In light of what you know about linguistics and the nature of language, comment critically upon the views in the following statements:

Essay by VersuviusUniversity, Bachelor's June 2004

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In light of what you know about linguistics and the nature of language, comment critically upon the views in the following statements:

1.If you learn a foreign language, you can't in the process avoid learning the culture of

those who speak it.

It is widely acknowledged that a language, or particular strand of a language is a reflection of the society in which it is spoken. Language is also seen as portraying ones social or cultural identity. Claire Kramsch noted this correlation when she writes; "Through all its verbal and non-verbal aspects, language embodies cultural reality". We can accept that this is true of all languages, not just English.

Kramsch looked at contrasting culture with nature. Nature being what we are born with (ie the means to speak and communicate) and culture being our social surroundings and what we are taught (ie Learning a particular language along with all it's social characteristics).

She went on to pose the question;

"The word culture evokes the traditional nature/nurture debate: Are human beings mainly what nurture determines them to be from birth or what culture enables them to become through socialization and schooling?"

Kramsch goes on to say that culture and nature need and interact with each other. This suggests that speakers of a language learn not only how to speak it, but also the social norms and issues of etiquette that go with it. This shows that people who belong to a certain language will learn their culture whilst learning how to speak, read and write. However, this doesn't suggest that people who learn a foreign language will also acquire the cultural significance of it. Linguistic features such as regional and social dialects and accents would be almost impossible to acquire for someone who has previously not spoken that language or...