外国语学院语言学导论课程论文
Language and Culture
Abstract: The language and the culture belong to the social phenomenon, the language, one of social cultural essential factors, which is the cultural carrier. Language is a part of a nation’s culture. The different nationality has different culture, history, manners，customs and so on, but various nationalities' culture and the social custom all display in this nationality's language. Language and culture are interdependent and interactional. On the other hand, culture have a great impact on language, that is culture conditioning. Knowing the language and cultural backgrounds can help our communication. Instead, it will cause many communicative barriers. In this paper, we summarize the relationship between language and culture. And example to explain it’s impact on cross-culture communication.
Key words: Language , Culture , Relationship, Communication
摘 要：语言和文化均属于社会现象，语言是社会文化的要素之一，是文化的载体.语言是一个民族文化的一部分。不同民族有不同的文化，历史，风俗，习惯等等，但各民族的文化和社会习俗都能显示出该民族的语言。语言和文化是相互依赖、相互影响的，另一方面，文化对语言也有制约作用。了解语言文化知识有助于我们的交际。相反地，缺乏语言文化背景知识必然会导致交际障碍。本文列举了语言与文化的关系并举例说明了这种关系对跨文化交际的影响。 关键词：语言;文化;关系;交际
Language and Culture
Content:
As we all know, language is a kind of tool which is used for communication. So far, a lot of linguists have made researches on all aspects of language and come out a grate
外国语学院语言学导论课程论文
deal of theory books which provide some relevant reference for us, especially about the relationship between language and culture.
What is culture? It can be approached from different perspectives and consequently defined in quite different ways. If we look for the word in dictionary, we will know that culture refers to the customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular country or group. As a matter of fact, there is no satisfactory definition that enjoys a general acceptance by scholars of all sciences. However we still can give it a general notion. In a broad way, culture means the total way of life of a person, including the patter of belief, customs, objects, institutions, techniques, and language that characterizes the life of human community. In a narrow sense, culture may refer to local or specific practice, beliefs or customs, which can be mostly found in folk culture, enterprise culture or food culture and so on. Culture is an inclusive complicated system, and can be broadly divided into material culture and spiritual culture. Material culture refers to all the concrete and substantial cultural aspects of human society. Spiritual culture, on the contrary, refers to abstract and implicit cultural aspects of human society, including ideology, patterns of thought, values, beliefs, conventions, traditions, social norms and customs, assumptions, interpersonal relationships, etc.
The relationship between language and culture.
Through mentioned above, we can have a general understanding of culture. Then what is the relationship between language and culture on earth? As far as I know, there exists a close connection between language and culture. No one would deny the relation of language to culture. Language and culture are interdependent and affect each other. Language is an important carrier of culture, the importance of an irreplaceable; cultural constraints on language and culture through the language be highlighted, and its expression can be fully displayed.
Language plays a very important role in all human activities, human social life, an indispensable part. There are two kinds of formulation in the study of language and
外国语学院语言学导论课程论文
culture: \the relationship between language and other cultural phenomena, and some linguists culture is divided into two major areas, \Among them, the relationship of language and cultural affiliation, and with little culture side by side relationship.
Language is a special part of the culture. Culture as an all-encompassing look at the overall concept, the language belongs to the general culture of mankind, that is the great cultural aspects. But it is rather special position in the overall culture, small cultural relations with other components in the overall culture that corresponds to. Therefore, that language is a social phenomenon, is the tool of human communication, but also makes one of the media and cultural integration. Formation, with the formation of human development with the development of human society and change. From the cultural point of view, language and culture is the synchronization occurred, no language, no culture. Language is the premise of cultural formation and development, cultural development also contributed to the development of language. With language, humans have a culture. Language is an important symbol of human difference and animals. From a biological point of view, the primitive man and animals there are many similarities, but the language, the animals did not. Primitive religion, faith, morality, customs and other things belonging to the cultural context, the animals can not. The human language used to create a culture, and culture, in turn, affect human, prompting mankind to greater progress. Since ancient times human society down the accumulation of cultural heritage to the language left a deep imprint. The human language is the language of the culture of human society and human society, human culture, it has many close relationships.
Culture and language in the language communication.
Because language is part of culture, also the carrier of culture and foundation of cultural development, it can reflect the characteristics of national culture and the cultural differences between different nationalities to a maximum extent. From
外国语学院语言学导论课程论文
different nationalities' languages, we can find the evidences of different nationality's values, is or not standard, customs, and religious beliefs, social system, and so on. These cultural factors have restriction on language and language communication. But his own people are not always easy to detect that. Only through the comparison of the different nationality's language and language communication, it can be revealed. The so-called \language system which reflects a nation's mental state, values, life style, moral standards, non standard, aesthetic taste, and the customs and habits etc .This cultural factors mainly reflects in the words system , grammar system and pragmatic system of language.
We will illustrate some examples of culture in the language communication through comparison between China and Western Countries. 1、Greeting
Due to the differences between Chinese and western culture tradition and customs, the way of greeting is, of course, not the same. Because China is a long period of farming community, there’s lot of ‘food’ in the daily expression. When people meet with each other, they will say ‘have you eaten? ’ for greeting. This way of greeting is just the same as ‘hi’ or ‘hello’ in western country. In China, it is a common way to say ‘hello’, but the western people don’t think so. They may think this greeting seems to be saying: ‘I have nothing to eat. Come on. Let’s go to eat something.’ Or ‘ I was going to ask you to go to my house for a dinner.’ All in all, this means that say ‘hello’ invitation to dinner sometimes. Another way of greeting in china is ‘where are you going?’ or ‘where have you been?’. In china, this greeting is just polite formula. But if you use these sentences to greet to western people, they will feel unhappy. Their reaction is likely to be: it’s none of your business! Western people always talk about the weather when they meet. Such as’ the weather is fine. They respect the privacy of others, and will not ask others privacy issues.
In short, when people make a greeting, they should pay attention on different cultures. They should consider the time, place, object, cultural background, social customs and other factors. The use of appropriate greetings can make communication more smooth
外国语学院语言学导论课程论文
and natural. 2、Farewells.
Between the social and cultural customs between china and western country are different, the farewells are different, too. For instance, Chinese people go to other people’s homes. When it is the time to say goodbye, they often say: I’d better be going now. You must be very tired or you will have to go to work tomorrow, I should go now. But the American people, by contrast, most of them will find out their reasons to say good-bye. For example, I must say good-bye, my wife is waiting for me or I think I’d better to leave now. Chinese people are always more politely, while westerners are always somewhat straightforward. 3、 taboos.
In cross-cultural communication, taboo is the most sensitive topic. Cultural taboos research therefore becomes an important content of cross-cultural communication. The so-called taboos are the words that people can’t say in daily life or their work. Taboo is almost everywhere, from daily life to the political and economic aspects. We here just talk some about common taboos. In the conversation, western people are unwilling to say their age, income, marriage, love, property, fat, and so on. But in china, it is very normal to talk about marriage, income, love, age and so on. In addition, western people should not talk loud in public places, they always speak in quiet. But Chinese people always talk loud in public places. There are lot of this kind of taboos, taboos language reflects different countries’ culture.
Conclusion:
Language is closely related to culture. Language expresses and embodies cultural reality. If we are in different countries, we must know their cultures, thus, we can use the language freely. On the other hand, language, as a product of culture, helps perpetuate the culture, and the changes in language uses reflect the culture changes in return.
In short, language is one of the most important carriers of culture and culture has a
Language and culture
