We are dealing here with a vastfield characterized by a large number of research methods, and I will just mention three methods: an ethnographic approach to the study of linguacultural practices, a sociocultural approach to the study of linguacultural resources, and a semiotic/ symbolic and biographic approach to practices and resources of the multilingual subject.
Agar’s work can be described as a highly language-sensitive and also practically oriented approach to intercultural communication. In his 1994 book he provides an introduction to ethnographic studies of linguacultural and discursive practices (in my terms) in everyday con- versation. The focus is on how as a layperson one can build up one’s cultural awareness by collecting rich points and investigating whether they form patterns, by investigating linguistic
practice in certain situations in order to define frames (the typical example is what are also referred to as ‘scripts’, e.g. concerning typical sequences of acts when visiting a restaurant): ‘Frames take language and culture and make them inseparable. The “and” disappears, and we’re left with languaculture’ (Agar 1994: 132, italics in the original). His opinion, then, is that one ought to work inductively and empirically to build up an increasingly comprehensive set of interrelationships between frames. This is an approach that underscores the search for coherence between language and culture in different settings.
The linguacultural resources of individuals have been investigated (without using terms like linguaculture or culture-in-language) in a number of cognitive studies inspired by sociocultural and sociohistorical theory (the Vygotskyan tradition). Lantolf (1999) gives an overview of such studies in the context of second language acquisition, where a number of researchers have conducted experimental studies in order to examine what they call‘second culture acquisition’, mainly by comparing word association or the use of metaphors in groups varying according to language use (use of the language in question asfirst or second/foreign language) and according to contexts of learning (the language learned in school in their own country or by immersion in a target language country). These approaches, in their focus on‘second language and culture acquisition’, also tend to underscore the intimate relationship between language and culture, but at the same time some of the studies show that learners of a second language tend not to learn the second culture unless they are immersed in it, i.e. are living in a target language country (Lantolf, 1999). This is an approach that primarily looks for similarities and differences between groups of language learners/users.
Another kind of approach is represented by Kramsch (2009), which deals with the subjective aspects of language learning. It focuses on the multilingual subject and his/her language learning biography and practices in a semiotic/symbolic perspective, including links with identity, memory, emotion, and imagination. The data are mainly spoken and written data from individual language learners, including online data from for example electronic chatrooms, and published testimonies and memoirs of former language learners.
6 Future directions
Until now the concept of linguaculture seems to be used primarily infields where there is a special emphasis on dealing with both language and culture, for instance in language teaching and learning. But the concept has something to offer for the whole range of language and culture studies. It can be used for highlighting that some forms of culture are related to language, while others are not. Thus it can prevent us from jumping into a narrow, language-bound view of culture. It can also be used to stress that languages and linguacultures (i.e. their users) may spread all over the world across diverse cultural contexts. And above all, it can be useful for the further development of methodology and empirical methods in thefield: a fundamental methodological issue in relation to the analysis of the language–culture nexus is data construction and generation itself: what configurations of language–culture nexus do we traditionally focus on, and what configurations do we tend not to include in our studies? What configurations lead us to reaffirm the idea of inseparability of language and culture, and what configurations lead us to formulate ideas of complexity, mixing, and change?
Related topics
research on language and culture: a historical account; the linguistic relativity hypothesis revisited; ethnosemantics; ethnopragmatics; language, culture and context; language culture and identity; language and culture in second dialect learning; world Englishes and local cultures
Further reading
Kramsch, C. (1998) Language and Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (An introduction to the complex relationship between language and culture.)
Risager, K. (2006) ‘Culture in Language: A Transnational View’, in H. L. Andersen, K. Lund, and K. Risager (eds) Culture in Language Learning, Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. (A presentation of the two levels of meaning in language: linguaculture and discourse.)
References
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