Cultural linguistics

FarzadSharifian1
MonashUniversity,Australia farzad.sharifian@monash.edu

Introduction In the broadest sense of the term, cultural linguistics refers to the sub-branch of linguistics that explores the relationship between language and culture. More specifically, it attempts to understand language as a subsystem of culture and examine how various language features reflect and embody culture. Culture here is meant in the anthropological sense; that is, as a system of collective beliefs, worldviews, customs, traditions, values and norms shared by the members of a cultural group. Research on the relationship between language and culture has significant implications for areas in applied linguistics that require an understanding of language as a system firmly grounded in culture. These areas include intercultural communication and teaching/learning foreign languages. Interest in studying the relationship between language and culture is not new. It can be traced back at least to the eighteenth century. Wilhelm Von Humboldt (17671835), Franz Boas (18581942), Edward Sapir (18841939), and Benjamin Whorf (18971941), are prominent scholars who all emphasized the relationship between language, thought and culture. The most well-known and controversial view in this area is known as the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis, and was based on the work Sapir and Whorf conducted on the Hopi languages of America. They concluded that speakers of different languages think differently and have different views of the world. They argue that since different languages dissect the world differently, the structure of the language spoken determines the thought patterns of the speaker. A milder version of this hypothesis, known as the weak version, simply states that language, thought and perception are interrelated. In more recent decades, a number of American anthropological linguists, most notably Dell Hymes and John J. Gumperz (e.g., Gumperz & Hymes, 1972), placed the study of language within the context of culture and society. Hymes and Gumperz, Hymes in particular, established a framework for the ethnography of communication, or culturally distinctive means of communication. Cultural linguistics as a branch of cognitive linguistics The term cultural linguistics was perhaps first used by a pioneer of cognitive linguistics, Ronald Langacker, in an argument emphasizing the relationship between cultural knowledge and grammar. He maintained that the advent of cognitive linguistics can be heralded as a return to cultural linguistics. Cognitive linguistic theories recognize cultural knowledge as the foundation not just of lexicon, but central facets of grammar as well [italics original] (Langacker, 1994, p. 31). However, in practice, so called mainstream cognitive linguists were united by their main focus on exploring the relationship between language and conceptualization. The role of culture in shaping language and its influence on all levels of language was not adequately dealt with until the publication of Toward a Theory of Cultural Linguistics by Gary B. Palmer, a linguistic anthropologist from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In this book, Palmer argued that cognitive linguistics can be directly applied to the study of language and culture. Central to Palmers proposal is the idea that language is the

FarzadSharifianisProfessorandDirectorofLanguageandSocietyCentreatMonashUniversityinMelbourne, Australia.
1

Pleaseciteas Sharifian,F.(forthcoming).Culturallinguistics.InC.A.Chapelle(ed.)TheEncyclopaediaofApplied Linguistics.London:WileyBlackwell.

play of verbal symbols that are based in imagery [my italics] (Palmer, 1996, p. 3), and this imagery is culturally constructed. Palmer argued that culturally defined imagery governs narrative, figurative language, semantics, grammar, discourse and even phonology. His work on cultural linguistics, based on the analysis of cases from languages such as Tagalog and Coeur dAlene (e.g., Palmer, 1996, 2003), revealed how the basic analytical tools of cognitive linguistics, such as schema, image schema, and conceptual metaphor, can be grounded in cultural knowledge. The notion of schema has been very widely used in several disciplines, and this has led to different understandings and definitions of the term. For cognitive linguists such as Langacker, schemas are abstract representations in the sense that a noun, for example, instantiates the schema of [[THING]/[X]], whereas a verb instantiates the schema of [[PROCESS]/[X]]. In classical paradigms of cognitive psychology, however, schemas are considered more broadly as building blocks of cognition used for storing, organizing and interpreting information. Image schemas, on the other hand, are regarded as recurring cognitive structures which establish patterns of understanding and reasoning, and are often formed from our knowledge of our body as well as social interactions (e.g., Johnson, 1987). An example of this would be to understand the body or parts of the body as a container. Such understanding is reflected in expressions such as with a heart full of happiness. Conceptual metaphors are defined as cognitive structures that allow us to understand one conceptual domain in terms of another. For instance, the English metaphorical expression you broke my heart reflects the conceptual metaphor of HEART AS THE SEAT OF EMOTION (e.g., Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Palmer persuasively argued that all these conceptual structures are very likely to have a cultural basis. A number of other linguists have also emphasized the relationship between language and culture, most notably Wierzbicka (1979), who introduced the term ethno-syntax (see also
Enfield 2002, Wierzbicka 1992). Mathiot (1979) edited a collection of essays, which she called ethnolinguistics, in which the contributors explored the relationship between language and worldview. Ethnosemantics has been a subfield of anthropology since at least the 1960s, and the aim of ethnosemanticists has been to study the ways in which different cultures organize and categorize domains of knowledge, such as those of plants, animals, and kin (Palmer, 1996, p. 19). Goddard, a close associate of Wierzbicka, edited a volume entitled Ethnopragmatics: Understanding Discourse in Cultural Context (Goddard, 2006). In this book the contributors provided a cultureinternal perspective towards speech practices across different languages. Another influential trend of work on the relationship between language and culture has been what might be described as the socialanthropological/sociolinguistic approach, influenced by the work of scholars such as Michael Agar. Agar (1994) used the term languaculture, following Paul Friedrichs (1989) linguaculture, to describe the relationship between language and culture. For Agar, langua relates to discourse, not just words and sentences, and culture underlies meanings. This work is further developed in Risagers (2006) treatment of global flows and local complexity, where she explores the intricate relationship between language and culture from a transnational perspective, presenting a critique of simplified accounts of language and culture. This view emphasizes the fact that [l]inguistic and cultural practices change and spread through social networks along partially different routes, principally on the basis of transnational patterns of migration and markets (Risager, 2006, p. 2). All these enterprises can be subsumed as part of the broad discipline of cultural linguistics.

Palmers proposal for a theory, or perhaps paradigm, of cultural linguistics inspired a number of cognitive linguists to examine in depth the grounding of language in culture. For example, one of the main strands of research within cognitive linguistics is to explore how a conceptual metaphor is grounded in bodily experience (e.g., Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). Within this area, those who adopt a cultural linguistic perspective explore how such conceptual metaphors are different from language to language and how such

conceptualizations have their roots in particular cultural traditions such as ethno-medical belief systems (e.g., Sharifian, et al., 2008; Yu, 2009a, b). The theoretical direction that Palmer initiated has been further developed in the work of Sharifian (2011), in the form of a multidisciplinary framework that draws on theoretical advancements in several disciplines and sub-disciplines, including cognitive linguistics, cognitive anthropology, cognitive psychology, complexity science, distributed cognition, and anthropological linguistics. This framework, termed cultural conceptualizations and language, views language as firmly grounded in a group-level cognition that emerges from the interactions between the members of a cultural group. Two important aspects of cultural cognition are cultural conceptualizations and language. Cultural conceptualizations are defined as conceptual structures such as schemas, categories and conceptual metaphors, which not only exist at the individual level of cognition but also develop at a higher level of cultural cognition, where they are constantly negotiated and renegotiated through generations of speakers within a cultural group, across time and space. These cultural conceptualizations are heterogeneously distributed across the members of a cultural group, in the sense that individuals do not exactly share all the elements of the conceptualizations that are drawn upon by the entire group. Language is a primary means for encoding and communicating cultural conceptualizations, serving as a memory bank for the cultural conceptualizations of a particular cultural group.
Examples of the grounding of language in cultural conceptualizations

To cite an example of the grounding of language in cultural schemas, everyday words such as family and home are, when used in Aboriginal English, associated with Aboriginal cultural schemas and categories. The notion of family lends itself to complex systems of categories and schemas in Aboriginal English which may be opaque to Anglo Australians (Sharifian, 2011). The general cultural category of Family, to start with, usually moves beyond that of nuclear family and captures the extended family including cousins, and cousins of cousins, etc. Subcategories such as father, mother, aunt and uncle may include people whom an Anglo Australian would categorize as second cousins. Aboriginal kinship systems are classificatory systems (Tonkinson, 1998), where, for example, the term for father might refer to ones father as well as fathers brothers, and the term for mother may refer to ones mother as well as mothers sisters and, in some cases, mothers brother and even mothers cousins. The corollary is that ones cousins are thus considered and called brother and sister, or cousin brother and cousin sister. At the schema level, each of these categories is associated with complex schemas that embody knowledge about behavior and obligation. Each kin term carries with it the obligation to observe certain behavioral rules known to all, and this makes it easy for the interaction to proceed along well-defined lines, regardless of whether the person encountered is loved or hated, admired or feared (Tonkinson, 1998: p. 151). The Aboriginal cultural schemas of Family embody behavioral rules such as restraints relating to touching, joking, calling by name, direct eye contact, the passing of objects from hand to hand, visiting other persons camp, argument, sexual innuendo and physical assault (Tonkinson, 1998: p. 153). As an example of how cultural conceptualizations can govern syntactic devices, cultural classification in the Australian Aboriginal language Murrinh-Patha requires 10 noun classes (Walsh, 1993). These classes are identified through noun class markers appearing before the noun. The following list gives the class markers with its associated category (Walsh, 1993: p. 110): 1. kardu: Aboriginal people and human spirits 2. ku: non-Aboriginal people and all other animates and their products

3. kura: potable fluid (e.g., fresh water) and collective terms for fresh water (e.g., rain, river) 4. mi: flowers and fruits of plants and any vegetable foods. Also, faeces 5. thamul: spears 6. thu: offensive weapons (defensive weapons belong to nanthi), thunder and lightning, playing cards 7. thungku: fire and things associated with fire 8. da: place and season (e.g., dry grass time) 9. murrinh: speech and language and associated concepts such as song and news 10. nanthi: a residual category including whatever does not fit into the other nine categories. This system of noun classification is entrenched in Murrinh-Patha cultural conceptualizations. Walsh argues, the fact that fresh water, fire and language have separate classes indicates the prominent place each holds in the culture of the Murrinh-Patha. These examples clearly reveal how language can serve as an archival site for cultural conceptualizations, whether or not such conceptualizations remain at the conscious level of the speakers.
Applications of cultural linguistics

Palmers proposal for a cultural linguistics also inspired studies that have applied cultural linguistics to areas such as intercultural communication and second language learning. A theme session entitled Applied Cultural Linguistics was organized as part of the 8th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, University of La Rioja, Spain in 2003. This led to the publication of an edited volume with the same title (Sharifian & Palmer, 2007). The contributions to this volume focused on Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Persian, English, Aboriginal English and African English. The studies in this volume collectively provided evidence about how learning a second language (or a language variety) involves learning a new conceptual system including new cultural schemas, conceptual metaphors and image schemas. For example, the chapter by Ning Yu explored the Chinese conceptualization of the heart in the context of traditional Chinese medicine and philosophy (see, also, Yu 2009b). Yu maintains that the Chinese cultural model of the heart gives rise to metaphors that profile the heart as a physical entity (e.g., THE HEART IS A CONTAINER), a part of the body (e.g., THE HEART IS THE RULER OF THE BODY), and the locus of affective and cognitive activities (e.g., THE HEART AS THE HOUSE OF ALL EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL PROCESSES). He contrasts this conceptualization with the heartmind dichotomy, which characterizes Western cultures. Thus, Yu demonstrates that cultural schemas rival bodily schemas as sources of conceptual metaphors. As for the implications of his observations, Yu draws on the notions of conceptual fluency and metaphorical competence developed by Danesi (e.g., 1995). The notion of metaphorical competence was proposed as an addition to the more traditional notions of communicative competence and linguistic competence. The idea is that the metaphorical basis of the language-to-be-learned, which is largely derived from cultural models, should be made explicit to the learners to help them achieve fluency at the cultural conceptual level. In the case of L2 learners of Chinese, Yu maintains that a clear delineation of Chinese conceptual metaphors, such as those associated with the heart, facilitates second language learning and enables L2 speakers to avoid misunderstanding in intercultural communication. A cultural linguistic approach has also recently been adopted by the study of intercultural communication. For example, Sharifian (2010) explored intercultural communication between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians and observed how lack

of familiarity with the cultural conceptualizations that interlocutors draw on during intercultural communication can lead to miscommunication, severely disadvantaging speakers from less powerful groups in contexts such as in the courtroom and the classroom. The following is an example cited in Sharifian (2010) from a real life conversation with a speaker of Aboriginal English, who was drawing on an Aboriginal spiritual cultural schema: A: My sister said, When you go to that country, you not allowed to let em [them] take your photo, they can sing you. The word sing in the above sentence instantiates the Aboriginal cultural schema of singing, according to which, when a man has fallen in love with a girl he may try to obtain some strands of her hair, a photo, or something similar in order to sing her, a ritual incantation. Singing is supposed to make the girl turn to the person who had sung her, and refusal to do so may cause her to suffer a serious or even fatal illness. Unfamiliarity with this cultural schema would confuse or create misunderstanding in interlocutors listening to the statement quoted above. In addition to the areas of applied cultural linguistics discussed above, Sharifian (2011) presents several studies where he has adopted the framework of cultural conceptualizations to explore topics of an applied nature in cross-cultural pragmatics, English as an International Language, and political discourse. His in-depth study of compliment responses in Persian reveals how the enactment of speech acts can dwell in cultural schemas that have long been developed as part of the cultural cognition of a speech community. As for the use of English as an International Language, it is observed that English is increasingly adopted by more and more communities of speakers around the world to express their cultural conceptualizations, instead of those of Anglo English speakers, and this fact has serious ramifications for the field of English Language Teaching (ELT). In the area of language and politics, discourse produced by politicians and about politicians and political events often makes heavy use of culturally constructed figurative language, particularly metaphor and metonymy. When such discourse is literally translated, the result is often an intentional or inadvertent misrepresentation of the original discourse. Overall, the approach of cultural linguistics to applied areas of inquiry appears to be very promising, although at this stage such studies have just begun to appear. John Benjamins has recently launched a new book series with the title of Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts, which promote and disseminate research in cultural linguistics.
References:

Agar, M. (1994). Language shock: Understanding the culture of conversation. New York: Mm. Morrow. Danesi, M. (1995). Learning and teaching languages: The role of conceptual fluency. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 5: 320. Enfield, N. J. (Ed.). (2002). Ethnosyntax: Explorations in culture and grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friedrich, P. (1989). Language, ideology and political economy. American Anthropologist 91(2): 295-312. Goddard, C. (Ed.). (2006). Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Gumperz, J. J., & Hymes, D. (Eds.). (1972). Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Langacker, R. (1994). Culture, cognition, and grammar. In M. Ptz (Ed.), Language contact and language conflict, 2553. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Mathiot, M. (Ed.). (1979). Ethnolinguistics: Boas, Sapir and Whorf revisited. The Hague: Mouton. Palmer, G. B. (1996). Toward a theory of cultural linguistics. Texas: University of Texas Press. Palmer, G. B. (2003). Talking about thinking in Tagalog. Cognitive Linguistics 14/2,3: 251 280. Risager, K. (2006). Language and culture: Global flows and local complexity. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Sharifian, F. (2010). Cultural conceptualizations in intercultural communication: a study of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 33673376. Sharifian, F. (2011). Cultural conceptualisations and language: Theoretical framework and applications. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Sharifian, F., Dirven, R., Yu, N., & Neiemier, S. (Eds.). (2008). Culture, body, and language: Conceptualizations of internal body organs across cultures and languages. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Sharifian, F., & Palmer, G. B. (Eds.). (2007). Applied cultural linguistics: Implications for second language learning and intercultural communication. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Tonkinson, R. (1998). Mardudjara kinship. In W. H. Edwards (Ed.), Traditional Aboriginal society (2nd ed.). Melbourne: Macmillan. Walsh, M. (1993). Classifying the world in an Aboriginal language. In M. Walsh & C. Yallop (Eds.), Language and culture in Aboriginal Australia (pp. 107122). Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Wierzbicka, A. (1979). Ethno-syntax and the philosophy of grammar. Studies in Language 3/3: 31383. Wierzbicka, A. (1992). Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configuration. New York: Oxford University Press.

Yu, N. (2009a). From body to meaning in culture: Papers on cognitive semantic studies of Chinese. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Yu, N. (2009b). The Chinese HEART in a cognitive perspective: Culture, body, and language. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Suggested readings: Holland, D., & Quinn, N. (Eds). (1987). Cultural models in language and thought. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kvecses, Z. (2006). Language, mind, and culture: A practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kramsch, C. (1998). Language and culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shore, B. (1996). Culture in mind: Cognition, culture, and the problem of meaning. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.