LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

BY I DEWA MD BAGUS KASUMAJAYA NI WYN NADIA REDMA A.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

KINSHIP TABOO AND EUPHEMISM

COLOR TERMINOLOGY

FOLK TAXONOMIES

TABOO
Taboo (Wardhaugh, 2006: 239) is the prohibition or

avoidance in any society of behavior believed to be harmful to its members in that it would cause them anxiety, embarrassment, or shame.
Taboos are also often related to setting, such as

constraints against talking about certain topics at the dining table, whistling in the house or at night, or cursing in a place of worship (Troike, 2003:63).

 Example:

1. Someone talks related to something disgusting in dinning room. 2. Talking about something that is related to sex in public place or talking about it with family. 3. Uttering harsh words in a sacred place

EUPHEMISM
Richard and Schmidt (2000:188) state that euphemism

is the use of a word which is thought to be less offensive or unpleasant than another word.
Euphemisms (Holmes, 2001:320) may be used to avoid

words considered rude and the concept itself is uncomfortable, while conveying their meaning: "Kiss my you-know-what!" instead of the more vulgar, "Kiss my ass/arse"; the expletive sugar to substitute shit.

In language teaching
You may use euphemism to cover taboo words stupid when you want to give implicit instruction.
Example: Okay next time, we need to work together one more time, we have to discuss this more because this is very interesting topic You are stupid, dont be lazy! Study hard!

Example: 1. Wafat Mati 2. Restroom toilet 3. Developing country poor country 4. Underprivileged poor man

KINSHIP
Wardhaugh (2006: 229) states that kinship systems are

a universal feature of languages. People use language in daily living refer to various kinds of kin.
Example: A child living away from his parents and

lived with his uncle, he would call his uncle as father.

FOLK TAXONOMIES
Wardhaugh (2006: 232) states that a folk taxonomy is a

way of classifying a certain part of reality so that it makes some kind of sense to those who have to deal with it.
Example: The example of folk taxonomy we may find

in Bali are the classification of the diseases.

Classification of Diseases according to Balinese people

Diseases Physical diseases Non- Physical diseases

upas
Tilas naga barah Tilas bunga desti

bebainan

cetik

acepacepan

In Language Teaching
Animal

fish

mammal

sea horse

whale shark

monkey
human rabbit

dog

COLOR TERMINOLOGY
The terms of color is used by people to describe color

itself give us another means of exploring the relationships between different languages and cultures. (Wardhaugh, 2006: 235).
Palmer (1971:75) cites that color categorization

influences the cultural relevance and color categorization is not arbitrary and random at all, in addition, color categorization is not constrained to some degree, to see as we do and so to label them in somewhat consistent fashion

Example: the traditional Japanese red and blue would be orange and turquoise in English because those were the colours of the vegetable dyes they used
the Navaho system of basic colours is related to the use

of objects and colours used in ceremonials

In language teaching
The use of third person singular morphemes s/es in simple present tense which is indicated with red colour.

She S He S

reads VI s/es watches VI s/es

the paper Obj TV Obj

everyday. Adv of time every morning. Adv of time

Conclusion
When we want to utter some of taboo topic such as sex, death etc, we may use euphemistic words to cover meaning behind that word. Euphemistic words allow us to talk about unpleasant things and disguise or neutralize the unpleasantness. On the other hand, kinship systems are a universal feature of languages. People use language in daily living refer to various kinds of kin. While a folk taxonomy is a vernacular naming system, and can be contrasted with scientific taxonomy. Folk taxonomy can be used to classify things in general. Last but not least, the color spectrum is a physical unity that varies among language and culture. We can analyze the development of the culture (in case of technology, religion, food) by identifying the color categorization of the particular race lives in our world.