Sociolinguistic Assignment

Language, Cognition and Culture

Language refers to a system of symbols that is used to communicateinformation and knowledge.Cognition can be thought of as the act or process of obtaining knowledge,including perceiving, recognizing, reasoning, and judging. It involves thinking, knowing, remembering, categorizing,and problem solving. Culturalinfluence, mental processes, and language are dynamic processes that occursimultaneously. This means that constant social interaction with thosearound us helps shape the quality of mental abilities and language at variousages.

            The way a person speaks generally signals at least some social information about their background such as what kind of social group or class they belong to. Language not only reflect and express our membership of social categories, it also contributes to the construction of our social identity. In addition, language also reflects society’s attitudes and value, so it can strongly influence perception and behaviour.

In conclusion, both language and cognition are cultural phenomena. Consequently, languageand culture are both part of a person’s ecological system where theycontribute jointly to an individual’s experience.

Language and perception

It has been said that “bad girls get babies, but good girls get myomata” Surgery is also indicated when… hormone… treatment has failed to control the symptoms…

            Since many women erroneously believe that following hysterectomy, their sexual urge ceases, that coitus is not possible and that obesity is usual, the physician must example that removal of the uterus has no side-effects ….

Perhaps the most obvious feature of the text it its impersonal and detached tone which is achieved through the use of agent less passive construction   (surgery....is indicated) impersonal nouns (the physician, the patient), and formal devices such as nominalizations. So for example, surgery is indicated, rather than doctors think that people need surgery when ............. or even think that..... This construction also permits the author to neatly avoid drawing attention to reason for the failure o the treatment to control symptoms.  Hysterectomy is described as the treatment of choice, allowing the author to avoid the issue of whose choice. Women are depicted as at least ignorant, if not gullible with their ‘erroneous’ beliefs, and primarily in their role as potential child-bearers, since invasive surgery is to be avoided as long as the woman’s reproductive function needs to be maintained. And the opening sentence present a patronizing , if no insulting, saying as if it is common knowledge, although its technical word myomata (benign fibroid tumor of the uterus)indicates it could only have been produced by physicians. In conclusion, language reflects society’s attitudes and value and it may also determine what people notice, what categories they establish, what choices they believe and available and consequently the way they behave. Thus we can conclude that language can strongly influence perception and behavior.

Verbal Hygiene

            Verbal hygiene is the thought-provoking term used by Deborah Cameron to describe how the people respond to the urge to meddle in matters of language. It covers range of activities from writing letters to the editor complaining about the deterioration and abuse of language through prescriptions and proscriptions about what constitutes proper, correct and acceptable usage in a context to use language as a political weapon.

Vocabulary and cognition

The relationship between language, thought and ‘reality’ has fascinated linguists and philosopher for centuries.Whorf was an anthropological linguist who began his career as a chemical engineer working for a fire insurance company.

We dissert nature along lines laid by our native languages. the categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized in our minds - and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organized it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way- an agreement that hold throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is of course an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees.

Base on example above and illustrate of example 5 on the book that around gasoline drums labeled as ‘empty’, people would smoke or even toss in cigarette stubs despite the fact that they were full of potentially explosive vapor. Thus for conclusion, the particular words (vocabulary) selected to describe or label objects often influenced people perceptions and behavior.

Linguistic Determinism: The Medium is The Message

The people from different cultures think differently because of differences in their language. Few sociolinguists would accept such a strong claim, but most of them accept that the weaker claim of linguistic relativity that language influence perceptions thought and at least potentially behavior. The categories provided by a language may favor certain ways of perceiving reality or the world and make certain behavior easier. However we must also recognize the limitations of such evidence.

Grammar and Cognition

Grammatical categories such as tenses, aspect, and gender encode aspects of reality differently in different language. Whorf’s analysis of the Hopi verb system let him to argue that the Hopi conception of time is fundamentally different from that of western cultures. Speakers of European languages often conceive time as a road, for instance with the future ahead and the past behind. Whorf suggested this reflects the verb tense system of indo-European languages. Appropriately conjugating Hopi verbs, however requires an analysis of events in term of dynamic motion, expressed by aspect markers, rather than by tenses marking, their distribution in time. This led Whorf to conclude that the Hopi think in term of cycle of events and set of processes rather than units of time. He even argued that Hopi was better equipped to deal with the wave processes and vibrations of modern physics than English was. These basic concepts of physic for which English needed metaphor such as waves and vibrations, were directly and obligatorily coded in the verb morphology of Hopi and this, according to Whorf, “practically forced the Hopi to notice vibratory phenomena”.

In fact, later analysis of Hopi indicated that Hopi does have tenses and words for time units. But, while Whorf detailed claims do not hold up, most sociolinguists consider that his general point is an interesting one with implications for the way speakers of different languages and cultures filters or cut up reality. It is widely accepted that certain concepts may be more cod able or easier to express in some languages than in others.

Linguistic categories and culture

Native American and Australian Aboriginal languages are often cited as exampleswhich roundly refute popular misconceptions about primitive language. French requires every noun to be assigned to one of two gender, Dyirbal and Australian Aboriginal language, has four such categories. Using western criteria, the traditional nomadic lifestyle of the aboriginal people of Australia seems very simple. Their culture, however, is thousands of years old and their languages are amongst the most interesting and grammatically complex that have been researched. Every noun in Dyirbal belongs to one of four classes. Consequently whenever a Dyirbal speaker uses a noun in a sentence the noun must be preceded by one of four classifiers: baby, balan, balam, or bala.

I Bayi	II balan	III balam	IV Bala
Men                                 women                           edible fruits                     parts of the body Kangaroos                       bandicoots                      fruit                                 meet Possums                          dogs                                tubers                              bees                  Snakes                             platypus                          ferns                               bud Fishes                              birds                                cigarettes                        grass Insect                              spears                               wine                               noise Storms                             water                               cakes                              language The moon                        fire                                   honey fishing spears                  stars boomerangs                     sun

Particular types of experience establish associations which determine the class membership of some items. Dyirbal myths and cultural belief also make a contribution to class allocation. The system is of course totally automatic for Dyirbal speakers, and should not necessarily expect a speaker to be able to explain it to an outsider.  Language provides a means of encoding a community’s knowledge, beliefs, and value or its culture.

Discourse patterns and culture

Culture differences and the discourse patterns of the majority and minority culture can often have serious consequences, as the research of Diana Eades, comparing Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Australians. Both groups apparently use the same language, culturally different patterns of interaction can be a source of misunderstanding. Aboriginal society throughout Australia places great importance on indirectness, it is important to avoid being intrusive. This involves giving other people interactional privacy, a crucial mechanism in a society where there is frequently little physical privacy. In Aboriginal society, some kinds of information are not freely shared, but may be restricted to those who have the right to it, and silence is much more common as an acceptable component of interaction than in non – Aboriginal exchange. Since non – Aboriginal norms dominate Australian society, Aboriginal people often disadvantaged and misunderstood or misinterpreted in interaction. This is especially true in contexts such as law courts where direct questions are the norm, and silence can be interpreted as evasive and even as evidence of guilt. Cross-cultural differences between in way of interacting shown that where there is a power imbalance between the groups involved can create serious communication problems for minority group members.

Culture described as ‘positive politeness’ or solidarity-oriented cultures value involvement with others, while ‘negative politeness’ cultures emphasis respect and minimize intrusion.  On the basis of descriptions so far, Aboriginal society seems a classic negative politeness culture. In fact, however Aboriginal society is characterized by high interactional involvement, on going – serial, open-ended conversation, and place great value on group activities which build solidarity. Things are never as simple as they seem, and the analysis of interaction patterns in Aboriginal communities raises questions about the adequacy of the simple negative/positive politeness framework.

Aboriginal interaction give personal relationships priority over information-oriented goals, they prioritize the affective over the referential dimension. It seems that discourse patterns and linguistic usage may reflect and even influence a particular view of social reality and socio-cultural relationships.

Language, Social Class, and Cognition  

Researchers began to examine features of working-class children’s speech, looking for an explanation there. Unfortunately, they assumed that the kind of language working-class children used in a formal interview situation to a middle-class adult was an accurate representation of their sociolinguistic competence. In such situation, not surprisingly, the children used short, even monosyllabic, responses which suggested to the interviewers that their linguistic resources were ‘restricted’.

Bernstein suggested that a ‘restricted code’ might constrain the cognitive abilities of those who used it. In other words, extending the principle of linguistic determinism. He argued that the language children use might affect what they are capable of perceiving and even their thinking abilities.

Bernstein hypotheses forced sociolinguists to examine Whorf’s claims about the relationship between language, thought and society really thoroughly. One of the benefits was a more detailed study of vernacular varieties, and a very clear recognition that the dialect differences was comparatively superficial aspects of language which could not conceivably have consequences for different ways of thinking. Though Bernstein phrased his claims with care, they were often oversimplified and misinterpreted. His research appeared to support a view of working-class children as linguistically deprived, and their use of vernacular forms as evidence of cognitive deficit.

Conclusion

Language influences our perceptions of reality and it clearly influences perception in such cases. On the other hand, the language and discourse patterns associated with a particular culture may not only reflect existing social relationships, they may also influence the way one group interact with others. The language is also a valuable source of insight into the perceptions, values, beliefs and attitudes of a community.