Uzbekistan state world languages university d. U. Ashurova m. R. Galieva

Language and Culture

As is known culture has various manifestations; it is reflected in paintings, music, literature, architecture, language, etc. However, it is acknowledged that the most significant means of expressing culture is language because it is tightly interlinked with culture, it grows within culture and represents it.

It is often held that language fulfills two main functions: the function of communication and that of cognition. But the survey of literature shows that language also fulfills many other functions: emotive, phatic, poetic, etc. Along with these functions one of the essential functions of language is, in our opinion, the function of expressing and transmitting culture. Accordingly, D. Krech asserts that language in this sense fulfills three main functions:

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  language is the primary vehicle of communication;
  
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  language reflects both the personality of the individual and the culture of his history. In turn, it helps shape both personality and culture;
  
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  language makes possible the growth and transmission of culture, the continuity of societies, and the effective functioning and control of social groups (Krech, 1962）
  

So, language serves not only as a means of communication and the main tool of expressing people’s thoughts but also it is the accumulation of cultural information. Being a complex system of signs, language is a means of delivering, storing, using and transmitting culture from generation to generation. As W. Humboldt states: “A language being a universal form of initial conceptualization of the world, can be perceived as a component of culture, or a tool of culture” (cited from Helferich, 2004, p. 24).

The ideas of the science studying relationships between language and culture are traced back to the fundamental works by famous linguists, who always emphasized the fact that language is a major instrument of fixation, storing and transferring culture, knowledge, and information about the world (W. Humboldt, E. Sapir, B. Whorf, E. Benvenist, A.A. Potebnya). The idea of relationship between language and culture was initially put forth by V. Humboldt W. who proclaimed that: “Language is deeply entwined in the intellectual development of humanity itself, it accompanies the latter upon every step of its localized progression or regression; moreover, the pertinent cultural level in each case is recognizable in it. ... Language is, as it were, the external manifestation of the minds of peoples. Their language is their soul, and their soul is their language. It is impossible to conceive them ever sufficiently identical... . The creation of language is an innate necessity of humanity. It is not a mere external vehicle, designed to sustain social intercourse, but an indispensable factor for the development of human intellectual powers, culminating in the formulation of philosophical doctrine” (Humboldt, 1988).

Later, W. von Humboldt’s idea that “Man lives in the world about him principally, indeed exclusively, as language presents it to him” (Humboldt, 1988) was further promoted by many famous linguists all over the world.

In Russia A.A. Potebnya being under the influence of Humboldt’s theory, concentrated on the psychological aspect of the relationships between language and culture. F.I. Buslaev one of the most prominent Russian philologists in the mid of the XIX century expressed his main thesis: “The history of language is inseparable from the history of its speakers”. Another scholar B. de Courtene predicted the idea of interdisciplinarity, claiming that linguistics would combine with other sciences– psychology, anthropology, sociology, etc.

Among W. Humboldt’s followers in the United States there are F. Boas, E. Sapir and B.L. Whorf who made a great contribution to the idea of the inseparability of language and culture. Most famous among them are E. Sapir and B. Whorf, known in history of linguistics as the founders of the theory of linguistic relativity. The core idea of this conception is that language modules people’s perception of reality, therefore people who speak different languages see the world in different ways. As the main evidence of this the scholars provided a well known example of the Eskimo language which has a lot of words to denote the notion of “snow” (describing the wet snow, the currently falling snow, etc.) while English has only one word – “snow”. Therefore, according to some scholars, the perception of “snow” in Eskimo and English linguocultures are quite different. Accordingly, as the scholars assert, foreign language ​ acquisition opens new perspectives, and world vision (Sapir, 2012; Whorf, 2013).

The last quarter of the XXth century is considered to be the time of intense study and establishment of Cultural Linguistics. One of the well-known linguists working in this field is A. Wierzbicka who developed “the hypothesis of language universals” (Вежбицкая, 2001, p. 45-46) and published a number of influential comparative works on semantic universals and conceptual distinctions in different languages: “English: Meaning and Culture” (2006); “Emotions Across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals” (1999); “Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words: English, Russian, Polish, German, Japanese” (1997); “Semantics, Culture and Cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations” (1992); “Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction” (1991).

Another well known linguist J.W. Underhill explores the relationships between the linguistic worldview and its reflection and transformation in the individual world picture. J. Underhill in his books “Creating Worldviews: Language, Ideology & Metaphor” (2013) and in “Ethnolinguistics and Cultural Concepts: Truth, Love, Hate & War” deals with the problem of ethnolinguistics, cross-cultural linguistic analysis and the problem of cultural concepts (2015).

In Russian linguistics the researches on the problem of language and culture are also intensively developing. Suffice it to mention the names of such prominent linguists as N.D. Arutyunova, Yu.S. Stepanov, N.F. Alefirenko, V.V. Vorobyev, V.N. Telia, V.A. Maslova and many others who published a number of influential books in the field of Cultural Linguistics (Арутюнова Н. Д. Язык и мир человека. 1998; Степанов Ю.С. Константы: Словарь русской культуры, 2004; Телия В.Н. Русская фразеология: Семантический, прагматический и лингвокультурологический аспекты, 1996; Алефиренко Н.Ф. Лингвокультурология. Ценностно-смысловое пространство языка. 2010; Воробьёв В. В. Лингвокультурология. (теория и методы) –2008; Маслова В. А. Лингвокультурология, 2007).

In conclusion, the followings can be outlined: a) language and culture are inseparably intertwined; b) the relations between language and culture are very complex and multifaceted. On the one hand, culture is a very inclusive phenomenon and penetrates into almost all aspects of human life influencing languages too. On the other hand, language is a tool of not only communication and cognition, but also of culture, which is fixed, stored and transmitted by language. Consequently, the investigation of relationships between language and culture is of paramount importance in modern linguistics.

The role of language in culture representation is difficult to overestimate and it is evidenced by the following quotations of famous scholars:

“Absolutely nothing is so important for a nation's culture as its language” (W. von Humboldt);

Language is ‘a key to the cultural past of a society’, a guide to ‘social reality’ (E. Sapir);

“Language is the spiritual exhalation of the nation.” (W. von Humboldt);

…language does not exist apart from culture, that is, from the socially inherited assemblage of practices and beliefs that determines the texture of our lives (E. Sapir);

“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” (L. Wittgenstein);

“To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.”  (F. Fanon);

“When a language dies, a way of understanding the world dies with it, a way of looking at the world.” (G. Steiner);

“Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going” (R.M. Brown);

“Language embodies the intellectual wealth of the people who use it” (K. Hale);

“Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides” (R. M. Brown);

“Language and culture cannot be separated. Language is vital to understanding our unique cultural perspectives. Language is a tool that is used to explore and experience our cultures and the perspectives that are embedded in our cultures” (B. Sainte-Marie).

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