personal and theoretical reflection on the relationship between language & culture || 10/28/2022

I found this article relevant to my area and language studies. I also related personally to how language and culture is considered and perceived.

The first few pages discussed kinship, and this reminded me of when I studied abroad in China. We were told by our teacher to identify our homestay parents by certain names. The homestay mother was to be called 阿姨 (aunt) and homestay father叔叔 (uncle). I remember the first time I called them these names; I wasn’t quite sure how they would take it, but they happily exclaimed and started smiling.

I also learned about the many different cultures and dialects that exist. There is the majority ethnic group Han, which is supported by the nation-state, and then there are smaller ethnic groups, like the Bai. The eminence of the mandarin language as the representation of the Han has driven down other groups’ languages and dialects. When I lived in Beijing, I found it easier to connect and communicate with people. For one, I was learning the same language, and two, the city life and capitalist-esque society was familiar to me. But when I lived in the rural southwest, in Yunnan, I was completely unprepared. I tried to transfer similar ideas of speech and culture into this area but ended up ineffectively connecting with or understanding my new homestay family.

Thus, Piller speaks to how a relative relationship between particular languages and cultures should exist. However, when reading historical accounts, we find that this is rarely the case. This reminded me of material from another class. Piller states that the nation state is strengthened when the relationship between language and culture is simplified. In my East Asian studies seminar, we discussed the author Benedict Anderson. He describes the ways in which the expansion of print media has developed ideas of nationalism and the nation-state. If you simplify or mold language into certain patterns it creates national subjects/ideas. This weakens or silences the true multiplicity of languages and cultures. As Piller cites, “‘To speak of the language, without further specification, as linguists [and writers on intercultural communication] do, is tacitly to accept the official definition of the official language of a political unit.’” (Piller, 49). A particularly dire example was described by Piller – missionaries in Africa basically inventing the Thonga language. They legitimized the language, in Euro-centric terms, and in turn legitimized particular conceptions of the culture. To understand the true multiplicity, and print the bible for each language, would be far too great the effort.