EL101 CHAPTER 5-LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL PATTERNS OF THOUGHT.pdf

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE STUDIES
CHAPTER 5: LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL PATTERNS OF THOUGHT
 LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT
Though sometimes simplistically viewed
through its most obvious function of
exchanging information and thought among
people, i.e. through its referential,
communicative aspect, language has other
functions as well. One of the very important
aspects is cognitive which highlights the use
of language as an instrument of thought and
cognition, without necessary communicating
the thoughts to others, as stressed by the
very influential generative paradigm.
The relationship between language, thought and reality has fascinated philosophers and
linguists for centuries, so this article will necessarily be able only to outline some of the
significant research. What we are primarily interested in here is whether one's language
determines or is determined by one's world view. Extending a person's world view to
culture in the broadest sense of the word, we
shall focus on the relationship between
language and its cultural aspects, rather than
psychological ones, on the one hand, and
human cognition, on the other. At the end of
the previous section there has already been
some indication of this issue, when we
mentioned the premise of critical discourse
analysis that discourse not only reflects
reality, but language can be (intentionally)
used in the construction of a particular reality.
Objectives:
 Describe the Cultural Patterns of thought.
 Understand the uses of language thought and cultural patterns.
 Discuss importance of Language and Cultural Patterns of
thought in our daily lives.

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE STUDIES
The idea that the way we see the world is (to some degree) dependent on the language
we use is an old one, but it was most clearly and
influentially voiced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in
his contention that each language contains a
peculiar Weltanschauung (world view), which
causes its speakers to see and think in a
characteristic way, different from the speakers of
other languages. This has become known as the
principle of language relativity.
In the first half of the 20th century these ideas were particularly embraced in America,
by the anthropologist F. Boas and linguist Edward Sapir, and expanded by Sapir and
Benjamin Lee Whorf in what became known as the 'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis' of
language relativity.
Whorf's much-quoted statement that language is 'the shaper of ideas' and that 'we
dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages' has become the credo of
linguistic determinism. Whorf continues; the world is
presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions
which has to be organized in our minds – and this
means largely by linguistic systems in our minds.'
Later, he states: "This new principle of relativity holds
that all observers are not led by the same physical
evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless
their linguistic backgrounds are similar.' (Whorf
1956:213-4, based on Vorf 1979).