ABSTRACT
The concept of linguaculture (or languaculture) is an offshoot of a cultural movement originating in the German-speaking areas of Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. This movement emphasized that language should be seen as intimately related to nation, people, and culture. During the nineteenth century, this idea gained a National-Romantic form stressing the intimate relations between the national language and the national culture. Since the 1990s, however, this national paradigm has been questioned because of the rise of interest in globalization and transnationality, and this has led to a rethinking of the relationship between language and culture. The concept of linguaculture has been an important element in this recent development. It
was invented around 1989 as a new term by linguistic anthropologists who saw it as a useful tool for a more precise analysis of the interface between language and culture. Since then, the term has been spreading in various fields of language studies such as language teaching and learning, and sociocultural linguistics. This chapter presents some historical perspectives on the idea of an intimate relationship
between language and culture, and then focuses on the current research strands that use the term linguaculture/languaculture.1
