Relation between Culture and Language (CROSS CULTURE UNDERSTANDING)

A.  The meaning of Culture

Based on KBBI, Culture is a tradition that becomes a habit and has very difficult to be changed. According to Clifford Greetz as mentioned by Fedyani Syaifuddin in his Contemporary Anthropology book that Culture is a symbol system that consists of symbols and values which is shared and public. In my opinion, Culture is habit that has always done from generation to generation and can’t be changed.

B.   The meaning of Language

According to Chomsky, Language is a set of sentences, each finite length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. Based on KBBI, Language is arbitrary sound system which is used by members of a people to work together, interact, and identify themselves. In my opinion, Language is a tool to convey an idea orally, verbally, and arbitrarily. Signs, symbols, and the other marks are used in language that contain the meaning relating to the situation of human life and real experiences.

C.   The Relationship between Culture and Language Learning

There are various theories about the relationship of language and culture. Some of thoughts say that language is part of culture, but others say that language and culture are two different things. Some thoughts say that the language is strongly influenced culture, so that everything that exists in the culture will be reflected in the language. Conversely, there are those who say the language is strongly influenced culture and human thinking or public speakers. In my opinion, I choose that Language and culture are two different sides as if the coin, but both of these relationships can’t be separated so that Culture and Language Learning are related each other. Make sure that each culture has different language.

For example, culture in Indonesia talks ‘goodbye’ but culture in west-countries liking European talks ‘have a nice day’. We can conclude that Culture in west-countries uses ‘analogy’ to express what mind is, such as “The weather today is very cold”. Because weather in west-countries has four seasons. When winter comes, the people get sick and talk about it with the other speakers who ask about condition. It shows us that the body of the subject is fever. Meanwhile, Culture in Indonesia usually uses ‘to the point’ speech to say something. Speaker one asks to other about condition “How are you?” and another speaker answers “My body is fever”. Indirectly the conversation has got the main point so that we must not defines what the meaning is. Because if we answer like the American talking, it sounds strange in Indonesia and based on Indonesia weather has two seasons.

The other hand, an article which I read that American admits they haven’t special culture from generation to generation. Instead, they assume that their culture is ‘strive to be the best’. Because there are no factors of caste, religion, and culture that hinder it, people in these countries trust that someone who holds the guidance will be able to be the best. American culture has grown around the world in various forms of adaptation and has affected the all world, especially the Western world.

In short, language and culture are different thing. We need to learn more about both of them. Something goes special if we know directly what they do in their culture liking my lecturer’s experience who have gone to other countries. We need to be underlined that to learn a language is not necessarily understand to the culture, but to know culture can get a language what the native talks about.