Linguistics Blog
Natalie Gross
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
September 7, 2021
Preserving Cultures in the English Language
This article was about how many different languages have social norms ingrained in them and how this affected how they learn and speak new languages. For example, in Spanish there are multiple terms for you and you formal, reflecting their culture and how respectful they are toward people they may not know. This gives people a hard time speaking in languages that have different norms. Shortening sentences and using metaphors are both examples of culture through the language. Through learning languages and how they speak, not just the direct translation can help you to understand not only what they are saying, but also their culture and how they interact with others in many settings. An example given by the article was how in Korean languages there are different ways of referring to people, showing the difference in the power of the people. Through speaking the language the cultural values are shown which may not make sense to you if your culture has different values. The ways of portraying your values in the language have might not have the same effect on people of other cultures. Because of this, you may think that you are being very respectful to someone, but it is actually not. This is why it helps to understand the language and the culture behind it.
Comments
Post a Comment