Introduction
According to cultural relativism, it is the view that there are no higher or lower cultures in all cultural and moral aspects ("Cultural Relativism", 2016). It is difficult to look at your own culture the way other cultures see it. In the article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” Horace Miner describes American people in a satiric way, so it is not easy for readers to understand it. But it is the main strength or his article and he is not afraid to show his culture the way they always describe others. It is unfair to describe traditions of other countries as they are savages and Miner understands this.
Language is a part of the culture and has a great impact on almost every aspect of human existence. Without language people would not be able to communicate or even think. Language and culture are inseparable they mutually affect each other. Over the course of this paper, I will examine the influence of language and culture from an etic perspective.
In the educational process, it is not so easy to judge other countries from an emic perspective. To do this, I will discuss boys` behavior in Swedish schools, based on Jonsson`s article “Boys’ Anti-School Culture? Narratives and School Practices”. He has done a great research in cultural factors that affect studying.
Part 1
Language has a very deep connection to the educational process. Education also refers to cultural features. In this section, I will examine the connection between language and culture from an etic perspective. According to Study.com, etic perspective means learning cultures from an outside position, based on theories in general ("Etic and Emic World Views in Anthropology - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com", 2016). Not everyone is able to experience cultures form the inside, so this is often the case when learning about new countries and their traditions.
The person is capable of living in the real world just because life experience forces him to correct perception and thinking errors when they conflict. Therefore, the culture lives and develops in “a language cover”. It is not the “cover” that dictates the culture contents. However, it is a mistake to diminish the role of communication of language, thinking, and culture. Language forms a basis of a picture of the world, which develops at each person and puts in order set of subjects and the phenomena observed in the world around. Any subject or the phenomenon are accessible to the person only when they have the name. Otherwise, they simply do not exist for us. Having entitled them, the person includes a new concept in the grid of concepts, which exists in its consciousness, otherwise, he or she introduces a new element into an existing picture of the world. It is possible to tell, that language is not only a communication medium or the activator of emotions. Therefore, language and outlook are inseparably linked.
At the present stage of development of sciences, especially in the field of the humanitarian knowledge, the anthropocentric approach to the analysis of the language facts becomes dominating. Language is inseparable from a daily life of the individual in society. A language is a form of mastering by the world. Today in a wide social context, on a material of various languages general-theoretical basis of the development of the polycultural and multilingual person, sociocultural norms of speech behavior in the conditions of intercultural communications are being studied. The casually central linguistic problem is the person in language and language in the person. The cultural anthropology (ethnolinguistic) studies the unique ability of the person to develop culture through communications, through language and culture interaction, through the formation in the certain language community sociocultural layer as a culture component.
The language and culture problem is the central topic in the study of ethnolinguistics. This problem in the beginning of XIX century was successfully developed by the Grimm brothers, R. Raskin, V. Humboldt. Language as a mirror of national culture, national psychology, and philosophy, in many cases as the unique source of history of the people and its spirit, was perceived for a long time as that and was used by culturologists, linguists, mythologists in their researches. Language is the environment surrounding us ("Language and Culture", 2016). Soon scientists understood just how much language and culture are linked together.
In 30-40th years of the XX-th century well-known Sapir-Whorf school, the Austrian school «Worter und Sachen» («Words and things»), and also other scientists - philosophers, ethnographers, ethnobroad gulls, and culturologists were based on an understanding of the unity of language and culture ("Culture and language", 2016). Once their studies began, more and more was discovered.
Language in relation to culture possesses cumulative property - to accumulate culture and to inherit it. The dictionary as a substantial part of language always acts in the form of a character set, reflecting a cultural background of the given society. Changes in the lexicon are caused by the most different reasons, most of which are cultural. Each new cultural wave brings a new cargo of lexical loans. The existing isomorphism between language and culture speaks also the similarity of their functions: cognitive, communicative, social and so forth. In relation to culture an application of such "linguistic" concepts as text, grammar, semantics, syntax, pragmatics, synonyms, antonyms, polysemy and many other terms, is quite justified. However, between language and culture, there is also deeper internal two-way communication.
On the one hand, a language unit (word) in a context often possesses, besides nontechnical values, still cultural semantics, which is seldom and only casually fixed by dictionaries. On the other hand, language and culture (ritual) often act as supplementing or duplicating each other: the same senses are expressed verbally, ritually, or with subjects.
Part 2
In this section, I will examine the boys` behavior in Swedish schools and cultural factors that affect it. In his article “Boys’ Anti-School Culture? Narratives and School Practices”, Rickard Jonsson makes a research in two Swedish schools and explores the “rowdy boy” category from the inside. He also writes about the influence of boys` behavior on their grades and the stereotypes (Jonsson, 2014). The author completed the a study from an emic perspective.
According to Study.com, am emic perspective means researching culture by its member or from its members to understand it from inside position ("Etic and Emic World Views in Anthropology - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com", 2016). The needed research for this may take a lot of time.
Jonsson spent years investigating boys` and girls` actions during lessons and breaks. He explored cultural factors that influence studying. For instance, he writes a story of a 14-years-old Daniel, who was often described as a “rowdy boy”. He was a racist and described himself as “not the teacher’s pet” (Jonsson, 2014). Daniel did not want to listen to the teacher or learn something; he did not care for studying. With those actions, he did not seem to get the respect of his classmates.
Conclusion
The main task of anthropology is to create a complete picture of life in a cultural environment, which is in the environment created by man. The main directions of scientific research are to study the process of socialization in conditions different cultures influence the natural and cultural environment in the spiritual world, features of the national character, the interaction of environment and ethnicity.
In examining the influence of language on culture, we can see that those two concepts are inseparable: language always expresses cultural features among society. It is impossible to learn a foreign language without learning the culture, and so it is impossible to understand the culture without understanding the language. The educational process depends on verbal communication between teacher and student – it is the way of transmission of information. Language is the main tool of knowledge and external world development. It also acts as the basic means of dialogue of people. In an equal measure, language makes acquaintance to other cultures possible.
On the other hand, examining the educational situation in another country from the emic perspective can help us better understand our culture and see the strengths and weaknesses. The best way to do this is to read the articles with research from the inside – they often provide a fuller view and help us become more familiar with the subject.
References
Miner, H. (1956). Body Ritual among the Nacirema. American Anthropologist, 58(3), 503-507. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.1956.58.3.02a00080
Cultural Relativism. (2016). Cultural-relativism.com. Retrieved 1 August 2016, from http://www.cultural-relativism.com
Etic and Emic World Views in Anthropology - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com. (2016). Study.com. Retrieved 1 August 2016, from http://study.com/academy/lesson/etic-and-emic-world-views-in-anthropology.html
Culture and language. (2016). Hbcse.tifr.res.in. Retrieved 29 July 2016, from http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/jrmcont/notespart1/node131.html
Language and Culture. (2016). Google Books. Retrieved 29 July 2016, from https://books.google.com.ua/books?hl=uk&lr=&id=XRPiONIC2PMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=language+and+culture&ots=f8pnt6eRLO&sig=PJPj0yG5glAvM7m3fCmSbXqvAUA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=language%20and%20culture&f=false
Jonsson, R. (2014). Boys' Anti-School Culture? Narratives and School Practices. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 45(3), 276-292. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/aeq.12068
