The Language and Culture Cocktail

         This chapter by F.L. Johnson, “Cultural Dimensions of Discourse” in 'Speaking Culturally', talks about the connection between culture and language and the influence each has upon the other. It looks at the many aspects of culture and language being used to shape the lives of people in a society and how culture and language from different backgrounds can be understood by someone who has a connection to the different communities. 

    Having lived in Israel which has a very different culture from the U.S., it allowed me an opportunity to observe how we use language to pass along our culture.The family that I lived with used the Friday night Shabbat dinner preparation to discuss various topics. The mother used the preparation time to pass along recipes from her Kurdish background. She used language of cooking in handing down her culture to her children and myself. You must understand that I come from a family, which had Friday night dinner together ( the Jewish Sabbath), and family dinner on Sundays, but my sisters and I didn’t really participate in the preparation or the cooking. We just came down when it was ready. My parents both worked when I was growing up, so we ate a lot of TV dinners and various other take-out. So it was a culture shock to be expected to participate in preparation, cooking, and serving of dinner, one that I quickly overcame. I discovered that it was very interesting to observe this process that was so foreign to me. I also learned new words, not only Hebrew but in Kurdish.         

         Being in Israel with that family and participating in their customs brought back many memories of my great grandmother. She would stay with us when I was younger. She liked to cook and used the time to talk about her family in Russia (it was still called Russia when I was a kid but the town is now in what is officially the Ukraine). She made the attempt to pass along her culture from her childhood to us, even if we were to young to really understand it. She not only used cooking but she would tell stories while we did laundry and while we cleaned. Unfortunately, I do not have a clear recollection of what she said but I do remember her taking the time to pass along her culture to me, even if I couldn’t appreciate it at the time.