periences to the ne2t generation. 3ollowing this sense, according to
duranti )&*+ontrol over linguistic means often translates into control over our
relationship with the world 4ust as the acceptance of linguistic forms and the rules
for their use forces us to accept and reproduce particular ways of being in the
world.0 "n other words, the language may generate the World in where the
individuals live. #he individuals would be as they are according to how they
communicate and the identity would build in the way individuals speak and answer
with their actions to their commitments.
"n the world each society would reflect differences in their linguistics systems
through their culture. #herefore, the structure of a language will reflect the structure
of the world as it is seen by a particular community.p.(). As Sapir %&(& states
+5uman beings do not live in the ob4ective world alone, nor alone in the world of
social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the
particular language which has become the medium of e2pression for their society.0
"n this sense, the culture of each society may be reflected through the language of
that society. #herefore, the languages that individuals speak differ structurally and
this leads them to e2perience the world in different way. #hat is to say, the
individuals would perceive what their language allows them to perceive and in this
way, the language controls individual1s world6view.
Language is a so powerful medium of communication which allows individuals
of different societies to sharing and transmitting their culture. #he language found
society on which all human culture is built, that is to say, the language influences in
the constitution of each society in the world and in the interpretation of their
cultures. #herefore, individuals of different languages will have different world6
views.
Languages difer in the way individuals refect the world, that is to say, in the
way they categorize or codify the experience of their speakers.
#he structure of a language influences and determines the way in which individuals
of that language view the world. #herefore, there is a close relationship between
language and culture of an society which is interpreted and codified according to
the e2periences of its individuals. Such e2periences areas it is transmited by a
powerful medium of communication
.
http*77anthro.palomar.edu7language7language89.htm mirar %:)

Every act of language, be it written or spoken, is a stateent about the
position of its author within the social structure in a given culture! "Le #age,
$abouret%&eller '()*+ ',-. $he stateent indicates that there is an obvious link
between language the one uses and culture the one belongs to.
$he ter ulticultural! in a societal sense indicates the coexistence of people
fro any diferent backgrounds and ethnicities, as in ulticultural
societies!. .n an individual sense, it characterizes persons who belong to
various discourse counities, and who therefore have the linguistic resources
and social strategies to a/liate and identify with any diferent cultures and
ways of using language.
. #herefore, individuals of different languages will have different world6views.
Language ediates between the individual and the culture
Languages evidently do difer in the way they sybolically refect the world,
that is, in the way they categorize or codify the experience of their speakers.
0oreover, ;the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of
interpretation0.
.t is a long%standing clai already concerning
A linguist called Whorf claimed language actually affects the way you see the world (so
language is like a pair of glasses through which we see everything). This led to the Sapir-
Whorf theory, also called the Whorfian hypothesis!. "t was #ased originally on studies of
the $opi "ndians.
Whorf said that $opi and %uropean had different ways of talking a#out the world, so it
influenced the way they saw the world. The $opi language treats the world as full of things
that are non-discrete! and flowing! whereas %uropean languages see them as discrete and
counta#le. %uropean languages treat time as something that can #e divided up into
separate seconds, minutes and days. Trees and plates can #e counted, #ut water and hope
cannot and the language makes distinctions here. The $opi language treats time as
indivisi#le so that $opi will not talk a#out minutes and weeks. Trees and water are simply
treated linguistically as non-discrete items. The result of this (claimed Whorf) was that the
$opi genuinely see the world differently from %uropeans. Their language structure makes
them see the world differently.
&nfortunately, for this theory, no#ody asked the $opi if they really saw the world
differently. "t would seem that they see it 'ust as we do. After all, what would happen to a
#ilingual $opi(%nglish speaker) Would their world view shift depending on the language
they were speaking)
Another e*ample of this theory is the often-cited fact that %skimos have lots of different
words for snow, so it means they actually see different kinds of snow, whereas we only see
+snow+. ,ut this isn-t really true #ecause we can use words to descri#e the snow if we need
to, e.g. hard, soft, wet, dry etc. We aren-t tuned to thinking a#out it that way, #ut if it
#ecomes important, we can easily do so. We might not know the names of different makes
of car, #ut still #e a#le to tell the difference #etween a .iat and a /olls /oyce, for all that.
So could an %skimo, even if the "nuit language didn-t have the e*act words. ,esides which,
%skimos don-t really have all those words for snow - it-s 'ust one of those pieces of
information that everyone repeats and no-one has checked if it-s true. "f you check, you
find it isn-t true0
There is an important lesson here that linguists can learn1 don-t make great generalisations
a#out languages and people that you don-t know very well. Any $opi or "nuit could have
told us immediately that this was a load of nonsense, #ut no-one ever thought to ask them.
2any people, including linguists have done the same when descri#ing sign languages, too.
3ften they have said things that people have come to #elieve when deaf signers have
known it wasn-t true.
#eople ay think their language is not a good language because it isn1t the
one taught in schools and isn1t used in business. #eople who use another
language ake ore oney and other people respect the, so people want to
use that language.
Sapir, <. .%&(&, $ecember =A/. The Status of Linguistics as a Science. Retrieved
from http*77www.bible6researcher.com7sapir%.html