Introduction to language culture and the history of ideas

The first thing that learners need to consider in studying any subject matter is understanding concepts. In our daily life, people may use words without being aware of their deep meanings and strengths.  A concept may be defined as an idea or a cognitive unit of meaning— sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other units, which act as a concept's characteristics. For example, we use words such as culture, education and myth without being aware of their deep connotations.

Culture:

The existence and use of culture depends upon an ability possessed by humans alone. This ability has been called variously the capacity for rational or abstract thought. Edward B, Taylor defined culture as “ . . . that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”.

This does not mean that culture has one conventional definition. Contemporary anthropologists cited 164 definition of this concept. The word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:

·         Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture.

·         An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning

·         The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group

Common culture and common language facilitate trade between people. Minorities have incentives to become assimilated and to learn the majority language so that they have a larger pool of potential trading partners. The value of assimilation is larger to someone from a small minority than to one from a large minority group. When a society has a very large majority of individuals from one culture, individuals from minority groups will be assimilated more quickly. Assimilation is less likely when an immigrant's native culture and language is broadly represented in his new country. Also, when governments protect minority interests directly, incentives to be assimilated into the majority culture are reduced. Both factors may explain the recent rise in multiculturalism.

Education:

One way of cultural transmission is education, which in its turn have deep connotation. Education can be thought of as the transmission of the values and accumulated knowledge of a society. Education is designed to guide young learners in learning a culture, molding their behaviour in the ways of adulthood, and directing them toward their eventual role in society. In the most primitive cultures, there is often little formal learning, little of what one would ordinarily call school or classes or teachers; instead, frequently, the entire environment and all activities are viewed as school and classes, and many or all adults act as teachers. As societies grow more complex, however, the quantity of knowledge to be passed on from one generation to the next becomes more than any one person can know; and hence there must evolve more selective and efficient means of cultural transmission. The outcome is formal education—the school and the specialist called the teacher.

As society becomes ever more complex and schools become ever more institutionalized, educational experience becomes less directly related to daily life, less a matter of showing and learning in the context of the workaday world, and more abstracted from practice, more a matter of distilling, telling, and learning things out of context. This concentration of learning in a formal atmosphere allows children to learn far more of their culture than they are able to do by merely observing and imitating. As society gradually attaches more and more importance to education, it also tries to formulate the overall objectives, content, organization, and strategies of education. Literature becomes laden with advice on the rearing of the younger generation. In short, there develop philosophies and theories of education.

This process of education is mostly about transmitting experiences and ideas to teach the present generation the errors and mistakes of the past.  The communication of ideas went through a long process.