LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

This time this blog will discuss the relationship between language and culture, first the understanding of language and culture itself, among others:

Language is an expression that has the intention of conveying something to other people. Something that was meant by the speaker can be understood and understood by the listener or the interlocutor through the language expressed.

Okay, now let us start with our basic knowledge of culture. People usually relate culture with traditional dancing, traditional ceremonies, and arts. and a cultural understanding based on Gurito stated that: Culture indicates all aspects that members of a group share together. Children learn ways of doing things, ways of talking, smiling, laughing, liking, and disliking things. Culture determines people's action, their social relationship, and their morality (Gurito, 2003: p 1).

Those are the most common representation of culture. If we look back to Gurito‟s definition, we can see that there are other kinds of representations of culture.  Actually,  in our daily lives whatever we do is the representation of our culture. The way we speak to our friends, to our parents, teacher, or even strangers represents our culture.  The way we dress,  cook,  eat,  drink,  etc are also representations of our culture.  Take for example the way the western people eat which uses a knife and fork is different from the way we eat, which uses our hands, and also different from the way the Chinese people eat, which us.

after we know what culture is, it turns out that culture has values and norms and this is very important.

Cultural values are values that are agreed upon and embedded in a society, the scope of the organization, the community environment, which are rooted in customs, beliefs, symbols, with certain characteristics that can be distinguished from one another as a reference for behavior and response to what is going to happen or is happening.Cultural values will appear in symbols, slogans, mottos, vision, and mission, or something that appears as the main reference for the motto of an environment or organization.

and Norms are standard rules and they are accepted by  the  members  of  the community.  Norms  consist  of  folkways  and  mores.  Folkways,  are  the way  of  the  people,  the  customs of  the  community  which,  when  broken, do  not  have  fatal consequences.  Mores  are concerned  with  behaviors  of vital  importance in the community and represent the  basic moral values of  a  community.  Bigamy  is  unacceptable  in  the  American culture,  so  is neglecting a husband‟s duty as the provider and the breadwinner for his wife  and  children.  The  norms  concerned  are  actively  enforced  by  the community,  either  through  a  legalaction  or  a  social  sanction.  (Gurito, 2003: p. 5)

If  we  apply  these  definitions  to  Indonesian  context,  we  have  some examples of Indonesian values. We, Indonesians, highly value our family and the  community.  We  tend  to  live  and  do  things  together  with  ourfamily  and our  neighbor.  We  live  with  or  near  our  family,  parents,  grandparents,  uncle and aunts, we know our neighbors and also their family. We visit each other often.  If  something  bad  to  our  neighbor  then  we  and  other  neighbors  will come  to  help.  The  people  in  Indonesia,  especially  those  who  live  in  small cities,  usually  keep  their  door  open  to  show  that  they  are  welcoming  people to come and visit them. Unlike us, Americans highly value personal privacy, they prefer to live and do things by their own.  They usually keep their door close.

What about  Indonesian cultural norms?  Usually, our norms are  a  mix between culture and religion.  For example,  In  Indonesia, it is  against the norms for two unmarried people, man, and woman, to live together. Whereas this phenomenon is common in western countries since it is not against their norms.