UNIT1: The relationship between language and culture and culture. Individual written essay

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE, THE PROPORTIONAL RELATION OF THE GLOBALIZED ERA: DO WE TEACH LANGUAGE USING CULTURE OR DO WE TEACH CULTURE USING LANGUAGE?

The relationship between language and culture is an element that has been addressed for thousands of years by various civilizations that have tried to show how between both aspects there is an innate relationship of what constitutes the human. Evidence of this is manifested by Claire Kramsch, who finds another way in which cultures are modified, as well as each subject who belongs to it, referring to the fact that language when transcending a place becomes a new element cultural that is adopted in the environments inside and outside the families.

Although the language is innate to the human being, the fact of being social animals makes this relationship change from anthropological, sociological, and educational points of view that allow positioning an integral perspective. At first, culture can be defined as the different dimensions of society that have a direct impact on individuals (Sánchez Fernández, 2014). For this, the concept of Tylor stands out, who details each element that constitutes it: beliefs, arts, morals, laws, and customs to facilitate survival.

But in the globalized age, one cannot only talk about survival, which is an anthropological perspective to explain how language shows the integrity of a culture, because both elements are social and require interaction with an equal. It is at this point that Alexander focuses his analysis on how a cultural dimension must always be taken into account, bearing in mind that in any measure these facts are cultural, in this case by the impact of language in the relationship culture and society. (Alexander, 2000)

It is from this perspective that beyond establishing a relationship of who determines who, with detractors and followers, many educational systems present languages (mother and foreign) as a way of knowing the culture. But attention must also be paid to the call that Pourkalhor & Esfandiari (2017) make to involve both students and teachers in a different dynamic and that is to understand that language is only part of the culture, but to manage it comprehensively they must participate in much more than grammar and phonetics.

The language and purity of each tongue are being distorted with cultural changes, most subjects tend to integrate and make them part of their daily lives at the time of the global village, to which we can also add some members of other cultures when arriving at another. They decide to integrate and thus adapt, but keeping their elements, a large part of them transverse by the mother tongue and customs.

All the aforementioned elements generate the occurrence of social phenomena because the interaction with cultural phenomena such as rapprochement with other cultures or the rapid mobility of information cause certain elements to which a group of individuals is exposed to be constantly re-evaluated according to their relevance and identity

            
The point is to analyze what Kramsch highlights and is the reflection that must be raised in educational systems where there is the teaching of a foreign language: what culture is being taught in schools, using the language as a vehicle? Perhaps by being able to answer this question, the didactic and pedagogical practices that are manifested in Colombian education can be adapted to the needs and wishes of participating actively in global dialogues, involving children with learning for life and not as a subject more within the curriculum.