Monday, September 19, 2011

Language and Culture – Guide to Study

Objectives

To provide an overview of the effects of political, economic and social conditions on culture.

1. To examine the relationship between language and culture.

2. To understand how the culture of a country changes with the process of development,
modernization and globalization

3. To understand the Sri Lankan society in the era of globalization.

4. To examine the factors which led to cultural liberty in today's diverse world.

Structure

Introduction
Language and learning
Culture
Culture and modernization
Globalization and global culture
Sri Lankan society in an era of globalization
Cultural liberty in today's diversity world

1. Introduction

There is a close link between language and culture, as language is an important element in culture. A human being's behaviour results from two influences: its genetic endowment and its life experiences.

The behaviour and development of the child of today is determined not only by the biological adaptation made by species in the normal course of evolution but also by the accumulated collective experience of the whole of mankind or in other words the social environment and the laws and customs of an organized society. Thus much of the experiences of mankind is embodied in his culture. The child is dependent upon adults to a very large extent in his attempt to understand social environment.

Individuals value a sense of identity and belonging to a group with shared values and other bonds of culture. However, each individual can identify with many different groups. Accommodating diverse ethnicities, religions, languages, and values is an inescapable feature of the 21st-century cultural environment.

2. Language and Learning

Language is a crucial factor for human beings. Many of the higher animals learn the behaviour patterns of the species through imitation, e.g. kittens, and puppies. But in the case of human beings the process of education is transformed. The human parents teach not only by examples but also by telling. This means of course, that patterns of behaviour can be set up in the absence of the situation to which they are relevant. The child depends on adults not only for their bodily needs but also in their attempts to master the skills needed for their social environment. A child left to himself is unlikely to learn any of the human skills. Further, without the guidance of parents and society at large, all the processes which are regarded as characteristics of civilized man are inaccessible to the child. In other words, the social heritage transmitted to the child by adults is what differentiates man from other animals

In primitive societies, the transmission of knowledge and skills from parents to children was adequate because they were relatively simple skills. But with scientific and technological advances, skills and techniques became increasingly complex, and the transmission became increasingly a specialist job.

Today in a society of extremely rapid technological and scientific change adults need to be educated to a much higher level than ever in the past.

Man uses language as a symbol system and it enables him to use as a “capsule of thought” providing a meaning to a word or in other words as concepts. The concept is in abstraction from objects, situations or events of the attributes these phenomena have in common. The words we use symbolize or stand for these concepts. Because of the symbolizing and conceptual nature of language the process of conditioning are greatly modified in man instead of responding only to the physical nature of stimuli. Most of his behaviour is influenced by the symbolic aspect of stimuli. The effect of this is to introduce an extraordinary flexibility in to learning in man.

3. Culture

Culture is totality of learned-socially transmitted behavour. In other words all the “products and services” of a society. Emile Durkheim one of the founders of modern sociology defines culture as “culture is seen as a design for living, an aspect of the social structure ensuring the cohesion and continuity of society”.

Max Weber – another outstanding sociologist has put forward another view. “Culture is the product of interaction between the individuals and society”. This approach emphasizes the symbolic nature of culture and focuses on the symbols, beliefs, values, norms, rituals and activities involved in the construction of everyday social reality.

There are different connotations attached to culture as “popular culture” “high culture” national culture” “youth culture” “multi culture” “global culture etc. Elements of culture are

1. Language

2. Norms

3. Values

4. Religion

5. Dress and food

6. Natural environment

7. Man-made environment

4. Culture and modernization

There is always a link between culture and development. The meanings attached to the term development are produced within and by a particular cultural context that of so called. West or more precisely, the political economic and social institutions of Euro-American societies generating a particular discourse of or way of talking about development. Seen in this way it becomes clear that development is a cultural artefact, rather than a natural process which can be accelerated and guided by development planning. Today we categories societies into “developed” “developing” and “underdeveloped”. Culture played an important role in distinguishing modern form traditional societies. Modernization involved development planning as a key strategy to achieve desired change with the state playing an important role.

In the eyes of modernization theorists modernization is

A revolutionary process involving radical and total changes in developing societies.
A complex process including industrialization, urbanization social mobilization differentiation, secularization, media expansion, expansion of political participation, increasing literacy and education.
A systemic process in the sense that “economic development cultural change and political change together in coherent and even to some extent predictable patterns (Inglehart – 1977)

The policy makers promote modern cultural traits in “Third world” countries which would enable modernization to occur -Example - western education system.

There is a close link between modernization, development and westernization which will result in “Third world countries resembling Western Europe and United States. Many views were expressed by sociologists regarding this modernization. One group of sociologist expressed that through modernization rupturing, breaking even destroying cultural traditions of third world societies may occur. Another group of sociologist says that “Third World” cultures are homogeneous, stable and have historical backgrounds. They doubt whether westernization can completely destroy their traditional cultures. The third group of sociologist says that in Third World Countries both the traditional and modern cultural tracts are visible side by side.

5. Globalization and Global Culture

The concept globalization has developed quite recently. In 1960s globalization had an important effects in many parts of the world. World wars particularly World War II with its aftermath, the rise of what become known as the Third World, the proliferation of international, transnational and super national institutions and the attempts to co-ordinate that has become known as global economy have played crucial parts in globalization. Media - centred “global village” was partly shaped by such development (miller 1973)

Furthermore modernization of the Third World societies, collapse of Communism in 1990s and the wave of societal democratization resulted in globalization. Material aspects of globalization extend to changing context and process of print and electronic media, diet, dress, economics business and financial structures and process of relationship between labour and capital, knowledge and technology and many other operational elements. These material dimensions create new opportunities and expectations for exchange and communication.

In the face of these trends, state governments are challenged to devise policies to ensure protection of public good and services within their jurisdiction despite their weakening levels of control. Protection of labour and environment conditions is threatened by prospects of capital flight in the face of regulatory initiatives. The states capacity to prevent the introduction of pornography and unsuitable literature is undermined by the prospects of trade actions aimed at securing market access for media industries. Policies aimed at capital accumulation and development of indigenous technologies are challenged by a combination of private capital mobility and state action in pursuit of free trade objectives of private sector.

6. Sri Lankan Society in an era of Globalization

Sri Lanka has experienced enormous societal changes in the past few decades. These changes have forced the society and the government to confront issues which had never previously been encountered. With the process of globalization in Sri Lanka, the impact has been in stimulating the shift from agriculture towards manufacturing and services employment increase in job related migration and international networking civil society organizations.

The competition for resources and status and claims on the disruptive benefits provided by the state all helped to push along the questioning of existing societical arrangements. Necessity and widening horizons are working together to advance change. At the local level, people are collaborating much more frequently to seek improvements in their communities agitating for better schools, questioning land use policies and calling for accountability of local authorities.

A number of civil society organizations has multiplied. At the national level new political parties, new social movements, new cultural mobilizations have emerged in unprecedented numbers in the last decade. In Sri Lanka this is illustrated by the state threatening challenges of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam and of the Sinhalese radicals as the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna.

There exist social cohesion providing evidence of ethnic nationalism promoted by political and cultural leaders in both the majority Sinhalese community and among the minority Tamil. The reflexivity in practices of social control and power relations that has been stimulated by globalization is both undercutting efforts to sustain existing forms of social cohesion and simultaneously creating ideological and social space for new forms of social centered. Sri Lanka will have to take up the task of consciously building a new society. The dynamic social arrangements in the country require constant re-thinking redefined purposes and renewed cooperation to flourish. When previous the governing mechanism has failed in uplifting the economy, distribution of benefits when cultural traditions evoked to divide people, when individual potentialities are not tapped properly then the time has come to think about alternative ways of organizing society. Thus Sri Lanka has reached a crucial moment in its history.

There is no model that can be borrowed or copied in the societical reconstruction to understand the problems, philosophy/principle and procedures. A realistic assessment of the issues facing the society requires a careful and an honest investigation which includes a continuing role for those most directly affect.

Fortunately Sri Lanka has a strong tradition of vigourous public debate and local voluntary organizations form to address problems and give voice the gieveness and concern. It also has a strong tradition of socially informed empirical research departments alive in colleges, universities and other research institutions. In the face of rapid change occurring with the process of globalization, this change has to be dealt with by democratic mobilization.

7. Cultural liberty in today’s diverse world

Accommodating diverse ethnicities, religions, languages, and values are inescapable features of the landscape of polities in the 21st century of the world.

Political leaders very often have suppressed brutally the cultural identities of minorities through state policies – through religious persecution, ethnic cleansing, and economic, social and political discrimination. Today, the indigenous people, ethnic minorities, and immigrants of various parts of the world are mobilizing to express their graveness for ethnic, religious, racial and cultural characteristics, demanding that their identities be acknowledged, appreciated and accommodated by wider society. Suffering from discrimination and marginalization from social economic and political opportunities they are demanding social justice. They feel that their cultures are being swept away. They demand to keep their diversity in a globalized world.

Why these movements are visible today ?

These are propelled and shaped by spread of democracy which is giving movements more political grounds for protest and the advance of globalization which is creating new network of alliance and presenting new challenges.

Cultural liberty is a vital part of human development because of the ability to choose ones identity. People want the freedom to practice their religion openly to speak their language to celebrate their ethnic or religious heritage without the fear of ridicule punishment or diminished opportunities eg. Buddhists in Chittagong – Bangladesh. These struggles over cultural identify if left unmanaged or managed poorly can create instability within the state and between them and this retards the country’s development.

Managing diversity and respecting cultural identities are not just challenges for a few “multi-ethnic” states. Almost no country is entirely homogeneous. Today rapid international migration is taking place. Thus every country is a multi cultural society containing ethnic, religious and linguistic groups that have common bonds.

Thus cultural diversity will stay on and is still growing. States need to find ways of forging national unity amidst diversity. The world ever more interdependent economically cannot function unless people respect diversity and build amity through common bonds of humanity. In this age of globalization, the demands for cultural recognition can no longer be ignored by any state or by the international community.