Context and Culture Part 2

Culture

What is culture?

It is the conventions and procedures, including those related to paralanguage, pragmatics, and genre, together with values, beliefs which lie behind them, are elements of cultural knowledge.

culture

What is cross-cultural communication?

It is communication between members of different national or ethnic communities.

How is it related to Applied linguistics??

It is related in many ways, for example, language planning, foreign language education, and translation (In a monolingual setting).

Culture

What if the society is multilingual? How is it related to applied linguistics?

Clinical Linguistics: deals with individuals whose communication

needs involve more than one language and more than one set of cultural procedures.

Language use in workplace and law courts:communication involves members of different communities.

What is considered to be cross-cultural?

Communication across different groups with different knowledge and values can be conceived of as being cross-cultural.

Examples: Generations Social classes The two sexes Sexual orientation

Which is more Important?

The differences between cultures vs. the similarities between cultures when it comes to applied linguistics.

With no cultural background, a shared language can cause instances of miscommunication.

The role of applied linguistics is to raise awareness of the degree to which meaning of behavior is culturally relative, thus combating prejudice, and contributing to the improvement of community relations and conflict resolution in general.

Do you think the study of Culture is clear cut?

Of course not!

There are cultures within a culture. Example: The African American culture in an

American Culture.

Culture is constantly changing. Example: The loss of titles in addressing people

in England

Translation, culture, and context

Look at this example:

Uvazhayemy Gospodin SmithRussian

Respected Gentleman SmithEnglish

Or would you prefer

Dear Mr. Smith

Translation and applied Linguistics

It is impossible to translate a text from one language to another using the same phrase structure, voice, and meaning at the same time.

A translator has to choose which effect to achieve through translation (literal translation, or a smooth, flowing text that communicate the same meaning).

Culture has to be understood to be able to translate from one culture to another.

Translation, culture, and context

Example: In English the word “you” can be translated to

French but the translator has to decide between the following:

Vous formal second-person pronoun Tu informal second-person pronoun

Example Translation of news headlines between Arabic and

English.

Which one do they use? Why?The word “martyrdom” or “Shahada”

Translation, culture, and context

For translators, decisions had to be made all the time on what structure to use, what meaning to convey and effect to be added to get well understood text. A knowledge of context and culture is necessary.

Why don’t we rely on Machines to translate for us?

The human factor that understands culture and context is missing.

Teaching Culture

It has long been that the teaching of culture is related to language teaching. However, there are differences.

Example: If you want to learn Chinese. Then, you already

have some interest in the Chinese culture and you will be willing to learn it.

How about English? Because of its Lingua franca status, English is

viewed differently.

Teaching Culture

Different ideologies may reject a culture while in need of learning the language (teaching English in Saudi Arabia).

Applied linguistics doesn’t interfere in such issues. But, it would try to give informed insights to help those who will have the obligation to make such decisions.