INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND THE LANGUAGE OF A CULTURE

ALLOPHONES: it is when a specific phoneme can be pronounced in different ways. The pronunciation can change depending on where or by whom it is pronounced.
Example, V in America is pronounced using the upper lip and the upper front teeth (labio-dental), but v in Colombia is pronounced using both lips (bilabial), and the sound is different.
T in America is pronounced in plosive way, it means a complete obstruction of the outgoing airstream by the articulators, but in Colombia it is not plosive since any air outside when it is done.

MORPHEME: It is a small structure formed of some phonemes which has a meaning. There are two types of morphemes single and compound. The first one is a simple word that means only one thing like cat, dog, chair, book, muff, month, and amuse. The other one is a simple word with an added phoneme to means something else or a different thing such as cats, dogs, jobs, loved, and beings. These are very important because if you add or omit phoneme, the sense of the sentence can change like past-present, singular-plural, and noun-verb, noun-adjective.
-    Depending on how the word is compound, it can be deduced many aspects of the culture.

WHORF HYPOTHESIS:  It is related with the perception that a person has of a word depending on his/her culture, it means, the physical word is not so much important, the important is what the person thinks about it at the moment of listening or expressing it. It is due to culture and subculture because these are in charge of giving or modifying the meaning of each word; for example, what the majority of Colombians think when they hear the word “cow”, it means: meat, milk, leather, but if Indians hear the same word, their perception changes to something sacred, majestic and protected. In addition, perception of words also changes due to occupation and personalities. Occupation because depending on the job, people knowledge and education change; for instance, for a vet, dog is mammalian, quadruped, canine, but for a child, it is a pet or his/her best friend. On the other hand, a thing can have many ways to be referred, this also depends on culture; for example, in Colombia you can say cafe con leche, pintadito, perico, and express. This depends on perception you have for this drink and the place you are located or the perception that your culture introduce you.

LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: it is the diversity of concepts that language can have depending how a person sees the word, how she/he relates the word with the context; for example, in some cultures, for people tree is a simple tool to work and to get money since it provides wood and paper, for others it is life, oxygen, and beauty, and for others it is nothing since they do not know them.

LINGUISTIC DETERMINISM: For Whorf, language gives knowledge and imagination of the reality to people; for instance, the word house indicates to people that it is a structure where toy can live. Also how much level language you have, you have the level knowledge.

Exercise:  1. Interview


Friend                    buddy
                             Companion
                             Chum
                             Girlfriend
                            Mate
                            Confidante
                            Firm friends
                           Acquaintance

work                   Appointment
                           Background
                           Business
                           Call
                           Calling
                           Career
                           Career
                           Collaboration
                           Delegation
                           Division of labor

Why: it exists many concepts to express only a word since it changes depending on the age of a person, occupation, social status, education, knowledge, and something very important his/her subculture because they almost ever create new words in order to say in a different way a common word.
2.
Money                cash
                          Coins
                          Banknote
                          Bill
                          Bread
                          Bucks
                         Change
                         Coinage
                         Copper

Kinship                Relationship
                           Connection
                           Association
                           Link
                           Partnership
                           Relations
                           Tie
                          Chemistry
                          Reconciliation
                          Rapport