Review of Language, Culture, and Society

Abstract

Language, Culture, and Society can be regarded as a handbook for sociolinguistics edited by Christine Jourdan and Kevin Tuite. The book has 11 chapters each written by different authors and takes a general look at the language issues in terms of studies in the social and cultural foundations of language. Furthermore, it brings information related to language based on society, culture and language discussing a range of major questions: How does language influence our perception of the world? How do new languages emerge? The first chapter which is ‘An issue about language’ belongs to Charles Taylor. He begins by asking some questions asked for centuries to evoke some knowledge about the issue of language. To understand the nature of the language, he presents two theories which are enframing theory and constitutive theory. In this respect, concrete illustrations are given over the explanations of the theories above on the basis of the relationship between signs and words when they have meaning. Furthermore, the wordless world of the animals in front of a sign and the human beings’ ability to say something in front of an inarticulate action are compared without making any simulations between. In addition to that, the difference

between responding appropriately to features of a specific situation and the features are illustrated while expressing that the animals’ response to features of one specific signal does not involve any definitions.

Keywords

• Language
• Culture
• Society

References

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2. Leavitt, John. 1991. ‘The shapes of modernity.’ Culture 11(1-2): 29-42. (ed.). 1997. Poetry and prophecy: the anthropology of inspiration. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.