Mersin University
Faculty of Science and Letters
Department of English Language and Literature
Program of English Linguistics
Place of Linguistics in Cultural Research:
Cultural Keyword Perspective
INTRODUCTION & DATA COLLECTION & METHOD OF ANALYSIS
Alişan KILIÇ
13-132-074
Advisor
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aygül UÇAR
Mersin
November, 2017
PLACE OF LINGUISTICS IN CULTURAL RESEARCH AS CULTURAL KEYWORD PERSPECTIVE
Abstract
The study discusses the place of linguistics in cultural research as cultural keyword perspective. Research focuses on the contribution of keywords to cultural research in cultural linguistics to cultural studies of keyword viewpoints. In the article, it is suggested that the concept of “can” is a cultural keyword in Turkish communication and its people-related interpretation and we will exemplify some idioms and uses of the word “can” by arguing that the concept.
1. Introduction
Cultural research, by its very nature, has become an area that intertwined by different various sciences and different research methods (such as history, sociolinguistics, psychology, literature, linguistics, cognitive sciences etc.) On the other hand, culture is both an extremely difficult to define and an appearance that appears in various forms (Ruhi, 2006). To add more about how culture-defining is extremely difficult, two American anthropologists, (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952) compiled and discussed one hundred and sixty-fifth different definitions of culture in an anthology. A social scientist (Berelson, 1964) who criticizes this anthology said that “We do not propose to add a one hundred and sixty-fifth formal definition … We think it is premature to attempt encapsulation in a brief abstract statement which would include or imply all the elements that seem to us to be involved”. Shortly, he said that a scientific concept cannot be defined if there are so many definitions of it. However, Radcliffe-Brown who is a social anthropologist has suggested that the word should never be used. But, when we look at the cultural studies that have done so far, the definition of culture used in anthropology, philosophical and linguistic such as:
(1) Culture is a certain society itself.
(2) Culture is a human and social theory.
(3) Culture is a combination of a number of social and historical processes, etc.
For instance, Linton (1945), refers to culture as the whole life form of a society. Thus, we can say Linton’s reference means that the way of life, geography, values, beliefs, behaviors, and ways of communication of people and so on are also included in culture. Another example, in Turkey, on a TV program there was a news about drinking on the streets. People are who is the residents of the neighborhood were complaining about the people who are drinking on streets and not using toilets and make water on the streets. All Turkish people in the area was saying: “The government should ban this, why government not doing anything etc.”. On the other hand, a German woman living in the same neighborhood tells, why they do not have a public toilet here. Reporter asking another foreign resident in the area and he says, we want plastic portable toilets that are used in festivals on the streets. In these street interviews, none of the Turkish people think of solutions and almost all of them want the government to ban drinking on the streets, while two Europeans living in the same district are pursuing a solution. Turks regarding the state as a mechanism that finds solutions by banning drinking but Europeans regarding the state as a mechanism that finds solutions by serving them. This is an obvious cultural difference.
Culture, according to Sapir (1912: 14), “It is the vocabulary of a language that most clearly reflects the physical and social environment of its speakers. As a physical environment example, according to Eskimo language studies, they are using too many different words for their snow tones, which is a culture that the language possesses. So, we can say that everything that the human hand and the mind touch can be called a cultural product like a plant that was grown by a human (such as the soil of tree, geography, taste). Another example, handcrafts that made in Turkish culture, generally put on the electronic devices. For another society, handcrafts could be on another device or not or on a furniture such as a table etc. But, in Turkish culture handcrafts which are called as dantel in Turkish (in English, it’s lace) generally, put on electronic devices. Shortly, from these examples, we can say that societies have shaped the language and its culture according to their values. In order to understand the culture of a society, it is necessary to examine what are the meanings of individuals attributed to the language and its words. In various societies, giving a way to a woman (like saying “Ladies, first.”) is considered as a “kindship”. But, when we think about the term “kindship”, we can see that it is a blurred concept. For some people, this behavior is coming from kindship, but for some people, it is based on respect. Let’s look at the example below that is given by Ruhi (2006: 2):
A woman who seems nearly fifty years old and has lived in Ankara about fifteen years moved her house to another district in Ankara. She has begun to use the same bus service, which is the same bus that she is using in new home’s district, to go to work. During a conversation (comparing the behavior of the people that are using the same bus service –new vs old neighborhood) she says: “These people at here always giving me a seat for sit. At there [old neighborhood] no one would have done it. We were always on foot. These people are so “cana yakın”. [new neighborhood]
Interpretation as a “cana yakın” is a good example in a few respects to the extent of the above-mentioned understanding. Before going further, the word “can” in Turkish have a lot of meanings and when we look at the English dictionaries, it has more than twenty meanings. On the other hand, word “yakın” means “close” in English. In this context, it could be mean either friendly, respectful or another “kindship” word. It is being a problem when it is trying to be translated into another language. Even in Turkish, it could be different meanings for individuals in Turkey. As I said before, it could be either friendly or respectful and so on. It shows that people may have different interpretations of it and they may carry different conceptions on the essence of the “kindship” of the individuals speaking the same language.
For example (Based on, “Ladies, first.”): We are going to leave a place and we have come across with one lady. When we are going to give a way for that lady, are we doing that because of friendliness or are we doing that on a respectful purpose? I am sure that a lot of people will give different answers. When we look at the examples given from these different views, we also see that the individuals living in the same community may have different internal cultures such as locality, economic class, dialect etc.
As we have been told in the study of Ruhi (2006: 2), it is impossible for us to make a solution as a response to the above-mentioned problems within the boundaries of this work. Because it is difficult to make people give the same answers in the same contexts even they are using the same language. Individuals differences always will show up because there is always be differences such as locality, economic class, dialect etc. In this study, we will assume that many speakers of Turkish individuals have similar conceptualizations through the language they speak. Based on the assumption (Shweder, 1993; Spencer-Oatey, 2000; Wierzbicka, 1997) that culture is processes of conceptualization, interpretation, and interpretation that affect people’ behavior, we will look at cultural keywords and the use of metaphoric language as a means of communication on the contributions that linguistics can provide in this process of examination and interpretation (Lakoff, 1997; Wierzbicka, 1997). In this study, we will exemplify some alterations and uses of the word “can” by arguing that the concept of “can” is a cultural keyword in Turkish communication and its people-related interpretation.
DATA COLLECTION
In this study, the word “can” in Turkish was investigated in a corpus-based methodology.
METHOD OF ANALYSIS
Firstly, the word “can” in Turkish was examined in written texts between years 1990-2010. It was listed as 6080 outcomes in 1688 different texts (phrases in which only the word “can” is given). Secondly, by using the word “can” will exemplify some idioms and uses of it. Thirdly, we will speak about, is it a cultural keyword or not and is it translatable or not to other languages. Finally, we will give a survey of the word “can”, to see are we able to use different words instead of it. Thus, data collection achieved its aim.