Cultural variation in language use

Abstract

The idea that culture manifests itself in language can be traced back to the works of Humboldt, Sapir, and Whorf (Humboldt 1971[1836], 1988[1836], 1997; Sapir 1949; Whorf 1956). The idea that was initially formulated at the level of a hypothesis was later supported with empirical evidence based on the studies of varied languages and cultures. A close link between linguistics and anthropology allowed for this perspective in linguistics to develop and to acquire a methodological grounding. In order to understand exactly how culture manifests itself in language, connections between a language and the culture of its speakers must be identified. 'Culture' here means people's shared ideas, meanings and understandings. In particular, Clifford Geertz's definition of culture is helpful. In his view, the concept of culture "denotes a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life" (Geertz 1973: 89). Geertz uses a metaphor suggested by Max Weber to explain how an anthropologist can approach the task of studying culture: "Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be not an experimental science in search of law, but an interpretive one in search of meaning (Geertz 1973: 5)." A linguist's task is therefore to search for and interpret the meanings of such "webs" as they are encoded in language. As rightly suggested by Geertz, a semantic focus of such studies becomes imperative in unravelling cultural variation in language. Empirical research aimed at identifying cultural influence in language lead to the understanding that culture manifests itself in language in a variety of ways. "Cultural ideas" penetrate language and get encoded in the meanings of lexemes, morphemes and grammatical constructions.