Question on link between language and culture

[sicola at DOLPHIN.UPENN.EDU]

Hello everyone,

It is pretty commonly understood and documented that there is a need to 
understand a given culture in order to speak the relevant language(s) with a 
communicative competence that goes beyond syntactic and lexical surface 
accuracy. But is there also some good, accessible documentation showing the 
reverse? I.e. that you need to study a language in order to more deeply 
understand the culture(s) that use it? I presume it's a rather cyclical 
relationship betwen language learning and cultural insight. If anyone has some 
good references that address the "learning language leads to cultural 
understanding" directionality, I'd be very grateful. My intent is to find 
supporting evidence for a talk I'm giving to "average business people" who may 
otherwise assume they can simply read a book on "doing business in (country)" 
and learn all they need to know about living and working in that environment, 
and thus don't need to attempt to learn the local language. 

Thanks!

Laura

-- 
Laura Sicola, PhD
University of Pennsylvania 
Educational Linguistics
TESOL lecturer




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