How important is the relationship of language and culture?

The aim of this essay is to introduce you about the relationship between Language and culture, and how these both issues are related to or influence education. But what do we understand by language? How important is language in our life?

In general aspects, language is a way of expression belonged to members of any culture. It includes behaviour, interaction, point of views, signs, values, feelings. Claire Kramsch has mentioned that “language express and embodies cultural reality”. This is particularly important if we want to understand that language plays an important role in any culture. In fact, language is so powerful, meaningful and important, because is closely related to the construction of our identity as society.We give the world a meaning through language, in a sense that the world is a reproduction of our beliefs, dreams, needs and values. Because we give the world a meaning, at the same time every human being is mainly responsible to participate or not in it.

For this, culture as the second aim, takes importance to the language, but what do we understand by culture? Culture can be defined as a construction process of an identity that represents a group of people that belong to a specific place or community. Culture is not an isolated or empty concept. It is full of meaning because has been building by men. While we are alive culture will be too. As subjects within or inside a society, we are the main responsible to create a specific culture and of course our own identity. Through language we give the world a meaning and order about what is more important to us. For this reason, language and culture need each other. We cannot understand language without culture because “Language plays a major role in the perpetuation of culture, particularly in its printed form”, as the author pointed out.

In the same way, education is completely involved within a culture, with a common or not so common language among people. However, what do we teach when we teach? Do we teach culture or we build it in a context? In terms of Education, as future teachers, we are essential subjects in the hard process of building and after a fashion transforming society. But I wonder; when we teach, we teach in an isolated context, with people whom do not have background? As every society includes a particular culture, it is include also different people. Likewise, the places where we have born or lived shape us and have an enormous influence in what we are, believe our language, etc.

As a result, I personally think that, as future teachers, we cannot deny this with our future students, because they are going to have diverse ways of thinking, seeing and behaving. Therefore, their needs, values and languages are going to be different. Each student is a world by itself and while we teach, we have to face different contexts where we obviously meet different people who are history but culture too. In this way, when we teach our students, we also teach culture through certain values, principles, customs beliefs, codes, ideas or common expression which all of these have to be meaningful for them because giving the world a meaning is the only way to build, transform and have a better life.

To conclude, in relation what I have mentioned before, I would say that if we would like to make a big change in education, we should keep in mind that every time when we teach we can not impose a “culture” because it is already build. “Each student is a world by itself” as I already mentioned before. We cannot impose a way of thinking or believing and even feeling. It would be an imposition that does not have any relation what teaching supposed to be or mean. In summary, each of us is unique. Then, we, as educators, have to create an atmosphere where our students feel comfortable to share their experiences and enrich their spirits through a meaningful language. Being critical about what we want to change of our culture and having a dialogue among educators and students is crucial to transform society, in terms that through language we build human relationships which should be based on love and respect that are universal values which have been lost in this Chilean culture nowadays.