Language and Culture

Language and its Relationship to Living in Society

Language is more than just a singular component of culture. It is a symbol system that acts as a glue to bind cultures together. Reference to language in relation to most human societies and cultures nearly always involves spoken communication and written language; one notable exception is the culture of deaf individuals, which relies on language that is signed rather than language that is spoken.

The relationship between language, communication, and culture is complex. While language is a powerful and necessary tool to unite individuals in particular cultures, it may act as a barrier or be used to exclude or separate people in a society and within cultures. The author Ben-Rafael, in discussing Zionist immigrants to Israel, explained that, even though these individuals belonged to a common culture, they had migrated from Russia, Poland, and other eastern European countries with varying competencies in languages. Identification with a culture becomes dependent upon prior social context, and the choices of language and language adjustment are not always simple matters.

Members of a Sephardic family who moved from Bulgaria to Israel could speak between two and four languages besides Hebrew, and each member, [Page 1408]especially the grandfather, was determined to speak one of the alternative languages to Hebrew at home. We can assume that immersion into Israeli/Hebrew society affected family interactions as well as their perceptions about their language use in society. Ben-Rafael explained that the grandmother criticized her husband for using Bulgarian because it was a non-Jewish language. And the grandchildren preferred English to Hebrew because it would support their future university studies and help them converse with visitors and during travel abroad.

...