Essential Outcome 5: Language, Speech, And Discourse

There is a huge connection between language and culture. Huge chunks of a culture are shaped and/or formed by its language. It is the sole part of our everyday lives that we use to communicate with each other, and direct each other as well. There are a few different methods to analyzing language and its impact on culture. The first of which is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis basically states that our entire reality is shaped and formed by our language. So basically, since we have a limited vocabulary, based on words that we have made up ourselves, that runs our reality for us. We have made up our own reality, and with each language and culture, there is a new reality different than our own. It basically states that language controls our thoughts, which therefore control our actions and perspectives as well. As Dr. Archer said, there are a couple different variations of the SWH. One states that our reality is just completely made up by our minds and thoughts, while others state that reality is influenced by our mind/thoughts/language. Our minds are primarily made up of our language, and thusly since our reality is greatly influenced by our minds and thoughts, then reality must really come from the source of it all. Our language.

I have a great example of why the SWH works. When I am thinking about this subject deeper and deeper, I am starting to agree with the hypothesis. When you think about it, our reality really is shaped based on our language. Our language is basically created by us. Here is an example. I bet there is not a word in our language that can describe a person standing on their head, eating a sandwich, and twirling around at the same time. That seems random, I know, but there isn’t a word that can describe that. I’ll make one up. Flarrg. Ok, so now that I know what flarrging is, it is now a part of my reality. When you see someone in a car going somewhere, you notice they are “driving”, when you see someone coming toward you on the sidewalk, they are “walking”, when someone is looking at a T.V., they are “watching” it. All of these words are based off of our language, and yet all of these actions are a part of our everyday lives, our reality. Language can be used to explain every single thing in our reality and everyday lives, so therefore it must be the basis of our reality. I mean sure, if there wasn’t language, there would still be objects in our world, but we wouldn’t know what they were, or what we would do with them. So it is language that forms everything together and that enables us as a society to function within our realities. Since language is so powerful, it forms and molds our thoughts, and therefore we can only experience our reality based on how we created it, which was through language. (Sorry if I sound confusing there)

I believe that the Supir-Whorf Hypothesis is mostly true. I have thought about this extensively and have come to the conclusion that language makes up MOST of our reality. The SWH I believe is true, based on what I have stated above. It pretty much is my own perspective on language now that I think about it. I never really thought this deeply about language before but now that I do, I believe that language doesn’t create our reality, but rather form it, just as the SWH says. Language definitely plays a huge role in our everyday lives and realities.

Essential Outcome 4

Ethnocentrism is basically a belief system in which people think that their own culture is better than anothers. It revolves around opinions. And there is more than one kind of ethnocentrism too. The first kind is when someone is raised in a certain culture and brought up to their standards/lifestyles. They then look at the other cultures through the point of view of their own and notice differences. The other kind of ethnocentrism just simply believes that one’s own culture is better or superior than other ones. So basically, you can say that it is looking at the worlds cultures from your own, and noticing the differences.

A perfect example of ethnocentrism that I think of right away is the cows in India. We here in the United States, we raise cattle predominately to use them for meat, such as hamburgers. We don’t even think twice when we chow down on a hamburger or slaughter cattle for their meat. However, in India, the cow is viewed as a sacred animal, and one that should be admired. They do not slaughter the cow, but rather worship it. That is a huge ethnocentric difference! We look at the people in India and think they are crazy for worshipping an animal that has revolutionized the fast food industry here in America. I don’t know what we would do without hamburgers! If you go into a restaurant, you almost always see a hamburger or two on the menu. Another good example is the female genital cutting that Dr. Archer talked about in class. We in the United States tend to encourage the growth and development of all our adolescents, so when we hear about the cutting of the female genitals in other cultures, we freak out. I know that when I saw that rusty razor blade and pool of blood and the look of horror on the young girl’s face, I was confused. I myself can’t fathom how someone would want to rid themselves of their sexual pleasure. Then again, the United States as a culture has seen a sexual revolution over the past few decades. Almost everything you see now has some sort of sexual meaning behind it now, mainly in sales. So because of my understanding of my own culture as embracing one’s own gender identity, I am confused and almost disgusted when I see what the females in that tribe are doing to each other. To them, it is just a normal coming-of-age practice to perform, but to me it seems cruel.

Culture shock is almost the same thing as ethnocentrism, except for one major difference. While ethnocentrism relies mainly on opinions and beliefs, culture shock relies on actually being there and experiencing the ‘shock’ for yourself. When we go to another culture and embed ourselves in it, we begin to see the differences between our own culture and the one we are living in, and it is hard to make such a sudden change to adapt to that kind of thing. That is why it is culture ‘shock’, because it is very hard to so quickly change your habits that you have had basically since you were born and raised in your own particular culture. An example would be if you went to Iraq even before the U.S. went to war with it. If you walked down the street there, things would be very different than you see here in the States. Living conditions are much poorer, the dictator sucks, etc. Anyways, my own personal example of culture shock would be when I visited Mexico. I was on an ATV tour and we went through some remote villages and even stopped at one of them to eat. It was very different indeed. I saw all of the children running amuck barefoot, all the ancient structures, the poor living conditions, etc. Even the place where we went to eat had no floor in it! Instead it just had sand in place of the floor. And so in that manner I was shocked to see the major differences between my own culture and theirs.

Both of my examples show the power of the culture that is embedded deep within every one of us. Take the cows in India for instance. Our culture has taught us that raising and slaughtering cattle is ok to do for consumption purposes. We raise a cow, we kill it, and we eat it, and we don’t really think twice about it, since the power of our culture has set that in our minds to be a culturally acceptable thing to do. However people in other cultures, such as India, see that as cruel and inhumane. What is deeply imbedded in their culture is that the cow is a sacred animal and one that should be treated with respect. So since we both have our cultural values and beliefs so deeply embedded within us, we look at the other culture and think that they are the wrong ones, and that we are right.

My example visiting Mexico is the same thing. The culture that is in me is that of the United States, where if you see someone walking around outside barefoot you would think he is weird, or if you walked into a restaurant with no floor you would be like “Huh?” Or if you saw tons of starving little children begging to you for food, you would reel back and be shocked. But all of this is what I saw and experienced in my trip to Mexico, and so it proved to me that I do indeed have my own cultural norms and ways of dealing with things that are inside of me. Since I was taught the complete opposite as them, my experience down in that village was a lot different than theirs. They were just experiencing everyday life, but I was experiencing a huge cultural difference.

Along with benefits come problems, and there are some related to cultural shock and ethnocentrism. I believe most of it relies in ethnocentrism, as none of it relies on actual experience, just thoughts and opinions. People may think that a certain culture is wrong or just plain weird, and that’s the main problem right there. They can’t say that unless they’ve been there and experienced that culture for themselves. And the problem that comes with experiencing it, aka culture shock, is that there is no way possible you can experience it all. With culture shock, you may get the wrong idea about a particular culture. You have to adapt to so many things so quickly that you begin to feel overwhelmed and extremely stressed out, which in turn causes you to feel bad, and view the culture you are in as weird and unsettling. You may think it’s strange and very challenging in the way that a particular culture runs its everyday life, but that view is only imposed on you because of the intense culture shock that you experience. I think that if you spent more time in the culture, like an ethnographer, and studied them and lived their lives, then it would erase the problem of culture shock and ethnocentrism all together, as you could form an honest, truthful opinion based on your vast experiences with the culture you were with for a long period of time.

Cultural relativism is a possible solution to ethnocentrism and culture shock in many different ways. Being a cultural relativist means that you put your own cultural beliefs and thoughts aside whilst observing another culture. And by doing so, you eliminate all the problems associated with ethnocentrism and culture shock, because you put your own opinion out the door, and can better understand the culture you are observing because of that.

Cultural Relativism relates to my examples in many ways. We think the people in India are weird for worshipping the cow and calling it sacred, but if we put our own culture out of the picture, and all the fast food burgers, etc, we would see it different. If we put our culture aside, we might see the bigger picture. Maybe the cow has some sort of ancient history with the Indians, or maybe it is some form of God to them, who knows. If we were to take the time to research that I’m sure we would find some sort of reason for it. Same goes for the Mexico trip. While I found it weird that everyone was running around barefoot, not very clean, and living in poor conditions, it really wasn’t. When I took my own culture out of the picture and looked at theirs, I realized that that was all that they had. They had no money to afford good clothes or shoes or housing, so they made the best of what they had at their disposal. So because I was a relativist, I realized that what I considered poor conditions were actually normal conditions to them.

Essential Outcome 3: Ethnography

Ethnography is another complex subject. It is basically a way of studying a culture of a particular group of people while actively becoming a part of their community. As an example, the man who went to live with the villagers in the film that Dr. Archer showed us. He was a part of an ethnographic study, as he lived with the people of the community, learned their culture, and adhered by it. It is hard to really learn everything about the culture, as most things lie beneath a conscious level. For example, if someone were to come live in our house for a week and observe everything we do as a part of an ethnographic study, we wouldn’t tell them everything we do, such as putting on clothes in the morning before heading out, putting our food on a plate before we eat it, using spoons, forks, etc. That sort of stuff seems so natural to us that it may slip past our point of view.

The process of gathering information in an ethnographic study is quite diverse. It can either be by writing it down, recording a video, maybe even typing it, surveying it, etc. In an ethnographic study, it is also important to gather your information from as many sources as possible, to avoid bias opinions or false information. By doing this, you have a better chance of getting more accurate information.

Ethnography is also a good mix of qualitive and quantative measures. Not only are they interested in the quality of their research and data collection; they are also interested in getting into things that can be counted. And that’s what it’s all about. Not only is an ethnographer participating and experiencing a new culture, they are comparing their own culture to the one they are studying. In that regard, the ethnographer can compare and contrast the individual strengths and weaknesses of their culture compared to the one they are studying.

There are many subjects that an ethnographer can study. One that I chose to study as a part of the class exercise was the school computer lab on the floor right above the library. I first walked in and immediately noticed how quiet that the environment was. Everyone seemed to be doing one thing or another on their own computers. I saw that some people were surfing around on the internet, while others were feverishly typing up papers. I went around the room and asked a few people what they were doing there at the computer lab so early in the morning for. The replies I got ranged from “I’m busy right now I can’t talk,” to “I’m working on a paper for my next class,” to “Doing some math homework.” This led me to conclude that most of the students that were there either didn’t have access to a computer at home, or procrastinated and waited until the last minute to get their homework done in time for class that day. Out of the twenty or so people that were there, I noticed maybe one or two who weren’t seriously into what they were doing, and were just kind of messing around. The rest of the students, however, seemed to be working intently on some kind of project or assignment. I myself have had to use the computer lab back when I was living on my own and did not always have the time at home to use my laptop to type up papers. I would go into the computer lab a couple times to fine-tune or type up an assignment. So by participating in this activity, I know now why I got some of the answers like “I’m busy.” When I was typing up my papers I was really focused on what I was doing so I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to come up to me and start asking me random questions and break my concentration.

So basically, I dealt with ethnography on a smaller scale, but there are definitely strengths and weaknesses to the practice. Strengths include being able to understand and become a part of someone’s daily life and practices. Some main weaknesses of that though are the things below the conscious level, or the tacit ones. So while an ethnographer can learn a lot about a particular culture, he/she must get their information from a number of sources to insure accuracy; but they also won’t get the full cultural experience, since many aspects of culture are hard to identify and explain.