Language-society relationship

Let us examine some inter-relationship between language and society. It takes many forms. In most cases, we shall be dealing with the so-called co-variation (совместная вариативность) of linguistic and social phenomena. In other cases, however, it makes more sense to consider that this relationship is in one direction only - the influence of society on language, or sometimes vice versa. There is a view, developed in various forms by different linguists, which is most frequently referred to as the 'Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis', after the two American sociolinguists, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, with whose names it is most often associated. The hypothesis supposes that speakers' native languages set up series of categories which act as a kind of grid through which they perceive the world, and which constrains the way in which they categorise and conceptualise different phenomena. A language can affect a society by influencing or even controlling the world-view of its speakers.

Most languages of European origin are very similar in this respect because of their common genetic relationship and the long cultural contact between them; the world-views of their speakers and their societies are perhaps for that reason not at all dissimilar. If, therefore, linguistic differences can produce cognitive differences, we shall have to demonstrate this by a comparison of sets of very different culturally separated languages. European languages, for example, make use of tenses. Their usage is by no means identical, but it is usually not too difficult to translate, say, an English verb-form into its equivalent in French or German or Russian.

Some languages from other parts of the world do not have tenses, at least not, as we know them. There are isolating languages, like Chinese in which tense is implied in temporal adverbs; in Japanese temporal information appears in the inflection of adjectives; in Russian a simple verb may indicate aspect, tense, and mood by one form. Still other languages indicate to different kinds of activity. Verb-forms, for instance, may be differentiated according to whether the speaker is reporting a situation (like continuous) or expecting it (like be going), and according to an event's duration (have been living), intensity, or other characteristics. It would not be too surprising, therefore, if the world-view of the people whose language does not 'have tenses' were rather different from our own: their concept of time, and perhaps even of cause and effect, might be somewhat different. Consider the following verb forms from the American Indian language Hopi:

cami - 'it is slashed inwards, from side to side' (рассечен)

camimita – ‘it is fringed’ (надрезан вокруг)

hari – ‘it is bent in a rounded angle’(изогнут округленно)

harirata – ‘it lies in a meandering line’ (изогнут извилисто)

paci - 'it is notched' (прорезан гладко)

pacicita – ‘it is serrated’ (прорезан рвано)

roya - 'it makes a turn' (делает поворот)

royayata - 'it is rotating' (вращается постоянно)

The point of this example is to illustrate that in some cases differences of language may lead to differences in perception of the world. It suggests that the Hopi habitually perceive meaning-relationships of this type in a slightly different way from English or Russian speakers, who have some problems in appreciating the grammatical connections made in Hopi.

However, it is possible for us to understand the connections. And therefore Sapir-Whorf’s idea that ‘thought is actually constrained by language’ can be accepted but partly. The example may well be taken to indicate, however, that habitual thought is to a certain extent conditioned by language. English speakers are not normally aware of the semantic connections illustrated above - but constraints of this type can be overcome quite easily if necessary. This hypothesis is concerned with the possibility that human beings' views of their environment may be conditioned by their language.

Less controversial is the one-way relationship that operates in the opposite direction - the effect of society on language, and the way in which environment is reflected in language. Firstly, there are many examples of the physical environment in which society existence is being reflected in its language, normally, in the structure of the society lexicon, i.e. in the way distinctions are marked by single words. Whereas English, for example, has only one word for ´reindeer (северный олень), Sami (Lapp) languages of northern Scandinavia have several. The reasons for this are obvious. Firstly, it is essential for Sami to be able to distinguish efficiently between different types of reindeer. English, of course, is quite able to make the same distinctions: as in immature reindeer, two-year-old raindeer, and so on, but in the Sami languages this sort of distinction is lexicalized - made by means of individual words.

Secondly, the social environment can also be reflected in the language, and can often have an effect on the structure of the vocabulary. For example, a society's kinship system is generally reflected in its kinship vocabulary, and this is one reason why anthropologists tend to be interested in this particular aspect of language. We can assume, for example, that the important kin relationships in the English-speaking societies are those that are signalled by single vocabulary items: son,.daughter, grandson, granddaughter, brother, sister, father, husband, wife, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousin. We can, of course, talk of other relationships such as eldest son, maternal aunt, great uncle, and second cousin, but the distinction between ‘maternal’ and ‘paternal’ aunt is not important in our society and is not reflected in separate words in English.

As society is reflected in its language, social change can produce a corresponding linguistic change. This has happened in the case of Russian. During the period from 1860 to the present day the structure of the Russian kinship system has undergone a very radical change as a result of several important events: the emancipation of serfs in 1861, the First World War, the October Revolution, the collectivisation of agriculture and the Second World War. There has been a marked social as well as political revolution, and this has been accompanied by a corresponding change in the language. For example, in the middle of the last century, wife's brother was шурин, whereas now it is simply брат жены (brother of wife). Similarly, brother's wife, formerly невестка, is now жена брата (wife of brother). In other words, distinctions that were formerly lexicalized, because they were important, are now made by means of phrases. The loss of importance of these particular relationships, and the corresponding linguistic changes, are due to the fact that social changes in Russia have led to the rise of a small, nuclear family. In the last century, most Russians lived in large extended-family households. Brothers' wives, at that time part of the family, now normally live in different households.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11