MODULE 2

E.L 102 - LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SOCIETY

CULTURE AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Module Overview In this module, you will be learning about the language acquisition in the
societies, cultural influences upon language acquisition and social norms and
language use. It also discusses the people who share their expertise about the
topic.
Modules Objectives Define language acquisition;
and Outcomes Discuss the social norm and language use;
Appraise the cultural influences upon language acquisition; and
Compose a poem about culture and language development.
Lessons in the module Lesson 1: Language acquisition in societies
Lesson 2: Cultural influences upon language acquisition
Lesson 3: Social norm and language use
Time Frame 4 Weeks
Introduction Hello my dear students! Welcome to module 2!
Congratulations! You may now begin to learn and explore the module 2 of this
course. I hope you have learned something from your first module. Now! Keep
reading, searching and discovering, since that is your key to earn more. Let’s
study the culture and language development, I assure to you this going to be
enjoy!
Enjoy Learning!!!

ACTIVITY
Task 1: Pre- Assessment
Direction: Complete the sentences below.

1. I believe that culture influences language because

_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
2. I am careful when using the language because
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

Task 2: Jumbled Words

Direction: Read the definition below, then analyzed and arranged the jumbled words to get the correct answer.

1. It is an instrument for humans' communications. Guangeal =___________________

1|Page Module 2: Culture and language Development
 2. It is made up of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to
its members, and to do so in any role that they except for any one of themselves.
urtulce=_________________________
3. It is the result from internal mental activity. Guangeal rnalegni =_______________________
4. It is \are defined by individuals and societies as crucial to the society. Sormns = ___________

Task 3. DEFINE IT!

LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION

Analysis

Checkpoint!
Knowing that we live in a judgmental society, how can you control not to
discriminate nor condemn others culture or language?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________

Abstraction

Read, Think, and Understand

INTRODUCTION

Culture and Language Development

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 Human being is a social creature: A man is a receiver and sender of messages who assembles and
distributes information (Greimas, 1970).

• Sapir (1956): “every cultural pattern and every single act of social behavior involves communication in either
an explicit or implicit sense” (p. 104).

• The tool for this communication is language: Language is an instrument for humans' communications,

• It is due to language that human talents grow and develop since they exchange and transfer their experiences,
and on the whole, for formation of society,

• The relationship between language and culture is as old as mankind.

• Through centuries, people and their living practices have evolved, resulting in wide-reaching changes in
societal culture.

• Culture has a direct effect on language.

• Language and culture are closely correlated.

Language & Culture

• With first language learners immersed in their own culture, connections between language and culture often
never come to question.

• While it is impossible to separate language and culture, one has to question the validity and implications such
separation brings.

• Wardhaugh introduced the concepts of language and culture and explored the viability of their relationship
based on the three possible criteria:

• The structure of the language determines the way we use language,

• Cultural values determine language usage

• The neutral claim that a relationship does not exist

 The importance of cultural competency is considered for its importance to language education and the
implications it holds for language learning.
 An understanding of the relationship between language and culture is important for language learners,
users, and for all those involved in language education.
 Such insights open the door for a consideration of how both language and culture influence people’s life
perceptions and how people make use of their pre- acquainted linguistic and cultural knowledge to assess
those perceptions.
 The relationship between language and culture is a complex one due largely in part to the great difficulty in
understanding people’s cognitive processes when they communicate.
 Wardhaugh and Thanasoulas defined language in a somewhat different way, with the former explaining it
for what it does, and the latter viewing it as it relates to culture.
 Wardhaugh (2002, p. 2): a knowledge of rules and principles and of the ways of saying and doing things
with sounds, words, and sentences rather than just knowledge of specific sounds, words, and sentences.
 Wardhaugh does not mention culture; the speech acts we perform are inevitably connected with the
environment they are performed in, and therefore he appears to define language with consideration for
context.
 Thanasoulas (2001): … (l)anguage does not exist apart from culture, that is, from the socially inherited
assemblage of practices and beliefs that determines the texture of our lives (Sapir, 1970, p. 207). In a sense,
it is ‘a key to the cultural past of a society’ (Salzmann, 1998, p. 41), a guide to ‘social reality’ (Sapir, 1929,
p. 209, cited in Salzmann, 1998, p. 41).

What is culture?
• Goodenough (1957, p. 167) explained culture in terms of the participatory responsibilities of its members.

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 • He stated that a society’s culture is made up of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to
operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they except for any one of
themselves.
• Malinowski (Stern, 2009) viewed culture as an interactive design which combines the three sets of needs:

The basic needs of The instrumental

the individual needs of the society

The symbolic and

integrative needs of both
the individual and society

• The concept is often better understood in the context of how the members of a culture operate, both
individually and as a group.

• It is, therefore, clear how important it is for members of any society to understand the actual power of their
words and actions when they interact.

• Thanasoulas (as cited in Salzmann): ‘language is a key to the cultural past’, but it is also a key to the cultural
present in its ability to express what is (and has been) thought, believed, and understood by its members.

The relationship between language and culture

• Edward Sapir & Benjamin Lee Whorf: There is a close relationship between language and culture.

• “It was not possible to understand or appreciate one without knowledge of the other” (taken from Wardhaugh,
2002, p. 220).

• Wardhaugh (2002, pp. 219- 220): There appears to be three claims to the relationship between language and
culture: The structure of a language determines the way in which speakers of that language view the world, or
the structure does not determine the world- view but is still extremely influential in predisposing speakers of a
language toward adopting their world- view.

 The culture of a people finds reflection in the language they employ because they value certain things and do
them in a certain way, they come to use their language in ways that reflect what they value and what they do.

1st Claim: Language determines the thoughts of culture

• Edward Sapir (1884–1939) and Benjamin Whorf (1897–1941): The power of language reflects culture and
influences thinking.

• The Sapir– Whorf Hypothesis: the way we think and view the world is determined by our language (Anderson
& Lightfoot, 2002; Crystal, 1987; Hayes, Ornstein, & Gage, 1987).

• Instances of cultural language differences are evidenced in that some languages have specific words for
concepts whereas other languages use several words to represent a specific concept.

• The Arabic language includes many specific words for designating a certain type of lion or camel: Lion

• In the English language, where specific words do not exist, adjectives would be used preceding the concept
label; such as, quarter horse or dray horse.

THE SAPIR – WHORF

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and language Development
 LINGUISTIC DETERMINISM LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY (There
(Language determines is no limit to the structural
thought) diversity of languages)

• The Sapir- Whorf Hypothesis is based on the following assumptions:

 We are, in all our thinking and forever, at the understanding of the particular language which has
become the means of expression for our society, we experience and practice our expression by means
of the characteristics, peculiarities, and sometimes literary words encoded in our language;
 The characteristics, peculiarities, and literary words encoded in one language system are distinctive,
typical, and unique to that system and they are dissimilar as well as incomparable with those of other
systems;
 Since the culture of a particular place or nation is different from others, sometimes the
misunderstanding and misconception occurs when one from another nation uses the language of that
nation;
 In order to understand the specific words, literary terms, and even sometimes the simple words in one
language, we must be familiar with the culture of that nation.
 In consideration of the various research, it does appear that the structure of a language determines how
speakers of that language view their world.
 A look at how users of different languages view color, linguistic etiquette and kinship systems helps to
illustrate this point.

2nd Claim: The thoughts of a culture reflect Language

• Cultures employ languages that are as different as the cultures that speak them;

• Wardhaugh (2002, p. 225): When needs for lexical items arise, … cultures possess the ability and are free to
create or to borrow them as needed.

• Wardhaugh: people who speak languages with different structures (e.g. Germans and Hungarians) can share
similar cultural characteristics, and people who have different cultures can also possess similar structures in
language (e.g. Hungarians and Finnish).

• The relationship between language and culture is quite viable.

Language acquisition in societies

• The structure of language acquisition:
L: (So, E) ST

L Learning Function
So The initial state of the learner
E Experience in the environment
ST The terminal state

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 Language Acquisition:
• A process whereby children become speakers of their native language.

• A process by which language capabilities of a person increases.

• Various theories and approaches have been emerged over the years to study and analyze the process of
language acquisition.

BEHAVIORIST
THEORIES
SCHUMANN’S
UNIVERSAL
ACCULTURATI
ON THEORIES
GRAMMAR
THEORIES OF THEORY
LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
CONVERSATION KRASHEN’S
THEORIES MONITOR
THEORY
COGNITIVE
THEORY

Behaviorist Theory
Based on Skinner
The idea that animal and human learning are similar based on Darwin’s theory.
All behavior is a response to stimuli.
No innate pre-programming for language learning at birth (Hadley 2001, pg. 57)
Learning can also occur via imitation.
Corrective feedback corrects bad habits
Language is learned just as another behavior

SKINNER’S VIEW ON LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

• Skinner viewed babies as ‘empty vessels’ which language had to be ‘put in to’
• operant conditioning: A child goes through trial-and error in other words; it tries and fails to use correct
language until it succeeds; with reinforcement and shaping provided by the parent’s gestures (smiles, attention
and approval) which are pleasant to the child.

• Skinner in Verbal Behavior (1957) differentiated between two types of verbal responses that a child makes: -
Verbal behaviour that is reinforced by the child receiving something it wants. - Verbal behaviour caused by
imitating others. Imitation

Language has long been thought of a process of imitation, and reinforcement

Imitation theory is based on an empirical or behavioral approach
Children start out as clean slates and language learning is process of getting linguistic habits printed on
these slates
Language Acquisition is a process of experience
Language is a ‘conditioned behavior’: the stimulus response process

Stimulus Response Feedback Reinforcement

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Imitation
Repetition
Memorization
controlled drilling
Reinforcement
Children learn to speak by imitating the utterances heard around them;
Children strengthen their responses by repetitions, corrections, and other reactions that adults provide,
thus language is practice based;
General perception is that there is no difference between the way one learns a language and the way
one learns to do anything else;
Main focus: inducing the child to behave with the help of mechanical drills and exercises
Learning is controlled by the conditions under which it take place and that, as long as individual are
subjected on the same condition, they will learn in the same condition.

The Behaviorist School

THE BEHAVIORIST SCHOOL

Language learning is an Imitation and Association

operant conditioning Positive and Negative
Reinforcement

Operant conditioning
• Operant conditioning: 'voluntary behavior'

• It is the result of learner's own free-will and is not forced by any outside person or thing.

• The learner demonstrates the new behavior first as a response to a system of reward or punishment, and finally
as an automatic response.

• In operant conditioned, reinforcement plays a vital role.

• Positive Vs. Negative reinforcement.

Activity Type
The hunger or loneliness Stimulus
The baby cries Response
The mother comforts him Reinforcement
The same process happens again Repetition
The baby cries whenever hungry New behavior
Universal Grammar Theory

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 • A mentalist viewpoint related to nativism and cognitive theory.

• The idea that of Chomsky that all children are born with Language Acquisition Device (Hadley 2001 pg 58).

• Language learning depends on biological mechanisms.

• Children are innately programmed to learn language.

• Each language has its own “parameter settings”.

• The principles that children discover represent their “core grammar” which relates to general principles that
correspond to all languages.

• All human brain contains language universals that direct language acquisition (Horwitz 2008)

• It can be tested

CHOMSKY’S VIEW ON LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

• He argues that language acquisition is an innate structure, or function, of the human brain.

• Chomsky believes that there are structures of the brain that control the interpretation and production of speech.

• Children do not need any kind of formal teaching to learn to speak.

• Factors that Chomsky used to support his theory:

 There is an optimal learning age. Between the ages 3 to 10 a child is the most likely to learn a language
in its entirety and grasp fluency.
 The child does not need a trigger to begin language acquisition, it happens on its own. The parent does
not need to coax the child to speak, if it around language production, the child will work to produce
that language on its own
 It does not matter if a child is corrected, they still grasp the language in the same manner and speak the
same way. During one stage, a child will make things plural that are already plural.

The Language Acquisition Device

 Chomsky: Language is so complex that it is almost incredible that it can be acquired by a child in so
short a time;
 A child is born with some innate mental capacity which helps him to process all the language heard. i.
e. "Language Acquisition Device" (LAD);
 Language is governed by rules, and is not a haphazard thing, as Skinner and his followers would claim.
 The unconscious rules in a child's mind: A child constructs his own mental grammar which is a part of
his cognitive framework.
 These rules enable him to produce grammatical sentences in his own language.
 Chomsky does not mean that child can describe these rules explicitly. For instance, a four- or five-year-
old child can produce a sentence like, I have taken meal, he can do that because he has a 'mental
grammar' which enables him to form correct present perfect structures and also to use such structures in
the right or appropriate situation.

I putted the plates

on the table!
No, I putted them on
all by myself.

You mean, I put

the plates on the
table?

MOTHER ….. SON……

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 Krashen’s Monitor Theory
• Adults have two ways of developing competence in the second language: acquisition (subconscious learning)
and learning (conscious learning).

• The natural order hypothesis: acquisition of grammatical structures follows a predicable order when is
natural (Hadley 2001).

• The monitor Hypothesis: Acquisition is responsible for all second language utterances and fluency. On the
contrary, learning is the “editor” and “monitor” for the output (Hadley 2001).

• The input hypothesis: speaking fluency emerges over time. Acquisition on language will happen when we are
exposed to the language that is beyond our level.

• Effective filter hypothesis: low effective filter contributes to good learning.

• Error correction should be minimized and only use when the goal is learning.

• Students should not be required to produce speech until they are ready.

Cognitive Theory

• Based on internal and mental processes.

• Focuses on transferring, simplification, generalization, and restructuring that involve second language
acquisition.

• Language learning is the result from internal mental activity. Emphasizes that knowledge and new learning is
organized in a mental structure.

• Learner acts, constructs, and plans its own learning

• Analyzes own learning

• Positive and negative feedback is important for restructuring.

• Proficiency develops trough practice and then it becomes automatic.

• Once new information is acquired, existed knowledge is reorganized.

• Ausubel emphasizes that learning language needs to be meaningful in order to be effective and permanent
(Hadley 2001, pg 69).

Conversation Theories

• The idea of learning a second language by participating in conversations

• Importance uses of scaffolding

• Gives feedback and suggest ways of improvement

• Does not require production of full sentences but encourages speaking

• Errors should be corrected

Schumann’s Acculturation Theory

• Based on a Social Theory

• Learning a language to function in the target language culture.

• Examines how social forces affect language learning.

• Attitudes and stereotypes towards the target language affect learning.

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 • Errors can be corrected for better acculturation

Cultural influences upon language development

• Language: a symbolic system in which a series of sounds make up words to represent an idea, object, or a
person and eventually becomes a medium through which we speak.

• INDIVIDUALISTIC VS. COLLECTIVIST CULTURES:

• Individualistic Cultures: a culture in which emphasis is placed on the individual alone and learning at a
pace specific to their abilities.

• Success and failure, especially concerning learning, revolves around the actions of that individual and are not
tied to a group.

• America has an Individualistic culture: "The American Dream"

• Collectivist Cultures: these kinds of cultures emphasize family and group goals above individual needs as
well as success and failure.

• These are cultures such as China and Japan.

• In all cultures, children are born with the capability for language acquisition;

• Learning from and imitating the adults around them:

Imitating the sounds and learn the Experimenting with syntax and Being able to speak with
vocabulary of adults grammar fluency
 Environmental factors including culture, socioeconomic status and parenting styles play a major role in
child language development.

Baby Talk
• When parents use baby talk with their children, it helps to reinforce child language acquisition by providing
positive feedback for the child.

• However, in some cultures, parents may choose to use baby talk long after it is useful, when children should be
learning how to use the correct grammar and syntax instead of the incorrect version that results from child
experimentation during acquisition.

• Parents should stop using baby talk with their children after age 6 at the latest.

• Baby talk and similar styles of language acquisition are similarities shared by all cultures

Home Environment and Parent Interaction

• A child's home is the first place they are exposed to language: It is the place they are introduced to interactions,
activities, involvement and communication.

• Children whose mothers reported that they frequently read to them, went to the library and puppet theater or
cinema, were involved in the process of joint reading, and stimulated their reading and learning of the letters,
and guided them to the zone of proximal development achieved higher scores on the Language Development
Scale and told more coherent stories with a text less picture book (Fekonja, Podlesek, & Umek, 2005).

• These children are getting all of the essentials to prepare them for preschool and most likely be more
successful than the children that did not receive this stimulus the beginning years of life, or will not require
assistants to catch them up with the peers.

• Not only should parents expose their children early and in a variety of ways, but they should also begin their
children's phonological awareness correctly in a standard form.

• Liow (2005): the families speak a non- standard form of language at home, yet the children learn to read and
write the standard form at school. When given a spelling test at school from a tape recorder of words verbally

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stated, the children incorrectly spelled words as a result of hearing the non-standard words at home. Thus, the
results confirmed that home language does influence the nature of literacy development.

• McHale and Cowan (1996) proved that conversations with all three components father, mother, and child are
most beneficial. Conversations are the most effortless involvement; they can be done while driving in the car,
shopping, or even while cooking dinner.

Socio- economics and Race

• A 2009 study done by Elizabeth Pungello, et.al at the University of North Carolina found that children rose
with more sensitive and positive parenting styles, rather than negative- intrusive parenting styles, had a higher
rate of growth in language acquisition.

• This study was complicated by socioeconomic status and race, with European American children performing
higher with language acquisition than African American children.

• Researchers concluded that the correlation between low socioeconomic status and race in the U.S. often leads
to higher rates of depression in African American mothers, which led to more negative parenting styles than
those of affluent European Americans.

• Socioeconomic status also correlates with fewer literacy resources in the home and a lower rate of literacy
among adults, so that children born into a family of low socio- economic status tend to learn fewer vocabulary
words before preschool than affluent children.

• Often, the difference in language acquisition between children is not about culture, but about socio- economic
status and the many factors associated with disempowerment

Vygotsky's Theory
• Vygotsky: Although children are born with the skills for language development, development is affected and
shaped by cultural and social experiences.

• The culture in which a person develops will have its own values, beliefs and tools of intellectual adaptation.

• These all have an effect on cognitive functions, including language development.

• Vygotsky: Language is a result of social interactions and that language is responsible for the development of
thought.

Social norms and language use

• Every society has expectations about how its members should/ should not behave.

• The significance of learning in behavior varies from species to species and is closely linked to processes of
communication.

• Only human beings are capable of elaborate symbolic communication and of structuring their behavior in
terms of abstract preferences that we have called values.

• Social life, including language use, is governed by norms— socially shared concepts of appropriate and
expected behavior.

• The most basic of these concepts are acquired in early childhood through socialization.

• Norms: the means through which values are expressed in behavior.

• Norms: the guidelines/ or expectations for behavior.

• Norms: the rules and regulations that groups live by.

• Each society makes up its own rules for behavior and decides when those rules have been violated and what to
do about it.

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Social norms are rules developed by a group of people that specify how people must, should,

may, should not, and must not behave in various situations.

• Some norms are defined by individuals and societies as crucial to the society.

• All members of the group are required to bury their deads.

• Such "musts" are often labeled "mores", a term coined by the American sociologist William

Graham Sumner.

• Karlsson (1995): ‘… they are more numerous, acquired earlier in life and mastered by all

native speakers. They also historically precede the norms of the standard language and in

communities without a written language they are the only norms available ’ (p. 170).

• Social norms or mores are the rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or

society.

• People who do not follow these norms may be shunned or suffer some kind of consequence.

• Norms change according to the environment or situation and may change or be modified over

time.

• William Labov (1972): The norms of a speech community

The speech community is not defined by any marked agreement in the use of

language elements, so much as by participation in a set of shared norms; these

norms may be observed in overt types of evaluative behavior, and by the

uniformity of abstract patterns of variation … in respect to particular levels of

usage (pp. 120– 1)

• Speech community: A group of people who share who set a group of rules and norms for

communication and interpretation of speech.

DIFFERENT
SETTINGS

NORMS

DIFFERENT DIFFERENT TIME

COUNTRIES PERIODS

12 | P a g e Module 2: Culture and language Development

 Different settings Example
Wherever we go, expectations are placed on our The way we are expected to behave in the mosque
behavior. Even within the same society, these norms differs from the way we are expected to behave at
change from setting to setting. wedding parties, which also differs from the way we
should behave in a classroom.
Different countries Example
Norms are place-specific, and what is considered In some African countries, it’s acceptable for people
appropriate in one country may be considered highly in movie theaters to yell frequently and make loud
inappropriate in another. comments about the film. In the United States,
people are expected to sit quietly during a movie, and
shouting would be unacceptable.
Different time periods Example
Appropriate and inappropriate behavior often In the United States in the 1950s, a woman almost
changes dramatically from one generation to the never asked a man out on a date, nor did she pay for
next. Norms can and do shift over time. the date. While some traditional norms for dating
prevail, most women today feel comfortable asking
men out on dates and paying for some or even all of
the expenses.

Language & Society

• Language has a social function: It helps to establish and maintain social relations.
• As Language is principally used for communicative purposes, it is also used to establish and maintain social
relations.

• Use of the same language speak differently from each other: The kind of language each of them chooses to use
is in part determined by his social background.

• Language & society: exploration of bidirectional relationship between language and its users.

Theories/ Models of Communicative Competence

DELL HYMES
Ethnography of Communication
• The descriptive study of the use of language, deeply embedded in its cultural context (Dell Hymes

Pioneering the study of the relationship Focus on poetics ( poetic organization of Native
between language and social context American oral narratives)

HYMES

Communicative Competence
Sometimes referred to as pragmatic or sociolinguistic competence

• Knowledge necessary to use language in SOCIAL context, as an object of linguistic inquiry

• Coined by DELL HYMES (1966) in reaction to Noam Chomsky’s notion of “linguistic competence” (1965)

Linguistic vs. Communicative (Competence)

Question: What do you (as a language learner) think is the goal of LANGUAGE COURSE?

13 | P a g e Module 2: Culture and language Development

Probable Answer: It is to teach the GRAMMAR and VOCABULARY of that language.

Question: What is YOUR own PERSONAL GOAL as an L2 learner?

Probable Answer: It is to be able to COMMUNICATE in the L2 of your choice.

What does this mean?

–In linguistics terminology, a language course should not only have “linguistic competence” as its goal, but
“communicative competence” in GENERAL.

“…a normal child acquires knowledge of sentences not only as grammatical, but also as appropriate. He /or she
acquires competence as to when to speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when, where, in
what manner. In short, a child becomes able to accomplish a repertoire of speech acts, to take part in speech
events, and to evaluate their accomplishment by others.” (Hymes 1972, 277)

– A language learner/user needs to use the language not only CORRECTLY but also APPROPRIATELY.

FOUR COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

linguistic discourse

Socio linguistic strategic

• Linguistic competence: is the knowledge of the language code, i.e. its grammar and vocabulary, and also of
the conventions of its written representation (script and orthography).

• Grammar component includes:

– Phonetics – Phonology – Morphology – Syntax – Semantics

• Sociolinguistic competence: the knowledge of sociocultural rules of use, i.e. knowing how to use and respond
to language appropriately.

• appropriateness depends on: – setting of the communication – Topic – relationships among the people
communicating – knowing what the taboos are – what politeness indices are used – what the politically correct
term would be for something – how a specific attitude (authority, friendliness, courtesy, irony etc.) is expressed

• Discourse competence: the knowledge of how to produce and comprehend oral or written texts in the modes
of speaking/writing and listening/ reading respectively. It is knowing how to combine language structures into a
cohesive and coherent oral or written text of different types.

• discourse competence deals with: – organizing words, phrases and sentences in order to create conversations,
speeches, poetry, email messages, newspaper articles etc.

• Strategic competence: the ability to recognize and repair communication breakdowns before, during, or after
they occur.

• For instance: – the speaker may not know a certain word, thus will plan to either paraphrase, or ask what that
word is in the target language. – During the conversation, background noise or other factors may hinder
communication; thus the speaker must know how to keep the communication channel open. – After,
clarifications can be made if the presentation of the topic was not clear enough.

The "S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G" Model

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 • Hymes developed a valuable model to assist the identification and labeling of components of linguistic
interaction that was driven by his view that, in order to speak a language correctly, one needs not only to learn
its vocabulary and grammar, but also the context in which words are used.

• Hymes constructed the acronym SPEAKING, under which he grouped the sixteen components within eight
divisions:

THE "S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G" MODEL THE MODEL: SIXTEEN COMPONENTS THAT CAN BE

APPLIED TO MANY SORTS OF DISCOURSE:

1- MESSAGE FORM; 9- PURPOSES (OUTCOMES);

2- MESSAGE CONTENT; 10- PURPOSES (GOALS);
3- SETTING; 11- KEY;
4- SCENE; 12- CHANNELS;
5- SPEAKER/SENDER; 13- FORMS OF SPEECH;
6- ADDRESSOR; 14- NORMS OF INTERACTION;
7- HEARER/RECEIVER/AUDIENCE; 15- NORMS OF INTERPRETATION; AND
8- ADDRESSEE; 16- GENRES.

S – setting and scene I – instrumentalities: the dialect or language

P – participants variety
E – ends: the desired or expected outcome N – norms: speaking conventions
A – Act: how form and content are delivered G – genres: different types of performance
K – key: mood or spirit (serious, ironic, etc.) (speech, joke, sermon, etc.)
Setting and Scene
•Setting–physical circumstances

•Scene–psychological setting or cultural definition

Participants
• Speaker and audience - Audience can be distinguished as ADDRESSEES and OTHER HEARERS

Ends –Purposes, goals, and outcomes

• Act Sequence –Form and order of the event

• Key –Clues that establish the "tone, manner, or spirit" of the speech act

• Instrumentalities –Forms and styles of speech.

• Norms –Social rules governing the event and the participants' actions and reaction.

• Genre –The kind of speech act or event; for the example used here, the kind of story.

Application
TASK 1. fill in the blank

______________________1. It has a direct effect on language.

________________________2. He developed a valuable model to assist the identification and labeling of
components of linguistic interaction.
________________________3. It is the knowledge of how to produce and comprehend oral or written texts in
the modes of speaking/writing and listening/ reading respectively.
________________________4. It is the ability to recognize and repair communication breakdowns before,
during, or after they occur.

15 | P a g e Module 2: Culture and language Development

______________________5. A group of people who share who set a group of rules and norms for
communication and interpretation of speech.
________________________6. Acquisition is responsible for all second language utterances and fluency. On
the contrary, learning is the “editor” and “monitor” for the output (Hadley 2001).
________________________7. The acquisition of grammatical structures follows a predicable order when is
natural (Hadley 2001).

________________________8. According to him “every cultural pattern and every single act of social behavior
involves communication in either an explicit or implicit sense”

________________________9. A child goes through trial-and error in other words; it tries and fails to use
correct language until it succeeds; with reinforcement and shaping provided by the parent’s gestures (smiles,
attention and approval) which are pleasant to the child.

________________________10. It is an innate structure, or function, of the human brain.

________________________11. There is no limit to the structural diversity of languages.

_____________________12. A process whereby children become speakers of their native language.

_______________________13. It is the knowledge of the language code, i.e. its grammar and vocabulary, and
also of the conventions of its written representation (script and orthography).

_______________________14. The rules and regulations that groups live by.

_______________________15. It is the place they are introduced to interactions, activities, involvement and
communication.

TASK 2: Discussions
Discuss the following:

1. Are the theories discuss help you to understand the culture and language
development? Why or why not?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
______
2. Is it important to study the connections between the language and culture
in our society? Why or why not?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
______

3. How culture influences the language acquisition of individuals?

___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
_____

Closure
16 | P a g e Module 2: Culture and language Development
 Congratulations! You have accomplished the lesson 1-3 of Module 2. Just keep it
up and continue learning!

Module Assessment

Express your Creativity!

In a one whole sheet of paper, compose a poem about being proud of using your own language. You are graded
by the criteria given below.

Rubrics:
Creativity (CHOICE OF 30%
WORDS)
Originality 50%
Formation of Words and 20%
Grammar
Total: 100%

“Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people
come from and where they are going”
- Rita Mae Brown

References
https://www2.slideshare.net/BoutkhilGuemide1/culture-language-development

17 | P a g e Module 2: Culture and language Development