Context and Culture Part 2

8/8/2019 Context and Culture Part 2

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C ONTEXT AND C ULTUREPart 2


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CULTURE

What is culture?

It is the conventions and procedures, including

those related to paralanguage, pragmatics, andgenre, together with values, beliefs which liebehind them, are elements of cultural knowledge.


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CULTURE

What is c ross- cul t u ra l c omm unic at i o n ?

It is communication between members of different national or ethnic communities.

How is it related to Applied linguistics??

It is related in many ways, for example, languageplanning, foreign language education, andtranslation (In a monolingual setting).


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WHAT IS CONSIDERED TO BE CROSS -CULTURAL ?

Communication across different groups withdifferent knowledge and values can be conceived

of as being cross-cultural.

Examples:y G enerationsy

Social classesy The two sexesy Sexual orientation


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WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT ?

The differences between cultures vs. thesimilarities between cultures when it comes toapplied linguistics.

With no cultural background, a shared languagecan cause instances of miscommunication.

The role of applied linguistics is to raiseawareness of the degree to which meaning of behavior is culturally relative, thus combatingprejudice, and contributing to the improvementof community relations and conflict resolution ingeneral.


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DO YOU THINK THE STUDY OF CULTURE ISCLEAR CUT ?

Of course not!

There are cultures within a culture.y Example: The African American culture in an

American Culture.

Culture is constantly changing.y

Example: The loss of titles in addressing people inEngland


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TRANSLATION , CULTURE , AND CONTEXT

Look at this example:

Uvazhayemy G ospodin SmithR ussian

Respected G entleman SmithEnglish

Or would you prefer

Dear Mr. Smith


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TRANSLATION AND APPLIED L IN G UISTICS

It is impossible to translate a text from onelanguage to another using the same phrasestructure, voice, and meaning at the same time.

A translator has to choose which effect to achievethrough translation (literal translation, or asmooth, flowing text that communicate the samemeaning).

Culture has to be understood to be able totranslate from one culture to another.


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Example:y In English the word you can be translated to

French but the translator has to decide between thefollowing:y Vo us f o rmal sec o nd-pers o n pr o n o uny Tu inf o rmal sec o nd-pers o n pr o n o un

Exampley Translation of news headlines between Arabic and

English.

Which one do they use? Why?The word martyrdom or Shahada


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For translators, decisions had to be made all thetime on what structure to use, what meaning toconvey and effect to be added to get wellunderstood text. A knowledge of context andculture is necessary.

Why dont we rely on Machines to translate forus?

The human factor that understands culture andcontext is missing.


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TEACHIN G CULTURE

It has long been that the teaching of culture isrelated to language teaching. However, there aredifferences.

Example:y If you want to learn Chinese. Then, you already have

some interest in the Chinese culture and you will bewilling to learn it.

How about English?y Because of its Lingua franca status, English is

viewed differently.


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TEACHIN G CULTURE

Different ideologies may reject a culture while inneed of learning the language (teaching English

in Saudi Arabia).

Applied linguistics doesnt interfere in suchissues. But, it would try to give informed insightsto help those who will have the obligation tomake such decisions.

Documents

Context and Culture Part 2