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Lp: QHF 2013 (Anh K22C)
St: 0919 062 715

H Ni, 5-2016

SEPARABILITY AND INSEPARABILITY OF

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

The issues of language and culture have been a controversial topic for ethnographers
and scholars of other fields which deal with culture and language. The concept of
culture and the relationship between language and culture have been the topic of
academic debates for over a century and it seems that the issues will continue to be a
challenging topic in the field in the future. The paper aims to discuss the separability
and inseparability of language and culture in the light of language education,
particularly English language education.

I. What is culture?
Before dealing with any other issue related to culture, it is necessary to define, or at
least adequately define the concept of culture. Scholars have been debating on an
answer for the question What is culture? for a long time. In 1952, Kroeber and
Kluckhohn listed up to 164 definitions of culture. Until now, researchers are still not
able to create a definition which is unanimously agreed up on. It is not possible to
define culture in the scope of this paper and the writers knowledge. However, I would
like to introduce some definitions which may be sufficient for the purpose of the
paper.
Culture
The Oxfords Dictionary provides two primary explanations of the term culture.
First, it refers to the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement
regarded collectively. Second, it is the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a
particular people or society. From the point of view of language teaching, the second
definition seems to describe more accurately the nature of culture in relation with
language, language teaching, and intercultural communication.
Matsumoto (1996) described culture as ... the set of attitudes, values, beliefs, and
behaviors shared by a group of people, but different for each individual,
communicated from one generation to the next(p.16).
This definition has most important features in common with the definition of the
Oxford Dictionary. Both look at culture in association with human beings in certain
groups or societies. On the other hand, they have differences. First, the most
fundamental difference between them is probably in the subject of culture. Matsumoto
specified that while culture is shared by a group of people, it varies depending on
individuals. Second, Matsumoto also pointed out that culture is not innate. It is learned
and is passed from one generation to another.
A quite recent definition was the one proposed in Spencer-Oatey (2008, p.3). She
define culture as following:
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Culture is a fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to life, beliefs,
policies, procedures and behavioural conventions that are shared by a group of
people, and that influence (but do not determine) each members behaviour and
his/her interpretations of the meaning of other peoples behaviour.
Similar to Matsumoto, Spencer-Oatey described culture as a set of values, and beliefs
of a group of people. There are noticeable differences, however. First, while both
describes culture as a set, Spencer-Oatley specifies that the set is fuzzy, or
unclear. Second, while Matsumoto considers attitudes part of culture, Spencer-Oatley
believes that basic assumptions, orientations to life, and policies are what culture more
accurately is. Third, behaviors are regarded cultured by Matsumoto, while SpencerOatley approaches behaviors something influenced by behavioral conventions which
constitutes culture.
Characteristics of Culture
Despite the fact that there has not been a decent definition for culture, a century of
research on culture did have remarkable achievements. A number of characteristics of
culture have been identified. In 2012, Spencer-Oatey compiled a list of twelve key
characteristics of culture based on a large number of researches.
1. Culture is manifested at different layers of depth.
2. Culture affects behaviour and interpretations of behavior.
3. Culture can be differentiated from both universal human nature and unique
4.
5.
6.
7.

individual personality.
Culture influences biological processes.
Culture is associated with social groups.
Culture is both an individual construct and a social construct.
Culture is always both socially and psychologically distributed in a group, and

so the delineation of a cultures features will always be fuzzy.

8. Culture has both universal (etic) and distinctive (emic) elements.
9. Culture is learned.
10. Culture is subject to gradual change.
11. The various parts of a culture are all, to some degree, interrelated.
12. Culture is a descriptive not an evaluative concept.

This list does not contain all characteristics of culture. However, it maybe serve as a
guideline for researchers who seek their appropriate approach to explore the nature of
culture, and culture in relation with language and language teaching and learning,
especially second/foreign language teaching and learning.
Attempts to define culture continues in the 21 st century; and to keep up with changes
of language and culture of modern time, new terminologies have been proposed by
researchers, including languaculture.
Languaculture
Languaculture, in simple term, refers to an approach to the issue of the relationship
between language and culture which covers both the concept of language and the
concept of culture as an inseparable whole. It indicates that a language does not only
include its linguistic features, but also its associated culture.
As the old and sophisticated approach to language failed to capture the phenomenon
of intercultural practitioners and multi-cultural immigrant diaspora, the demand for a
new approach emerged in the 1990s, which led to the birth of the notion
linguaculture.
The term linguaculture was first created by Friedrich; then it was adapted by Agar
(1994) and became languaculture. According to Agar (1994), language and culture
are inseparable. In other words, one cannot learn a language without learning its
integrated culture, and one cannot learn a culture without learning its integrated
language. Therefore, he suggested that it would make more sense to use
languaculture - a term to cover both language and culture - instead of language and
culture as separated entities (p.232).
In addition, languaculture, according to Agar, is the constellation of rich points in
discourse and the frames needed to understand them along with themes needed to
create coherence (p.232). They are what necessary for intercultural practitioners to
overcome fundamental differences between two different languacultures to thoroughly

understand each other and to reach mutual intelligibility in intercultural

communication.
Based on Agars definition of languaculture, Risager (2005) has suggested a
modification to the concept of languaculture as culture in language (p.191). She
argues that some aspects of language and culture are separable, while others are not;
therefore, this concept may offer us the opportunity to theorize deconnections and
reconnections between language and culture (Risager 2005, p.190).
Risager also suggests three dimensions of languaculture which correspond to three
cultural perspectives on language:
the semantic and pragmatic potential
the poetic potential
the identity potential
The semantic and pragmatic potential has been the focus of numerous studies. It is
about constancy and variability in the semantics and pragmatics of particular
languages (p.191). For example, in English, I is the first person singular pronoun,
while in Vietnamese, there are dozens of words for first person singular pronoun, such
as ti, anh, ch,, em, etc. In English, I is used in all cases; while in
Vietnamese, people have to choose a word based on contexts of discourse.
The poetic potential indicates the aspect of languaculture related to phonological
features of specific languages. For example, in English there are multi-syllable words
(today, summary, development, communication, etc.); while Vietnamese is monosyllable (ti, , nh, vn, etc.).
The identity potential is an aspect of languaculture which explores social variation
of languages and how it is connected to establishment and identification of a persons
identity. This aspect is commonly investigated by researchers in sociolinguistics,
especially those who are interested in exploring the relationship between language and
identity.

Emerged in the last few decades, languaculture is an attempt to deal with the intricate
relationship between language and culture. It may refer to language and culture as a
whole (Agar 1994) or as a whole to some extent and the rest as separated (Risager
2005). There may not be a satisfied description of language and culture yet, but
languaculture is definitely a step forward to accommodate with the fact that language
and culture are changeable and sophisticatedly interconnected.
II. Separability and inseparability of language and culture
Beside the question of what culture is, another challenging question for researchers is
that whether or not language and culture are separable. So far in the history of related
fields, it has been widely accepted that language is part of culture and culture is part of
language. However, the question of whether language and culture separable or
inseparable is still a current topic for debates. Many researchers believe that they are
inseparable, and there are various empirical researches which prove they are. Others
raise the question of this inseparability within the context of the globalization in the
21st century.
From my point of view, this issue is a paradox. On one hand, it is certain that language
and its associated culture are not separable. On the other hand, language and its
associated culture may not be associated, provided that they are under certain
circumstances.
Inseparability of Language and Culture
The starting point to discuss the question of separability and inseparability of language
and culture should be their inseparability.
The idea that language and culture are inseparable is generally accepted by most
scholars in any field related to language and culture, especially in language teaching.
For example, Byram (1989), Byram, Morgan and colleagues (1994), Roberts et al
(2001), as cited in Risager (2006), Brown (1994) and so on.
According to them, language and culture are interconnected, and that language is part
of its associated culture, and culture is part of its associated language. In other words,
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language and culture are inseparable. A clear example for the inseparability of
language and culture could be found in Jiang (2000). Jiang carried out a research in
which native Chinese speakers and native English speakers (American English
speakers in this case) were asked to write additional words to a list of words which
were closely related to their lives. The words were then selected and grouped to
compare the two languages and cultures. The author found out that the words filled in
by native speakers of Chinese and English contains their respective culture, i.e.
Chinese words reflects Chinese culture; English words reflects English culture.
From the result of this research, Jiang concluded that between language and culture
there is always an interactive influence: the two cannot exist without each other
(p.332). This provides more empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that
language and culture are inseparable.
Another simple example to support the inseparability of language and culture could be
found in the case of pronoun in Vietnamese. In Vietnamese, there is a large number of
words referring to the first person, i.e. the speaker, in a conversation, like ti, anh,
t, bc, em, ch etc. These words are equivalent to I in English. They could
also be used to refer to the auditor, as you in English, or the third person pronouns,
like she, he. Therefore, it is not possible for learners of Vietnamese to use these
pronouns properly without sufficient understanding of Vietnamese culture. At the very
least, learners must have basic comprehension of Vietnamese culture; particularly the
aspects of how these words are used in accordance with age and social status of
conversation members, relationship between the speaker and the auditor, and context
of the conversation. In other words, it is not possible to learn Vietnamese without
learning Vietnamese culture, and it is not possible to separate Vietnamese language
and Vietnamese culture in language teaching and learning.
Deriving from experts arguments and analysis of empirical researches, there is solid
evidence that demonstrates that language and culture are inseparable. In fact, the
inseparability of language and culture is one of the very few assertions with strong
supports from most scholars dealing with the issue. To some extent, language and

culture are interconnected, are a part of each other, and cannot be separated from each
other.
However, the relation between language and culture is much more complex than the
conclusion that they are not separable. In recent years, there have been arguments
against the inseparability of language and culture. These arguments raise question on
whether language and culture are always inseparable, and whether or not they are
separable.
Separability of Language and Culture
In the context of globalization of the 21 st century, more and more people learn a new
language and become multi-lingual. Also, cultures spread beyond borders as people
immigrate to other countries and bring their culture with them. The issue of language,
culture, and identity is becoming more and more complicated as languages and
cultures come in contact with one another and the belief that language and culture are
inseparable seem to be insufficient.
Take the research of Jiang in the previous section as example; while English native
speakers in the research are American, the author concludes that English language
contains English culture. The notion of English culture in this conclusion does not
seem to accurately reflect the culture of American participants. What exactly does
English culture refer to? Does it refer to the culture of people in England? Or does it
refer to the culture of people in the British Isle? If it does, then why does the English
that Americans use refer to the English culture? If the native speakers here were
Australian, would their English language convey English culture too? If the speakers
were Indian, for example, what culture(s) would his English convey? English culture,
Indian culture, or both of them?
This change in society creates new requirements for language learners. They no longer
use the target language to communicate with its native speakers anymore. Instead,
they may use it to communicate with all of its speakers, whether they are native or
non-native. This phenomenon is particularly visible in the case of English, as it is now
a global language that people use for international communication.
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Therefore, language teaching and learning have to adapt to meet the demands of the
new era. In particular, apart from developing the students communicative (dialogic)
competence in the target language, language teaching ought also as far as possible to
enable students to develop into multilingually and multi-culturally aware world
citizens (Risager, 2007, p.1). In other words, language learners should have the
ability to use the target language to communicate across their culture and the target
languages associated culture.
To be able to bring up a change to language teaching and learning, Risager (2007)
suggested that there must be a change in the traditional view that language and culture
are inseparable, and that teaching the target culture must be taught together with
teaching the target language. In other words, she questioned the inseparability of
language and culture and its implications in language teaching. Additionally, she
proposed a new approach to language and culture which emphasized on the transnational dynamics from a global point of view (Risager, 2006, p. 2).
Risagers approach is fundamentally based on the idea that languages spread across
cultures, and cultures spread across languages (p.2). She explained this idea as
following:
Linguistic and cultural practices change and spread through social network
along partially different routes, partially on the basis of transnational patterns
of migration and markets.
In other words, people from different cultures could use English to communicate. That
is how the English language spreads across culture. On the other hand, different
cultures could be conveyed through English. For example, when a Vietnamese talks to
an American about ao dai in a conversation in English, then in this case, Vietnamese
culture is transferred through the English language.
This approach, while reaffirming the inseparability of language and culture, proposes
that language, to a certain extent, is separable from its associated culture; and culture
is separable from its associated language.

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In conclusion, it has been widely accepted that language and culture are inseparable. It
is certainly a solid aspect in the relation between language and culture. However, as
globalization and international communication rapidly develop in the 21st century,
more aspects in the relation between language and culture begin to be explore. In this
situation, the demand for a new approach to language and culture has appeared. More
and more scholars are investigating the separability of language and culture, which
significantly contributes to research on language and culture, and its implications in
language teaching.

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Reference
Agar, M., (1994). The intercultural frame. International Journal of Intercultural
Relation, 18, pp. 221 - 237
Brown, H. D. (1994). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching (3rd ed.).
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents
Jiang, W. (2000). The relationship between culture and language. ELT Journal, 54(4),
328-334. doi:10.1093/elt/54.4.328
Matsumoto, D. (1996) Culture and Psychology. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Risager, K., (2005). Languaculture as a key concept in language and culture teaching.
In Bent, P. et al., (Eds.), The Consequences of Mobility, (pp. 185 196). Roskilde
Risager, K., (2006). Language and Culture: Global Flows and Local Complexity.
London: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Risager, K., (2007) Language and Culture Pedagogy: From a National to a
Transnational Paradigm. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Spencer-Oatey, H. (2008) Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and
Politeness Theory. 2nd ed. London: Continuum.

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