Interaction of language, culture, directionality, and Whorf’s Hypothesis

Interaction Of Language And Culture, Directionality, And Whorf’s Hypothesis 

There is a relationship that exists between language and culture. Culture in this context meaning the knowhow one needs to know or have to get through the daily routine of life, and behave in a manner acceptable to the rest of society. Language is part of a society’s culture and is acquired socially, but not genetically inherited. 

The Directionality of Influence 

One possible relationship between language and culture is the direction of influence that social structure of a society may either determine or influence its linguistic structure. For instance, older children will speak differently from young children while the adults will speak differently from older children thus the social organization of age groups influences the language used by the groups. Another evidence of this direction of influence is studies that indicate that the different languages that speakers use reflect matters like their gender, social and ethnic background and their region. 

The other possible relationship is the direction of influence that linguistic structure or behavior may influence or determine social structure or worldview such views are behind recommended language reforms meaning if we change the language we can change social behavior. For example, a reduction in the use of sexist language can lead to a decline in sexist attitude. 

Another possible relationship is that the influence is bi-directional meaning that language and society may influence one another.Certain language reforms rely on this direction whereby certain changes in linguistic behavior are as a result of changes in a society’s norms. For example, realization that generic ‘he' is not all-inclusive, may boost the morale of female speakers and push them to claim inclusion, this would result to language change and higher awareness of gender equality. The last possible direction is the assumption that there is no relationship between linguistic behavior and social structure. Each is independent of the other. 

Whorfian Hypothesis 

Whorf stated that the structure of a language influences how its speakers view the world. In his view, the social categories we create and how we perceive actions and events are constrained by our language. He explained that different speakers speaking different languages will experience the world differently. According to Whorf, if one language makes a clear distinction that another fails to do, then speakers of the first language will easily understand the relevant differences in their surroundings. For example, doctors will talk more easily about medical phenomena than people who have not been trained in this field because they have the vocabularies. If a language groups some materials as either long and thin or roundish, peoplewill perceive objects in this way and objects will naturally fall into these classes. This extension further strengthens Whorf’s hypothesis because classification systems based on gender, number, time, substance and shape are subtle and more pervasive and has a stronger effect on language users than vocabulary differences alone. Whorf differed with the linguistic structure of Hopi because of the kind of linguistic structure he associated with familiar European languages like French, English, and German. He perceived them as sharing many structural features and named the whole group of languages as Standard Average European (SAE). He stated that Hopi and SAE were different in their structural structure (Wardhaugh , 2010). 

Reference. 

Wardhaugh, R. (2010).  An introduction to sociolinguistics 7 th edition . John Wiley & Janet M 

Fuller.