Chapter 20
Language and culture
The type of sociolinguistic variation
described in the previous chapter is
sometimes attributed to cultural
differences. It is not unusual to find
aspects of language identified as
characteristic features of African
American culture or European culture
or Japanese culture. This approach to
the study of language originates in the
work of anthropologists who have
used language as a source of
information in the general study of
“culture.”
We use the term culture to refer to all the ideas and
assumptions about the nature of things and people
that we learn when we become members of social
groups. It can be defined as “socially acquired
knowledge.” This is the kind of knowledge that, like
our first language, we initially acquire without
conscious awareness.