HUE UNIVERSITY
OPEN AND INFORMATICS INSTITUTE
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FINAL ESSAY OF
“LANGUAGE AND CULTURE”
TOPIC: “Culture is the product of socially and historically
situated discourse communities”
Lecturer: HUYNH CONG MINH HUNG
Student: LE TUAN THU
Class: TAY NINH
No ID: 7057300003
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Introduction
As defined by UNESCO, culture is "The set of distinctive spiritual,
material, intellectual, and emotional features of society or a social group that
encompasses not only art and literature but also lifestyles, ways of living
together, value systems, traditions, and beliefs" (UNESCO, 2009).
According to James Spradley, an anthropologist, "Culture is the acquired
knowledge people use to interpret experience and generate behavior". Culture
is a multifaceted and intricate concept that is influenced by a range of factors,
including social, historical, and linguistic elements. Experts in the field of
cultural studies have acknowledged the crucial role that discourse
communities play in shaping cultural practices and beliefs.
Culture emerges as a result of ongoing symbolic communication and the
allocation of significance to our common world. All of us together possess the
power to reinterpret the signs that constitute our discursive environment and
change the meanings attached to them. This community can replace the
cultural reality that is consistent with their own views and values for the one
they received (Foley, 2011). It's important to realize that a significant portion
of the culture we encounter today is created by a monopolized media
discourse that frequently presents itself as undeniable factuality.
It is, however, up to the discourse groups themselves to interpret the
reality they encounter via discourse. While we are affected by discourse and
cultural constructions as individuals, we also have the ability to alter how we
have been formed. People have the right to express their own opinions and to
reject any interpretations that are imposed on them. Once people realize that
culture is something that can be developed collaboratively rather than
something that is preset, they may substitute any official culture with one that
better represents their many interests and points of view.
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In this essay, we will analyze the statement "Culture is the product of
socially and historically situated discourse communities" and provide relevant
examples and evidence to support our views.
I. Analyze
Culture is an advanced term that emerged in Western discourse
within the 18th century. Culture envelops different perspectives of human
life, counting convictions, values, traditions, conventions, dialects,
expressions, and social norms. It makes a difference when we get it and
decipher the behaviors, habits, and ways of life of diverse bunches of
individuals (Barker, 2001). Culture is seen as what distinguishes mankind
from nature (Thompson, 2011).
Culture (derived from the Latin cultura, from colere, which means "to
cultivate") primarily refers to the patterns of human behavior and the
symbolic frameworks that give these patterns significance. The notion of
culture is understood as "systems of symbols and meanings that even their
creatorscontest, lack fixed boundaries, are constantly in flux, and interact
andcompete with one another".
Besides, some believe that culture is primarily non-material, with an
emphasis on intangible aspects involving dialect, convictions, conventions,
and standards of society. Fisch regards culture as symbolic, as arranged inside
a conversation, and rejects the concept that culture also includes the
materiality (ordinary goods, antiques, and individuals) of a community.
Others consider it as an exchange between the real world (the world beyond
discourse) and the meaning assigned to it.
This essay discusses culture as an instance of how talk circulates within
and among certain talk communities, and it illustrates the obvious conundrum
that "culture" is itself a culture-bound concept.
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By the end of the 1990s, the pioneer concept of culture had been
supplanted by late pioneer concepts such as historicity and subjectivity, which
concentrated on the authentic and subjective nature of culture, conceived as
co-constructed "membership in a talk community that offers a common social
space and history and common imaginings" (Eagleton, 2016). Individuals
in the group may maintain a shared set of standards for perceiving, accepting,
evaluating, and acting upon, even after they have left. According to this
concept, various academic and methodological viewpoints have been taken
into consideration while examining the relationship between dialect and
culture.
The change has greatly influenced the way we think about culture
today. Culture has been used more and more to explain behavior without
taking into account its material foundations starting in the first decade of the
twenty-first century. Essentialist cultural theories argue that a wide range of
observed phenomena, including linguistic patterns and even language choice,
may be satisfactorily explained by culture itself. Because beliefs and values
cannot be monitored, this may put us at risk. Cultural views thus run the risk
of losing their grounding in reality and turning into arbitrary interpretations at
best or prejudices at worst in the common consciousness.
In the final analysis, it is easier to understand how culture is ingrained
in linguistic signs and how they are used now that a lot of fields of study
connected to Applied Linguistics have emerged in recent years. There are
three major links between language and culture: semiotic, linguistic, and
discursive. Torture is agony, regardless of how we think or feel. Nevertheless,
by renaming it something other, such as "enhanced interrogation technique,"
one might change the degree of intelligence and intensity of the emotion
evoked by the words (Mathias, 2021). Not in a predefined or dictionary-
defined way, but rather by the enunciation techniques utilized by speakers and
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authors, as well as the affective, social, and political connotations they assign
to certain words.
II. Assessment
Through their interactions with other members of the same social
group, people who identify as members of that group (family, neighborhood,
professional or ethnic association, nation) develop shared worldviews.
Throughout their lives, institutions including the family, the school, the place
of employment, the church, the government, and other socialization sites
reinforce these viewpoints. Members of the group use language in ways that
reflect shared attitudes, beliefs, and values, such as what they choose to say or
not say and how they express it. As a result, in addition to the idea of a speech
community made up of individuals who share a common linguistic code, we
can also refer to a discourse community, which describes the typical ways in
which members of a social group utilize language to fulfill their social
demands. They can be distinguished from others not only by the grammatical,
lexical, and phonological characteristics of their language (such as teenage
talk, professional jargon, or political rhetoric), but also by the subjects they
choose to discuss, how they present information, how they interact, or simply
their discourse accent. For example, Americans have been indoctrinated to
say "thank you" in response to each remark, as if it were a kind gift: "I like
your sweater! 'Oh, thank you!'. The French would rather downplay the
compliment and reduce its worth because they tend to view such a comment
as an invasion of their privacy: "Oh, really? It's fairly old already! The
responses of the two groups are based on the different meanings that praise
has in the two cultures, as well as the different levels of shame that personal
remarks might create. This perspective on culture is concerned with the
current modes of thinking, acting, and valuing that members of the same
discourse group share. Cultures have been passed down verbally and in
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writing from one generation to the next, becoming ingrained in
therecollections of group members who have either personally experienced
them or have only heard about them. Because the cultural practices that are
readily apparent at any given time have developed and cemented over time,
this explains why they are frequently mistaken for normative conduct.
Canagarajah also claims that the only thing that people in such
communities may have in common are their common goals (such as those
related to their career, business, church, etc.). People travel from their various
communities to resolve their conflicts and create common ground by using
positive tactics (Kramsch, 2014). Though this cosmopolitan
perspective on global citizenship might seem more fit for our mobile,
decentered society, it is a misconception that it eradicates culture. Only the
negotiation of goals and interests in cooperative professional, business,
orgious undertakings has replaced local culture as the exchange of
worldviews, attitudes, and beliefs among families and friends (Keating,
2011). Indeed, it could be argued that under the new framework, project
managers' skills in collaboration and negotiation are valued.
What we lack to comprehend the logic of this classification, according
to Foucault, are "the fundamental codes of the culture" that governed the
manner of thinking of the people who lived throughout the period. What we
are missing is knowledge of the conventions, assumptions, and speech norms
that such a classification enacts (Kramsch, 2014).
Furthermore, we are unaware of the relationship that exists between the
classification of animals and other phenomena, such as diseases, students,
citizens, and past events. Like dictionaries, test prep guides, instruction
manuals, parenting manuals, and, in the modern world, social networking,
encyclopedias are constantly creating and shaping the culture that people live
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by. A particular culture is not simply performed by its members in the form of
such encyclopedias.
As some have feared, the performative turn in post-structuralist studies
of language and culture does not reduce culture to a simply discursive
process, susceptible to all the relativity and subjectivity of people's verbal
utterances and devoid of any clearly established social boundaries. It
emphasizes the fact that culture is man-made, historical, and disciplinary, and
that it has the authority to impose normative definitions and shared
understandings of individuals and events on a social group. Language-using
groups create social norms and customs that specify social norms. As in
Dickinson's poem, poets, readers, florists, lovers, horticulturists, producers of
rosepress, makers of perfumes, and users all contribute to the meanings that
poems have.
Literacy education and writing technology, inheritors of a print culture
that began in the 16th century and has piqued scholars' interest in literacy
issues such as genre, style, register, and norms of interpretation, have laid the
groundwork for applied linguists' comprehension of language and culture
(Lewis, 2004). The literary legacy has produced structuralist perspectives on
language and language use. For example, a highly literate culture that allows
practical linguists to record, analyze, and interpret spoken data from a
structuralist perspective is only legitimate from an academic position to the
extent that it is literate rather than oral.
National cultures eager to use print technology to separate educated
from less educated citizens and to instill in the young the political and moral
ideals that go along with such technology have a history of monitoring
literacy practices in this way.
This kind of oversight of literacy practices has long been practiced by
national cultures anxious to use print technology to distinguish educated
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citizens from less educated citizens and to inculcate in the youth the political
and moral ideals that go along with such technology. The implications of the
new technology and its applications in language teaching have not yet been
critically examined in any great depth by applied linguistics (Kern, 2006).
Since it is necessary to prepare language learners for the "real" world of
online communication, the majority of researchers see the computer as just
another tool for accomplishing print literacy goals, including the
communicative competence that is taught in instructional environments.
Many have argued that the virtual culture of computer-mediated
communication provides the best learning environment for applying the post-
structuralist movement to language and cultural instruction (Chun, 2016).
This setting supports the communicative objectives of language
education, including learner autonomy, communication with native speakers,
interaction with other non-native speakers, collaborative learning with more
experienced peers, and learning through tasks that simulate real-world
situations. The decentered perspective of the individual at the whim of
society, diffused cognition, plagiarism risk, many identities, and an obviously
addicted dependence on the opinions of others are all brought about by a
single mouse click. It is crucial to consider the political and ideological
implications of every new technology, including print culture, multimodal
modes of expression, and virtual cultures on the Internet (Kramsch, 2014).
Language plays a crucial role in the survival of culture, especially when
it is written (Mazari, 2015). The culture of customs and rituals is influenced
by the culture of sharedheritage and customs. People identify as belonging to
a society to the extent that they can take part in its history and that they can
relate to the way it looksback on the past, concentrates on the present, and
looks forward to the future. Culture is the historical aspect of a group's
identity. A social group's representation of itself and others through tangible
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products over time, such as technological advancements, monuments, works
of art, and popular culture which mark the development of a social group's
historical identity, is the focus of this diachronic view of culture. Through
institutional processes that are also a part of the culture, such asmuseums,
schools, public libraries, governments, businesses, and the media, this
material culture is replicated and preserved. The Eiffel Tower or the Mona
Lisa are physical objects, but via the words and writings of painters,
artcollectors, poets, novelists, travel agents, and tour guides, they have
beenpreserved and given the prominence they have on the cultural market. In
particular, language plays a critical role in the survival of culture.
The discussion leads to three main conclusions. First of all, language
and culture can coexist without being mutually exclusive. Secondly, without a
fundamental shift in the concept itself, culture cannot be both behavior and an
explanation for behavior. Thirdly, the transformation of languages by
discourse can be studied through the lens of culture. It provides an illustration
of how shared meaning is defined sociopolitically.
Discourse communities are commonly conceptualized as verbal
communication networks. Members of discourse groups who are wealthy
and/or powerful surely broadcast more and acquire influence by controlling
specific meanings. As some discourses acquire traction, the kinds of social
and economic transformations that are labeled as "globalization" are
becoming more and more "discourse-led" (Rutten, 2011). Thus, the people
who can most easily bring about change are those who have the capacity to
stand up and share their thoughts with other communities. Even the least
attentive listeners are within its impact zone, though. In the complicated
public arena of the twenty-first century, overhearers play an increasingly
crucial role as bridges between and across communities as more people join
an increasing number of distinct discourse groups.
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Conclusion
The result of people's constant symbolic interaction—through which they give
meaning to their shared environment—is culture. Culture is diverse on social,
historical, and imaginative levels. We have the ability to alter the significance
and rebuild the elements that make up our discursive world. Members of the
same discourse community may differ in age, gender, ethnicity, and political
viewpoints, as well as in their biographies and life experiences. Members of a
discourse or culture form a virtual interpretive community, however, able to
substitute their own cultural reality for the inherited one. Conversation
communities themselves must, nevertheless, develop an understanding of the
world through conversation. They can replace any official culture with one
that fits their personal interface, no matter how varied, once they realize that
culture is less something that is predetermined and more something that can
be created together. In addition to being diverse and dynamic, cultures also
serve as arenas for conflicts over authority and respect. In conclusion, culture
is the shared social space, shared history, and shared imaginations of a
discourse community. Members of that community may continue to use the
same set of norms for thinking, feeling, judging, and acting even after they
have departed. These norms make up what is typically referred to as their
"culture".
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Words: 1810
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