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language and culture

 

We should also note that two speakers who are bilingual, that is, who have access to two codes, and who for one reason or another shift back and forth between the two languages as they converse are actually using a third code, one which draws on those two languages.
             Understanding of Culture.
             Culture is a cover term. It can be approached from different perspectives and consequently defined in quite different ways. It seems that there is no satisfactory definition that enjoys a general acceptance by scholars of all sciences. Nevertheless, culture can be, in a broad sense, understood as the total way of life of a people, their approach to life and their ways of behaving, particularly living and thinking. This simple, but inclusive definition of culture implies that culture covers virtually all the aspects of human life and their correspondent behavior, linguistic and nonlinguistic, such as traditions, conventions, social norms, customs, social habits, modes of living, patterns of thinking, beliefs, values, experience, world outlook and language.
             Culture is often bound up with language, which is independent. A nation's culture and language often symbolize the nation's spirit and mind.
             The culture of a people, in an anthropological sense, refers to all the aspects of shared life of the community. Children brought up in the community learn the ways of looking at things, the ways of doing them, the ways of keeping interpersonal relationships, what they value, despise and avoid, what they expect of others and what they are expected of by others. These attitudes, reactions, values, beliefs and assumptions are the ways of behaving and constitute the main part of their way of life without being conscious of them. All these culture-loaded or conditioned features are often mirrored and recognized in their behavior, social relationships, social and moral values, and in art and literature. A particular language is acquired and used within such a sociocultural meanings from the culture-specific objective world.


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