culture

4.  The structure of a language determines the way in which speakers
of that language view the world.
 The culture of a people finds reflection in the language they employ:
because they value certain things and do them in a certain way, they
come to use their language in ways that reflect what they value and
what they do.
 There is little or no relationship between language and culture.

5.  The structure of a language influences how its speakers view the world
by the linguist Edward Sapir and his students Benjamin Lee Whorf
 Language and culture were inextricably related so that someone could
not understand or appreciate the one without a knowledge of the other.
 Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the
world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but very much at the
mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of
expression for their society.
 The background linguistic systems, the grammars, is not merely a
reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of
ideas, the program and guide for the individual’s mental activity, for his
analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental stock in trade.

6.  Different speakers will experience the world differently insofar as
the languages they speak differ structurally.
 If speakers of one language have certain words, then speakers of the
first language will find it easier to talk about those things; for
example physicians talk easily about medical phenomena.
 If one language makes distinctions that another does not make, then
those who use the first language will more readily perceive the
differences in their environment which such linguistic distinctions
draw attention to.
 The grammatical categories available in a particular language not
only help the users of that language to perceive the world in a
certain way but also at the same time limit such perception.

7.  The cue to a certain line of behavior is often given by the analogies
of the linguistic formula in which the situation is spoken of, and by
which to some degree it is analyzed, classified, and allotted its place
in that world is “to a large extent unconsciously built up on the
language habits of the group.
 Language provides a screen or filter to reality; it determines how
speakers perceive and organize the world around them, both the
natural world and the social world.
 If a language requires certain distinctions to be made because of its
grammatical system, then the speakers of that language become
conscious of the kinds of distinctions that must be made.

8.  Syntactic evidence can also mislead.
 Certain types of language can be associated with ‘advanced’ cultures
and that others are indicative of cultures that are less advanced.
 ON THE CONTRARY, must we assume that all languages possess
the resources that any speaker might require to say anything that
he or she might want to say in that language?
 IN CONCLUSION, the Whorfian hypothesis is that it is still
unproved. WHY??????

9.  Kinship systems are a universal feature of languages and make use of
factors such as sex, age, generation, blood and marriage.
 There might be terms which are obviously kinship terms but are used with
people who are very obviously not kin by any other criteria usually
employed.
 Sometimes different relationship are described by the same term and similar
relationships are described by different terms.
 A single term may refer to a very different type of relationship.
 Terms used in a kinship system that they carry with them ideas about how
the people ought to behave toward others in the society that uses that
system.
 Kinship systems change to reflect the new conditions.

10.  People use language to classify and categorize various aspects of the world in
which they live, but they do not always classify things the way scientists do;
they often develop systems which is called folk taxonomies rather than
scientific classification
 A folk taxonomy is a way of classifying a certain part of reality so that it
makes some kind of sense to those who have to deal with it.

11.  We sometimes cannot directly translate color words from one language
to another without introducing subtle changes in meaning.
 All language make use of basic color terms.
 It must be a single word
 It is not the obvious sub-division of some higher-ordered term.
 It must have quite general use.
 It must not be highly restricted in the sense that it is used by only a
specific sub-set of speakers.

12.  Basic color terms found in a wide variety of languages reveals certain
very interesting patterns.
 Communities that show little technological development employ the
fewest color terms.
 There is the existence of an order in the development of color terms.
 If speakers of any language are asked to identify the parts of that
spectrum they find one system of such identification much easier to
manipulate than another.

13.  People do in fact classify quite consistently objects of various kinds
according to what they regard as being typical instance.

16.  Certain things are not said, not because they cannot be, but because
‘people don’t talk about those things’; or if those things are talked
about, they are talked about in very roundabout ways.
 Taboo is the prohibition or avoidance in any society of behavior
believed to be harmful to its members in that it would cause them
anxiety, embarrassment, or shame.
 Taboo subjects can vary widely
 Certain language taboos seem to arise from bilingual situations
which bring avoidance

17.  Euphemistic words and expressions allow us to talk about
unpleasant things and disguise or neutralize the unpleasantness.
 People might constantly resort circumlocutions and euphemism in
order to avoid direct mention of matters pertaining to parts of the
body, bodily functions, sex and so on.
 Each social group is different from every other in how it constraints
linguistic behavior in this way, but constrain it in some such way it
certainly does.