ABSTRACT
The aim in this chapter is to: • identify the links between language and culture • introduce Malinowski’s contexts of situation and culture • discuss the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (strong and weak, lexical and grammati-
cal versions) • discuss political correctness in terms of language and culture • develop the idea of categorization • discuss lexical gaps, borrowing and coining
Culture is still hardly a respected area of study for linguists. Fortunately though, anthropologists respected the study of language. In 1911, Franz Boas (1986:7), a German and one of the fathers of modern anthropology, discussed the links between language, thought and (primitive) culture. Boas felt that language was not in itself a barrier to thought but that there was a dynamic relationship between language, culture and thought. His key point was succinctly put as follows: “the form of the language will be moulded by the state of that culture”. Seventy-five years later, his thoughts are still very relevant, and in fact serve to introduce Valdes’ publication on culture (1986:1). In her Preface to the book, she stated: “his work inspired a generation of anthropologists and sociologists before the applied linguists took up the subject of the effect of culture on language and vice versa”. And it is to him that we owe the term “cultural relativism”.
