What does language enable?

What does language enable? Correct Answer Transmitting culture not only in the present, but from the past to future generations

Important Points

  • The relationship between language and culture is deeply rooted.
  • Language is used to maintain and convey culture and cultural ties.
  • Different ideas stem from differing language use within one’s culture and the whole intertwining of these relationships starts at one’s birth.
  • In short, language fulfills a symbolic or communicative function.
  • Language enables transmitting culture not only in the present but from the past to future generations.
  • Language does this by fulfilling two key functions, functions that underpin linguistic communication.
    • The first is that language enables us to express our wishes, feelings, likes, dislikes, and ideas—its symbolic function.
    • This language achieves by encoding and externalizing our thoughts. To do this, language uses symbols.

Hence, we can conclude that the right answer to this question is Transmitting culture not only in the present but from the past to future generations.

Related Questions

Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer to each question out of the four alternatives.
Doing an internship at the University of Lille in France, I almost always found myself stuck whenever I had to speak to non-Indians about India or on anything'Indian'. This was more because of the subtle differences in the way the French understood India in comparison to what I thought was 'Indian'. For instance, when I,or any Indian for that matter, say 'Hindi' is an Indian language, what it means is that it is one of the languages widely spoken in India. This need not be similar tothe understanding that the French would have when they hear of 'Hindi' as an Indian language. Because for them Hindi then becomes the only language spoken inIndia. This is a natural inference that the French, Germans, Italians and many other European nationals would tend to make, because that is generally how it is intheir own respective countries. The risk of such inappropriate generalisations made about 'Indian' is not restricted to language alone but also for India's landscape,cuisine, movies, music, climate, economic development and even political ideologies. The magnitude of diversity of one European country can be easily compared tothat of one of the Indian State, isn't it? Can they imagine that India is one country whose diversity can be equated to that of the entire European continent? Theonus is upon us to go ahead and clarify the nuances in 'Indianness' while we converse. But why should one do so? How does it even matter to clarify? Why do some French people think that Hindi is the only Indian language?