1. Relationship between Language,
culture, and Identity

2. Presented to:
Miss Urooj Alvi
Presented by:
Tayyba Bashir
Amna Shamir
Memoona

3. Contents
Introduction
Language
Culture
Identity
Culture Influence Language
Language influence culture
Relationship between Language,
Culture and Identity
Conclusion
References

4. Introduction
Language and culture are intricately related
and dependent on each other.
Language is formed by culture, while
culture is influenced and impacted by
language.
Without language, culture cannot be
completely acquired nor can it be
effectively expressed and transmitted.
Without culture, language cannot exist.

5. Introduction
Membership in a culture influences
identity. Assumptions, beliefs, and values
shared with others are a large part of
feeling something in common with other
people.
Identification with a culture results in
striving to gain membership in that
culture.

6. Language
CultureIdentity

7. Language
Language can be defined as the system of
communication comprising codes and symbols
which are used by humans to store, retrieve,
organize structure and communicate
knowledge and experience.
It is the primary instrument in the expression,
transmission, and adaptation of culture.
The learning of a second or foreign language
enables one to view life through another
cultural lens.
culture Identity

8. Culture
It is a set of beliefs, values, norms,
customs, traditions, rituals, and a way of
life that differentiates one group from
another.

9. Culture
culture has the ability to acquire
new characteristics and forms. It is
dynamic - its permutations can
take place from one generation to
another or from one geographical
location to another.

10. Identity
Norton (1997) defines identity as,
“How people understand their
relationship to the outside world,
how that relationship is
constructed across time and
space, and how people
understand their possibilities for
the future” (p. 410).

11. Note
Language, culture and Identity are
dynamic , complex and ongoing
processes.

12. Culture Influence Language
Lexicon, grammar rules, codes and rules of
linguistic communication are all entirely
formed by cultural elements like natural
environment, economic systems, types of
social relationships etc. etc.
Cultural premises and rules about
speaking are intricately tied up with
cultural conceptions of persons, agency,
and social relations.

13. Example
There numerous words to describe
‘snow’ used in the languages of
peoples living in cold countries. For
example freshly-fallen, icy, packing
snow etc.

14. Language influence culture
While on the one hand culture shapes
languages, on the other hand language is also
formed by them. Language is the medium of
culture.
Example:
This is clearly seen in immigrant societies, for
example, in America. These immigrants are
accustomed to a certain language, and
therefore, despite the assimilation, will
continue to use it and keep it alive, creating
different and cultured societies in this foreign
land to keep the language alive.

15. Language influence culture
Furthermore, not only is language an
expression and a display of heritage and
history, it is also the component of culture
that makes it unique, and that creates a
difference from one to another.
“Linguistic differences are also often seen as
the mark of another culture, and they very
commonly create divisiveness among
neighboring peoples or even among different
groups of the same nation. This explains how
language can be a pathway to culture.

16. Thought processes and perceptions of
reality differ from one culture to another.
How people think and speak is ultimately
determined largely by their culture. We
call this Linguistic Relativity.
Language and Thought

17. Benjamin Lee Whorf – Language and
thought are so intertwined that one’s
language determines the categories of
thought open to him or her.
– “simply stated, the Sapir Whorf hypothesis
says, that the content of a language is
directly related to the content of a culture
and the structure of a language is directly
related to the structure of a culture.
Linguistic Relativity

18. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Language is not simply a means of
reporting experience; rather, it is also a
way of defining experience.
“Linguistic relativity is the degree to which
language influences human thought and
meanings. “
linguistic differences between cultures are
associated with cultural differences in
thinking.

19. Relationship between Language,
Culture and Identity
Culture and language shape one’s
identity and personality. There is much
importance of culture and language to
one’s individual identity. Language is a
powerful instrument of identity and
belonging.

20. • The national level
• Rank or social class
• Level of sexual identity or
gender
• The level of generation
• The level of professional
identity
• Culture
There are
numerous
levels of
identification
that are
conveyed by
means of
language:
levels of identification

21. The national level
The national level and the ethnic
and/or regional one, that for historical
reasons play a significant role and on
which we will dwell shortly.

22. Rank or social class
The expressions we use when speaking
to others always reflect the status
relationship between ‘them’ and ‘us’;
close, friendly relations or formal
reserve, respect and deference require
different forms of exchange.

23. Level of sexual identity or gender
• In all societies the ‘proper’ way for women to
speak is different from that for men, a
difference that sometimes goes as far as to
the methodical use of a special vocabulary
and of different syntactical structures. In
European societies it is usually inappropriate
for a woman to use expressions that are too
‘strong’ and direct, or to use pronunciation
that is the characteristic of dialect or slang.

24. The level of generation
• The words that teenagers use are very
distinct from what the older generations
might use.
• Teen speak is very good marker of
identity for teenagers. Similarly, adults
and elderly people use words that
teenagers wouldn't usually use, so they
would be markers of identity for adults.

25. The level of professional identity
• The identifying cohesive element here
is the sharing of technical and special
languages, of jargon that is not familiar
to the community at large.

26. Example
• One only has to think, for example, of the
jargon used by computer programmers,
• but also, albeit in a more subtle way, by
university students where professional
characteristics blend with those of
generation and often of social class, giving
rise to very interesting combinations.

27. Culture
• Whether you speak with a French,
Italian, Greek, Indian, Chinese or
Jamaican accent when you speak
English reveals maybe that English is
your second language and that you
actually grew up in another country and
you spoke a different language.

28. Cont…
• Your grammar may be a little different
and people will think that you are
speaking "bad English" but that is not
the encouraged perspective people
should be taking, it is just a result of
grammar from another language being
adopted into the person's speech when
they speak English and as a result they
speak an ethnolect.

29. Conclusion
• The theoretical perspectives discussed above suggest a
distinctively inseparable relationship between
language, culture, and identity. Individual personal
attributes do not predetermine one’s destiny in life but
are intricately enmeshed into a complex scenario with
other dimensions: one’s own cultural values, the
sociocultural context, language ideology, power
relations, the politics of language, which impact upon
one’s identity causing it to be in a constant state of
flux, ever-changing and shifting depending on the
changing contexts.

30. References
• E. Sapir, Culture, Language and Personality, (ed.
D.G. Mandelbaum), Berkeley 1958, [p./pp.?].
• B.L. Whorf, Language, Thought and Reality, (ed.
J.B. Carroll), Cambridge 1956, [p./pp.?].
• Norton, B. (1977). Language, identity and the
ownership of English. TESOL Quarterley, 31(3),
409-429.
• “Language and Culture.” Think Quest. Think Quest.
Web. 31 Jan. 2011.
<http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/la5.shtml>
.