Language & Intercultural Communication
What is Language?
Language
A set of symbols shared by a community to communicate meaning and experience.
Why is Language Important to Culture?
- Language and culture rely upon each other for meaning.
- Members of a group (culture) have to agree upon what the random symbols that make up language mean.
- Language in turn can also shape how we perceive the world around us..
Vocabulary, cont'd.
- Cultures where a concept or idea may not be as important as it is in other cultures require more linguistic energy to get the same point across.
- Snow...
- Schadenfreude
- Shlimazl
Vocabulary, cont'd.
Translation Problems
- Vocabulary equivalence
- Translations on a word to word basis can cause losses in translation.
Translation Problems
Experiential Equivalence
- If an object or experience does not exist in your culture, it's difficult to translate words referring to that object or experience into a language that has no words that exist for them.
Idiomatic Equivalence
- Idiom: An experession whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its word.