Abstract
It is said that language reflects and implies its culture, and people convey ideas of the language from generation to generation, which form a part of the beliefs, values, and thoughts which the people have. In doing so, they develop their own culture and knowledge. From this point of view, it is claimed that language and some culture are closely connected, and cultural aspects can be clarified by analyzing the language.
In this paper, the inseparability of language and culture is mainly discussed. Especially, some aspects of "commitment" and the related words including "responsibility" are examined. The Japanese words equivalent to "commitment" and "responsibility" are also explored in order to see the differences between the English and Japanese cultures.
It is concluded that "commitment" containing a sense of "responsibility" in English can imply group action, accountability, engagement, involvement, and blame, which is strongly influenced by the cultural context based on contract and personal responsibility while "commitment" and ''responsibility" in Japanese can imply harmony and consideration, which is affected by the cultural context that emphasizes joint responsibility more than personal responsibility. To pursue this aim, a corpus-based approach is applied and a variety of articles are derived from American and Japanese college papers.
