{"id":650,"date":"2021-01-03T10:14:12","date_gmt":"2021-01-03T15:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/?p=650"},"modified":"2021-04-11T11:48:06","modified_gmt":"2021-04-11T16:48:06","slug":"language-and-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/03\/language-and-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Language and culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\nIs there any relarionship between them?\n\n\n\nLanguage and culture are intertwined. A particular language usually points out to a specific group of people. When you interact with another language, it means that you are also interacting with the culture that speaks the language. You cannot understand one’s culture without accessing its language directly.\n\n\n\n\u201cThe phrase \u201clanguage is culture and culture is language\u201d is very meaningful. There are not only various interconnections between the two but a lot of history.\n\n\n\nLost in translation\n\n\n\nLanguage consists of five main components: phonology, the study of speech sounds; morphology, the study of the forms of words; syntax, the analysis of the arrangement of words to form sentences; semantics, the study of meaning in language; and pragmatics, the study of context and how it contributes to meaning.\n\n\n\nWhile the first four components form the structure of language, without which language would just be an incoherent pile of symbols \u2014 it is context that adds meaning and intent to language. As a construct, language only has meaning because humans perceive that it has meaning.\n\n\n\nThis becomes even more complicated when one deals with the field of translation where multiple languages are involved. A certain statement may mean one way in one language, but it may mean something completely differen[...x]<\/span>
t in another should a linguist straightforwardly translate the statement word for word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, countries that speak the same language do not necessarily share the exact same culture. This divergent evolution of language creates nuances through idiomatic expressions, slang and other aspects of the vernacular. A speaker of Canadian French might not necessarily have a smooth conversation with a 21st century native French speaker born and raised in France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The late linguist Eugene A. Nida noted that there are two serious misconceptions about language \u2014 human language \u2014 that impede our understanding of the nature of translation and interpretation. First, is the \u201cnaive\u201d notion that languages consist merely of words and grammar; second, is the distorted view that the primary or even sole purpose of language is to disseminate information when, in fact, the informative function of language only occurs in 20 percent of verbal communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nida further explains that language is actually a bundle of related codes rather than just a single, \u201cverbal\u201d code consisting of words and grammar. The verbal code is always associated with paralinguistic, extralinguistic, supplementary, and associative or connotative codes. This extends also to written communications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the sociological functions of language, he notes that language has imperative, performative, emotive and interpersonal functions. He comments that a failure to respect these sociological functions can \u201ccompletely nullify even the most sensitive attention to the purely linguistic factors [of language].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And because of this, the process of translation and interpretation requires a bit more thought beyond merely finding a close equivalent to a particular utterance. It requires a keen sensitivity to cultural and social customs to be able to translate the source into something that is not only intelligible but is also understandable within context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translation and the Cultural Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Filipino sociologist and author Amparo S. Buenaventura wrote in her 1965 paper, the \u201cSocio-Cultural Aspect of Language,\u201d that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greatest obstacle to understanding other peoples lies in the failure to communicate effectively. For one may speak a foreign language with grammatical correctness and yet the thought content may still remain quite foreign. Effective communication involves much more than just learning to substitute one word for another and to master a few sounds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Real communication only occurs when two people understand the situations and assumptions behind the words spoken. And this could only happen if both parties possess a deep sense of each other\u2019s culture, social customs and hierarchy, and thought patterns.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Spanish is widely spoken and taught in the United States and is even considered a de facto official language in some states. However, learning the language formally does not necessarily include the level of acculturation that would allow an American speaker of the Spanish language to understand certain expressions, slang terms and sayings that have evolved out of the particular brand of Spanish spoken by the Mexican people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, even within the context of the Spanish language, which has divergently evolved in the countries and locales that the language is spoken. Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America would add borrowed terms from native American languages and formulate their own sayings, slang and expressions based on their mixed culture. Post-colonial Spanish in Spain would have also evolved with modern expressions and terminologies. Some words may even have different meanings for each country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are dozens of terms for \u201cmoney\u201d in the Spanish language. Aside from the shared terms for it such as dinero<\/em>, people in Spain might refer to it as pasta<\/em> which closely equates to \u201cdough\u201d in American slang. In Costa Rica people might refer to it as harina<\/em> which is literally \u201cflour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are those words that have no direct equivalent \u2014 at least none that could be summed up in a single word or phrase \u2014 words that are uniquely native to a language which would be borne out of a culture\u2019s innate sensibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Machine translation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Localizing websites and software using machine translation is faster and cheaper than using human translators. However, Nida commented that machine translation is inherently flawed as the rules that it follows in translation are tied too closely to the words rather than to concepts (context). Although machine translation has advanced considerably in recent years, This lack of contextual perception makes the outcome a hit-or-miss affair. It is still very much a mathematical operation, following rigid syntactical and semantic rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To remedy this, professional translation services use machine translation as a tool to assist professional translators, primarily to do the heavy lifting for high-volume projects for websites and programs. This means that making the text pragmatically understandable still rests on human hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Language evolution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a human construction, language is organic in the sense that it evolves with its speakers. It continuously evolves as influenced by the context that it exists in. Translators and interpreters must not alienate the study of language from the sociocultural ideas and phenomena that influence its practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is there any relarionship between them? Language and culture are intertwined. A particular language usually points out to a specific group of people. When you interact with another language, it means that you are also interacting with the culture that speaks the language. You cannot understand one’s culture without accessing its language directly. \u201cThe phrase \u201clanguage is culture and culture is language\u201d is very meaningful. There … Leer m\u00e1s<\/a><\/p>\n\n

\n Sharing is caring<\/span><\/strong> \n <\/i> Share<\/span><\/a>\n <\/i> +1<\/span><\/a>\n <\/i> Tweet<\/span><\/a>\n <\/i> Share<\/span><\/a>\n <\/i> Share<\/span><\/a>\n 1049 words 126 views<\/w>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sin-categoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":657,"href":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abudinen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}