1. Definition of Language
It is obvious that everyone held a particular view about the language he or she uses either for personal reasons, professional requirements, or social settings. It is also clear that the incompatible views about language are formulated upon the assigned roles each one has been given in his societies. It seems that language is a complex human phenomenon.
In this respect, there are many definitions as many as researchers about the nature of language. Throughout history, it is considered as the best human beings tool with which human beings could express feelings, needs, experiences, attitudes, and communicate among each other. The entirely human community use language to get in contact and at the same time to entrap the knowledge, traditions, etc. by making it remain for the next generations over time (Salehi, 2012: 76). In this line, Oxford Dictionary (2007: 829-830) suggests that “language is that system of communication in speech and writing used by people of a particular country or area”. So, language is a means of communication and preservation of human’s heritage through the written form at the same time.
Numerous alternative definitions are elaborated from this respect, some of them are; “the totality of utterances that can be made in a speech community is the language of the speech community” (Bloomfield, 1957: 26). Chomsky (1964: 13) viewed it from his generative theory and described it as a set of finite or infinite of sentences, each one is finite in length and is constructed out of finite set of elements. He makes further distinctions between language manifestations. He introduces the notion of E-Language (External Manifestations) and I-Language (Internal Manifestations). According to him, E-languages are appropriate for society, politics, etc. Following this language pattern, it would lead us to conclude that a language is a social fact and a kind of a social contact. It does not exist within individuals themselves, but in a community as a whole. In this way, a language could be seen as follows; “it is a treasure buried by the practice of speech in people belonging to the same community, a grammatical system which has virtual existence in each brain, or more exactly in the brain of a collection of individuals; because language is not complete in any individual, but exists only in the collectivity” (De Saussure, 1961: 30).
To sum up, language has been seen to have two main purposes; to enable communication between people and to represent the world that surrounds them (Eriksson, 2009: 7). But in order to reach this level of communication, there is a need to achieve what is stated by Oxford Dictionary “language is to be able to communicate easily with another person because you share similar opinions and experiences” (829-830). In this respect, it can be understood that there are myriad of languages, communities, and cultures. In order to communicate successfully with people of different languages it is really imperative to tackle the issue of language beyond the boundaries of First Language “FL” to move to learn about Second Language and Foreign Languages as well. That is why the concepts of first language, second language and foreign language are all relevant in this respect.
2. Definition of Culture
Before approaching the topic of the relationship between language and culture, it is imperative to consider the significance of the term culture per se; what culture is, what are the definitions suggested to culture? Generally speaking, culture is viewed as a complex issue to define; it is a wide and diverse word with several perspectives. The diversity of the term has led to a debate among researchers. They points out that there are as many definitions for culture as researchers in order to get more into its deep meanings. According to (Nieto, 2010: 135-136), “culture is a slightly problematic and complex concept since it can mean very different things for different people in different contexts”. Each one tries to provide the most workable definition for culture.
The word culture derives from the Latin word ‘colere’ which has the following meanings as; ‘to build’, ‘to care for’, ‘to plant’, or ‘to cultivate’. As a result, this term generally refers to something that is derived from, or created and refined by the intervention of humans (Dahli, 2002:1). According to Fries (2002:3) “for example, Latin scholars might emphasize the agricultural roots of the term culture, which are still apparent in French language (e.g. “la culture du mais”). Culture in the past was viewed as an asset of a particular category within any community by referring to them as “culture” or “cultivated” and speak about them as “highly cultured people”.
While the new intercultural approach to culture proved that all human beings “have culture”, no matter what their level of formal education is and every person is a member of his culture even if he or she is illiterate. It seems that culture is a purely human behavior shared and interchangeable among humankind whoever they are “culture is an abstract entity which involves a number of usually made-man, collective and shared artifacts, behavioral patterns, values or other concepts which were taken together from the culture as a whole” (Dahl, 2002: 1).
Culture form anthropologists point of view is seen as the phenomenon of man, not simply man per se, but including everything that can be altered in and around him (history, geographic, locations, language, social class, religion, evolution, tools, etc.). According to Wagner (1981: 12) “by and large, though, the concept of culture has come to be so completely associated with anthropological thinking that if we should ever want to, we could define an anthropologist as someone who uses the word “culture” habitually”. Some of them have succinctly described culture as follows “culture is a man’s medium; there is not one aspect of human life that is not touched and altered by culture in terms of how people express themselves, show their emotions, the way they think, how they move, how problems are solved, how their cities are planned, as well as how economic and government systems are put together and function” (Hall, 1959). It seems that the term culture encompasses all manifestations of life.
Some researchers think of culture as that mutual understanding and agreement between members of certain one society about the values, rules, expectations, etc which direct their behaviors and actions. Corbett (2003) continues on the definition of culture and states that it involves all that outside norms and conventions established and transmitted from one generation to another one within any particular society. Cultural values are constructed and adopted by its society as a common sense knowledge that differentiate it either partially or completely from others, it can be concluded that what is considered as a highly cultural acceptable values for “X” society may be less or unacceptable for others. others state that a group‘s culture is a set of unique characteristics that distinguishes its members from other groups in the sense that each group develops its own culture. In fact, we all belong to a number of different groups such as ethnic, family, function, gender, etc and participate in constructing the culture of the groups to which we are part in them.
The notion of culture occupies a central position in the field of human and social sciences. According to Hollins (2008: 18) “culture simply is a learned pattern of thought and behavior that are passed from one generation to another and are experienced as distinct to a particular group”. Lappalainen (2011), states that there are three different educational criteria for defining culture. The first is the international dimension of cultures because it is a universal human phenomenon. It is imperative to consider the contributions of the national dimension of culture since it is the most common reference for intercultural differentiation. The second one is the contribution of history because all societies are subjected to changes. The last one is about the mental process in the sense that culture is the thinking experience which is a purely human related fact in which it can exist only in human experience (Lappalainen, 2011).
So it is a simultaneously action and a state of being towards everything around us as Hollins (2008: 18) points out that “culture is derived from understandings acquired by people through experience and observation about how to live together as a community, how to interact with the physical environment, and knowledge or beliefs about their relationships or positions within the universe”. Culture by this way is about the question of who we are and how we exist in the world.
So, it is that learned behavior everywhere on the earth where individuals share a context with other people. It can be assumed that everyone whatever his status is, has several of what is called cultural skills because culture is that symbolic heritage learned that makes humans acquire or learn human behavior (Pavan, 2009: 125).
To conclude, the most basic words that best define culture is that all the trends of defining culture seem limitless and perfectly working definition is that one best fits one particular purpose. The aim of stating all the previous definitions is to keep the process of defining culture as clear, simple, and meaningful as possible. It is a must to organize thought and define culture according to those definitions that are pertinent to any particular context. Since many EFL teachers and learners have had or are expected to have some personal, academic, and professional experience of dealing with more than one culture. As an example, at least, everyone have intentions to interact, deal, and communicate with people of other cultures other than theirs through the medium of communication.
3. The Interrelationship between Language and Culture
According to (Jing, 2010: 8) “language and culture are closely linked because language and culture are both integral parts of human life for communicating as supported by many scholars”. The nature of the relationship between language and culture is that; language determines thought and culture; language influences thought and culture; culture influences people’s language; and finally language and culture influence each other. He again advocates that language and culture are highly interrelated and suggest that language cannot be studied without incorporating its culture and culture cannot be studied in isolation from the language in which they are spoken. In this line, Jing (2010: 1) adds that they are inseparable.
According to Han (2010) “culture is something like making bread with butter in. it is named as butter bread. If butter is spread on the top of the bread, it is not butter bread” and “culture and language are twins, look very much like each other. People cannot easily distinguish who is who”. Brown (2000: 177) says more about the relationship between language and culture “a language is a part of a culture, and a culture is a part of a language; the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture”. In other words, since language is regarded as a means of communication, this implies that it is the responsible one for cultural content’s transmission. In the light of this relationship, it appears that there is a close relationship between language and culture. Language is a key component of culture. It is shaped by culture and it is further the primary medium for spreading the culture. Finally, it seems that language is more than culture and vice versa.
According to Lappalainen (2011: 17), “language has a central role as a maintainer and reformer of a culture because it shapes the community’s views of the world through texts.” Byram and Esarte-Sarries (1991: 5) state that language is the main medium for expressing other phenomena, including culture. Through the language, the different elements of culture are expressed such as values, beliefs and meanings and it also refers to the objects of a given culture. Lappalainen, (2011: 17) adds more on this role and points out that the relationship is at the same time psychological, sociological and political in the sense that a language offers people a way to express their cultural backgrounds to other people. As far as the role of language in culture is concerned, he says that the attitude towards language and culture has, however, slightly changed throughout the history. In the past, one of the main tasks of a language was to protect one’s own culture from strangers and dangers. Nowadays this role is reversed as the aim is to bring cultures together and try to understand each other. So, there is plenty of space to say in case the question of how language affects culture is considered.