How Language Helps Groups Identify – 2024 Guide

Language is more than a collection of meaningful words and phrases that we use to express happiness, sadness, or ask for directions to the toilet. It’s something that ties us to a specific region and even to a profession or preference, and in a globalized and constantly connected world, that’s never been truer.

While talking about it, how can one forget about culture. Language and culture go together side by side like peanut butter goes with jelly. They both are interrelated with each other thus; these two aspects cannot be separated from one another. Both of these factors define who a person is, what his/her belief is, what his/her values are, what traditions do they have, what habits do they have, they basically define almost everything about his/her everyday life.

Now language, again, is a method of human communication that includes writing, talking and using signs. It is a way of expressing one’s thoughts verbally. It allows a person to convey what they feel, to convey their needs, to develop a communication in order to grasp the situation better and is also a key to people’s hearts. It is a tool used to connect two or more people. In ancient times, people needed to communicate. They needed to devise a solution that would enable them to convey their thoughts. They came up with the solution of using signs, gestures, and symbols. As time passed by, they then created written as well as oral discourse.

Culture

If we talk about culture, we can rightly say that it is basically our daily way of life. How we eat, sleep, live, dress, greet, address, talk and even sing or act, all of this is named as culture.

The following factors affect and define our way of life in one way or another:

• Behavior.
• Values.
• Region.
• Language.
• Traditions.
• Thoughts.

It is a force that binds people by threads unseen, by bonds unknown. It unites people; it is the “glue” that makes sure that the bond of harmony between people remains forever.

Relationship between Language and Culture

Language and culture are intertwined. A specific literature points to a specific gathering of individuals. At the point when you connect with another dialect or style, it implies that you are likewise associating with the practice that speaks the language. You can’t comprehend one’s culture without getting to its language directly
At the point when you become familiar with another style, it not just incorporates learning its alphabet and the guidelines of sentence structure, but also knowing about that particular society’s traditions and conduct. When learning new semantics, it is significant that the lifestyle should always be referred to, because language is very much instilled in it.

Culture influences language, bringing about words, affecting their use, and providing meaning. Discourse, thus, withstands the way of life, advancing social bonds. Culture is inbred in language. For example, when a group of people share an inside joke and laugh while you understand nothing of it at all, this makes you feel left out and shows us that how different ways of life provide different meanings. Hence, we can say that without understanding society, one can never understand the words and meanings behind them

Communication is an important part of the culture and the human way of life can not exist without it. It is, therefore, through the use of writing that we know how to express our beliefs, norms, and values.

• Communication is one of the most important inventions made by culture.
• Culture is learned, or known through the use of language.
• The human way of life wouldn’t have existed without the existence of language.

Since every society is different, it needs a different style to speak. One of the main examples is the titles that we use to label a single person. All words do have relationship terms such as mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, etc but all of them aren’t put down in the same category. For example, in some dialects, the term father is not only used for the male parent rather it is also used for male brother as well.
If we talk about the social customs and we take an example of Arabic history, the animal Camel is quite well-known and they use 40 different names to point to a camel.

Hawaiian culture has 65 different words for fishing nets. They use 108 different words for sweet potato and for sugar cane, they have 42 different words.

Cultures die as languages disappear. It won’t be wrong to say that to keep the knowledge alive, the writing must live as well. With the death of a culture, the world loses its charm piece by piece until there comes a day when there would be no culture left and no specific language to speak. As a culture dies, raw knowledge dies alongside it as well.

Language and Culture in the UK

It’s often said that there are around 40 dialects in the United Kingdom, and it seems that every time you travel for a few dozen miles, you encounter a new one. It doesn’t matter where you’re from and what dialect you speak, you can usually understand what someone is saying if they have another accent.

On a local level, however, that’s not always true. Someone from London likely can’t tell the difference between Northumbrian and Geordie or West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire, but the closer you live to these regions, the more pronounced those differences become.

The further away a Geordie gets from home, the more likely they are to change their accent to accommodate people who may not understand. However, if you take them closer to home, they’ll feel much more at ease when they are speaking fluently.

It’s not just a regional thing, either, as the same is true for certain hobbies and professions.

Take bingo halls, such as any of these here, as an example. Walking into a bingo hall for the first time can feel like you’ve only just learned to speak English and suddenly find yourself surrounded by Scousers, Geordies, and Cockneys. You’re fairly sure that they’re speaking English and you can somewhat understand what they are saying, but a lot of the words are flying over your head.

That bingo jargon is not just there to confuse outsiders. It’s there because it gives insiders a sense of community and camaraderie. From the bingo calls to the terminology shared between players, it all adds to the sense of togetherness that players feel.

In other words, when they are in the bingo hall and playing with their friends, they can let themselves go and feel at home, just like that Geordie on his way home from London. But as soon as they leave the bingo hall, that lingo disappears and they adjust how they speak, like the Geordie on his way to the capital.

The same is true for building sites, pubs, football grounds, and even gyms.

If you talk about squats, deadlifts, KGs, and PBs to the average person on the street, they’ll look at you like you’ve lost your mind, but if they are a fellow gym-goer, they’ll know exactly where you’re coming from and you’ll form that familiar connection, just like bumping into someone who has the same accent when you’re in another country.

That’s the power of language. In a single conversation with anyone from the United Kingdom, you can understand where that person is from, what kind of background they have, what their preferences are, and what they do for a living—even if that conversation has nothing to do with any of those things!

Conclusion

With all the facts mentioned above, it won’t be wrong to say that culture and communication are intertwined in such a way that:

“THE RELATION OF CULTURE AND LANGUAGE IS THE WAY THEY SHARE HUMAN VALUES, REALITIES, AND BEHAVIOURS OF A SOCIAL GROUP”

Language and Culture both are fundamental and intrinsic needs of a human being because there is no survival without either of them. It depends on us as to how we utilize them for our betterment.

To understand a style, one must know its cultural background. Furthermore, if you want to learn any language, it is equally important to know and understand the culture of the natives who speak the language. If you want excellence in a speech, you must know about the socio-cultural aspects so that you know how to properly talk to people in a foreign language.