It has long been recognized that language is an essential and important part of a given culture and that the impact of culture upon a given language is something intrinsic and indispensable. As we’ 11 show below, though the endeavor in the pursuit of this inter-relationship has never been dormant in the development of linguistic science, “this very embedding of language in society and culture has been the focus of intense and sustained research efforts since the 1960s” (Apte 1994: 2000).
In order to provide the student an opportunity to know more about the situation, we introduce this chapter and focus our discussion on the relationship between LANGUAGE, CULTURE, and SOCIETY. This attempt can be alternatively understood as an effort to provide a different perspective to the study of language science in terms of some new tendencies and developments in the field of SOCIOLINGUISTICS, which has been proven to be an additional momentum to the study of language use in a sociocultural setting over the past decades.
The relationship between language and society is one that can vary from culture to culture. Language and society is tightly anchored, and the relationship is also deeply rooted in most cultures and societies. If either one of these is used inappropriately, it can cause great change in perception, or point of view, as well as change the way that conflict is resolved. Language really helps people to grasp social values, which is important to most.
Language and culture are NOT fundamentally inseparable. At the most basic level, language is a method of expressing ideas. That is, language is communication; while usually verbal, language can also be visual (via signs and symbols), or semiotics (via hand or body gestures). Culture, on the other hand, is a specific set of ideas, practices, customs and beliefs which make up a functioning society as distinct.
A culture must have at least one language, which it uses as a distinct medium of communication to conveys its defining ideas, customs, beliefs, et al., from one member of the culture to another member. Cultures can develop multiple languages, or “borrow” languages from other cultures to use; not all such languages are co-equal in the culture. One of the major defining characteristics of a culture is which language(s) are the primary means of communication in that culture; sociologists and anthropologists draw lines between similar cultures heavily based on the prevalent language usage.
Languages, on the other hand, can be developed (or evolve) apart from its originating culture. Certain language have scope for cross-cultural adaptations and communication, and may not actually be part of any culture. Additionally, many languages are used by different cultures (that is, the same language can be used in several cultures).
Language is heavily influenced by culture – as cultures come up with new ideas, they develop language components to express those ideas. The reverse is also true: the limits of a language can define what is expressible in a culture (that is, the limits of a language can prevent certain concepts from being part of a culture).
Applied Linguistic 