Language and Intercultural Communication

Abstract

Culture is defined as the body of knowledge and behavior that characterizes a human society, or more generally a human group within a society. Language is probably the best way of conveying a culture, both oral and written, in human societies. Language, written or oral, plays an essential role in the development of a form of social knowledge, such as common-sense thought, socially developed and shared by members of the same social or cultural characteristics. This common knowledge is sometimes called social representation. Through language, we assimilate culture, perpetuate it, or transform it. Nevertheless, like every language, each culture implements a specific apparatus of symbols with which each society identifies. Different languages are necessary in order to preserve fields such as cultural heritage, while connecting people from different cultures to engage in dialogue may require intercultural mediation. These intercultural communications can be regarded as translation. We reiterate that the relationship between language and culture is counterintuitively complex. Our article will discuss the relation between language and culture in intercultural communication, which is translation in our case. We will present ideas with examples to evidence that language and culture can become two faces of one coin.