Culture, Language, and the Studying of a

Foreign Language
Pauline Tomasouw (1986) Cross Cultural Understanding

December
2019
Culture, Language, and the Studying of a Foreign Language
By Group 7

Asiyah Rosadi Harianja

Muhammad As’ad Nasution
Nurhot Jamilah Dongoran

The ppt is designed for the Cross Culture

Understanding (CCU)’s Final Project. Big thanks for
Mam Dr.Srimaharani Tanjung,S.Pd.,M.Hum our
beloved lecture of CCU course.

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 The Relationship Between
Language and Culture
“Language and Culture in intertwined.”
-J.R. Gladstone -

• Language is an outcome or a result of the

culture as a whole and also a vehicle by which
the other aspects of the culture are shared and
communicated.
• The culture and language used by it are
inseparable. Because, The language is the
product of the culture , and the culture is
simultaneously shaped by how the language
allows us to view it
• Cultural patterns like customs, ways of life, are
expressed in language; specific cultural world
views are reflected in language.

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 The Importance of Understanding Culture in Studying A Foreign Language

“The foreign language should be learned in a close association as practicable with the culture of the country where
it is spoken, if its full meaning is to be plumb to any depth.”
W.M. Rivers
• A foreign student should be familiar of the life, thought, and culture of the foreign people whose language he is
learning, because language learning can help to build the spirit of the international understanding and
friendliness
• Students should be warned of the existing the differences between the cultures of different nations.. They must
realize that things familiar to one nation may be unheard among people of other countries.
• Culture is the “way of a people”. You can’t learn a new language unless you have a sympathetic understanding
of the cultural setting of that language.
• Cross-cultural misunderstanding arises if a person from an alien culture misinterpreted a complex pattern
when it has a different meaning across cultures.
• Student who not understanding culture of the foreign language he studied will create “misunderstanding”.

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 Misunderstanding of Different Culture
Misunderstanding of the culturally- determined based for the reaction and behavior of the foreign people can
develop in the students contempt for and hostility toward the speakers of the language they are learning. Let’s
have look at the following examples.

Informality and Equality Family Life

• The visitor to Americans is often surprised
by the easy relationship between parents
and children.
• On the other hand, the American visiting
Indonesia might surprised to see that in
Indonesia, the parents-children relationship
is rather formal, where children still have to
respect their parents and there is no
seemingly “equality” in the home.
• The American family is a small unit-two
parents and their children which is called
nuclear family, when two person marry,
they form a new unit or family which is
socially and economically independent.
• While, In other countries including
Indonesia the family includes many others
under one roof: the grandparents, their son
and daughters, and their relatives as well.

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 Conclusion
Since language and culture are bound together, when we learning a
foreigner language, we also must study about their culture. understanding
the culture of the target people so we can reconstruct our attitudes and
world view; consequently we become more tolerable and more generous
toward strange ways that may be shown by the target language people.

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Thank You!
 References

Pauline Tomasouw (1986)

Cross Cultural Understanding