Culture has been defined as ‘the total set of beliefs, attitudes, customs, behaviour, and social habits of the members of a particular society’. Our culture informs us what is appropriate, what is normal, what is acceptable when dealing with different members of our society. Our tradition lets us know what to anticipate from others, what they will say in certain situations, and the style in which they will say it. It lets us know how they will act, and the way they will react. It is the knowledge of the ages handed down to the present. We are affected by it, and it is affected by us. Tradition is in a constant state of flux, changing incrementally, altering the way we speak and the way we think, the way we act and the way we react.
That tradition is indelibly linked to language is undeniable, for language is a vehicle by which it is transmitted, probably its chief vehicle. One observable way in which language acts as a vehicle for, or a transmitter of, culture is in the use of idiomatic language. Idiomaticity is arguably the most typical form of language, in terms of percentages of the whole. Idiomatic language, most frequently found within the form of phrases consisting of more than one word, usually does not conform to say the grammatical construction of non-idiomatic language. For instance, within the phrase, ‘at giant’, as used within the expression, ‘the public at large’, or in the sentence, ‘The escaped convicts were at large for two weeks before being recaptured.’, the preposition ‘at’ seems earlier than what appears to be an adjective, ‘large’. This seems to be in direct contradiction to the ‘regular’ place such a part of speech occupies in a grammatically appropriate sentence, viz. earlier than a noun, resembling within the following examples, ‘at dwelling’, ‘at work’, ‘on the office’ et al. The phrase, ‘at large’ appearing on the web page in isolation from any context that will make its meaning more transparent, has an opaque quality the place semantic that means is anxious, and maybe still retains some of its opacity of which means even within the context of a sentence.
To members of the community utilizing such idiomatic language, there is tacit agreement on what these phrases imply, despite their opaque quality. Idioms are cultural entities.
To learners of a overseas language, any overseas language, tradition imbues language with this opacity. The word, table is well understood and realized, but what in regards to the phrase, ‘to table a motion’? That phrase carries a cultural value that isn’t readily appreciated or apparent to a learner. The which means doesn’t reside in the individual words that make up the phrase. The verb, ‘to table’ must initially seem nonsensical to a learner. Likewise, ‘a motion’ must seem like an anachronism, having realized that motion is a synonym for the word ‘movement’.
Each culture has its own assortment of phrases that are peculiar to it, and whose meanings should not readily apparent. Had been this not so, George Bernard Shaw’s adage that America and Britain are nations separated by the identical language would have no ironical appeal. Ostensibly, we speak the identical language, the British and the Individuals, however both varieties use many alternative words, and have many alternative phrases which are usually mutually unintelligible, and sometimes uttered very differently. Typically only the context in which a phrase or word is used serves to disentangle. Typically even the context shouldn’t be quite enough. Typically we think we’ve got understood when we’ve got not.
This points out another characteristic of culture certain language; that it exists within a bigger entity, that localized varieties exist. What is comprehensible to an individual from one region could also be unintelligible to one from another. If this is true within the community of a particular set of users of 1 language, how much more should it hold true to learners of that language. Many a learner of English, feeling herself proficient, has gone to England only to seek out the language at worst totally unintelligible, and at finest emblematic, but still not absolutely comprehensible.
The ‘cultural weighting’ of any language, in the form of idiomatic phrases, is understood by members of that cultural community, or maybe more appropriately, and more narrowly defined, by the members of that particular speech community, and conversely, just isn’t readily understood by those who come from one other culture or even another speech community, albeit ostensibly within the same culture.
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