Language : The Essence of Culture

The relationship between language and culture is deeply rooted. Language is used to maintain and convey culture and cultural ties. Different ideas stem from differing language use within one’s culture and the whole intertwining of these relationships start at one’s birth.Language is one of the most important parts of any culture.  It is the way by which people communicate with one another, build relationships, and create a sense of community.

Communication is a core component of any society, and language is an important aspect of that.  As language began to develop, different cultural communities put together collective understandings through sounds.  Over time, these sounds and their implied meanings became commonplace and language was formed.  Intercultural communication is a symbolic process whereby social reality is constructed, maintained, repaired and transformed.  As people with different cultural backgrounds interact, one of the most difficult barriers they face is that of language.  

 Both language and culture play a significant role in shaping your personality.Culture tells you how to interact with others and helps to shape values and ethics. Besides, it keeps you close to like-minded people and thus,  the sense of belonging strengthens your bond with society. On the other hand, language is like a tool using which you express your culture. In fact, cultural ideas and beliefs are transmitted ahead via language.Furthermore, both the culture and language allow us to peek into the past and shape our ideas. How we think, speak and interact with others around us is determined by our cultural values. Language also impacts human thoughts.

The teaching of culture is an integral and essential part of foreign language instruction.Culture is a message to our students and the language is our medium as teachers. Culture should be addressed 

in lessons from the very beginning of instruction and continue throughout the 

 entire teaching period. This does not imply that linguistic contstructs should

be overlooked or ignored but instead used as elements of culture embedded within the language and taught accordingly. Many ways to teach culture are available to teachers and include role plays, culture capsules, proverbs, literature, film, convention clusters, semantic mapping and use of other authentic materials. Successful English language teachers will be those who are informed about culture, those who study the culture with discipline and always search for creative and innovative ways to include culture in lesson content and materials.