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Does Language Influence Culture?

 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages Post Reply
17 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
Juаn
Senior Member
Colombia
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 Message 1 of 17
26 July 2010 at 3:58pm | IP Logged 
Great article on the WSJ here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870346730457538 3131592767868.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

By the way, I agree with Charlemagne's quote there; one of the main reasons why learning foreign languages is so thrilling to me.

About Chomsky and his hypothesis, that we're unequal makes learning about each other worthwhile.

Edited by Juаn on 26 July 2010 at 4:01pm

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ladanoise
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United States
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 Message 2 of 17
26 July 2010 at 4:34pm | IP Logged 
This is a fascinating article - I have already sent it to some friends and posted it on facebook. I agree with Charlemagne also, it's what makes language learning so much fun.
Thanks for sharing it with us.
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schoenewaelder
Diglot
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Germany
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 Message 3 of 17
26 July 2010 at 6:19pm | IP Logged 
I need to know what contols they employed to eliminate the possibilities that:
Russians are better able to distinguish blues, which is why the use more options in their language;
cultures with better spatial and navigational skills tend to use cardinal directions in their language;
cultures that aren't very good at counting, don't use specific numbers much in language; and
cultures with poor temporal awareness don't use tenses much.

I'd also like to know exactly what the sentence was regarding the "wardrobe malfunction", becuase I can't see myself how they could have been identical apart from the phrases mentioned (there's a challenge for someone). And what societies have law systems that focus on restituting the victims?

But then I have a very suspicious nature. I blame it on ...oh never mind.



Edited by schoenewaelder on 26 July 2010 at 6:20pm

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aarontp
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 Message 4 of 17
26 July 2010 at 7:08pm | IP Logged 
Page no longer available?
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Kary
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Canada
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 Message 5 of 17
26 July 2010 at 7:12pm | IP Logged 
schoenewaelder wrote:
And what societies have law systems that focus on restituting the victims?


Well, there are sentencing circles for First Nations and Inuit (which have expanded in more general use). However, I have no idea how that links with language since the languages involved are very diverse.
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Juаn
Senior Member
Colombia
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727 posts - 1830 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*

 
 Message 6 of 17
27 July 2010 at 12:53am | IP Logged 
aarontp wrote:
Page no longer available?


Make sure there are no spaces in the link when you copy it to your address bar.
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johntm93
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 Message 7 of 17
27 July 2010 at 3:40am | IP Logged 
I'd say language can influence culture culture and vice versa. It all depends. If you start a country and make a new language, whatever the culture of the people is there would (obviously) have effect on the language. You can see this with Korean and Japanese, there language has different levels of formality (more than two, which a lot of languages have) how they have all the different levels of formality; you can assume they had a society where respecting others was valued (this doesn't mean people who speak a language without honorifics don't respect others, though). If you take a language from another country (like the US did from England, and how Latin American countries got Spanish from Spain) the culture of your new country will probably be shaped kind of similarly to the one where the language comes from.
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Marc Frisch
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Germany
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 Message 8 of 17
27 July 2010 at 11:07pm | IP Logged 
Juаn wrote:
aarontp wrote:
Page no longer available?


Make sure there are no spaces in the link when you copy it to your address bar.


Still doesn't work...


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