毕业论文(英语专业)中英住宅文化语言价值.doc

淮阴师范学院本科生毕业论文（设计）（空一行）AcknowledgementsAt the completion of this thesis, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Mr. Ji, for the instructive advice and useful suggestions he has given on my thesis. I am deeply grateful of his help in the process of my paper.Then my heartfelt thanks also go to my parents for their continuous support and encouragement.Last but not least, I am still grateful to other teachers who had conducted me in the study of the English language. Thanks also to my friends who have helped me a lot during my school life.（空一行）Abstract The culture pattern is the abstract concept of the cultural products of a culture type, and the cultural products are the specific accounts of the culture pattern. Value pattern about interpersonal relationship is an important one of the culture pattern. Architecture, especially the residence, maintains the most close relationship with human beings, and its features may most directly reflect the local culture and character. Traditional Chinese residence is the quadrangle courtyard with the unique structure of soil wall and timber framework, which embodies the Chinese culture value of collectivism. The style of detached house reflects the British value pattern of individualism.Comparative study on Chinese and British residences is made in this paper in order to reveal the value pattern in the cultures. And as dominated by different values, the residences of different features may affect peoples life styles, characters and some ethnical words and sentences. And it is reached that there are distinctions between the nationalities of status of independence and awareness of privacy.（空两行）Key Words Cultural Semantics residences China Britain culture values (空一行)摘 要文化模式是文化成果的抽象,文化成果是文化模式的具体体现。建筑，尤其是住宅建筑，与人类生活息息相关。受集体主义价值模式的影响，中国形成四合院式、土木结构的住宅；而英国个人主义价值模式的影响形成了独立式的住宅。本文通过比较中英建筑的区别，揭示其文化模式的差异。人们的生活习惯又受到这两种不同风格住宅的影响，并形成一些特有的民族语言及民族文化语义。从而得出了中英文化中不同的个人独立状态和私人空间意识。（空两行）关键词 住宅, 中国, 英国, 文化价值，文化语义学（上空两行）Contents1 Introduction12 Theoretical foundation: culture and cultural semantics12.1 Comparative study of cultures12.2 Cultural semantics33 Architecture and culture43.1 Architecture as the culture product43.2 Residence54 Residences and the features54.1 Chinese residences64.2 British residences74.3 Comparison of the main features85 Cause and the embodiment85.1 The cause of the distinctions85.2 The embodiment of the culture95.2.1 Self-reliance and dependence105.2.2 Privacy and social concern116 Conclusion13Works Cited14151. IntroductionCulture is the intellectual and spiritual achievements of human beings. It can be divided into two parts: culture-product and culture-pattern. Culture-product is about the outcomes created by the basic structure and functions of a culture. It concerns the different exterior characteristics of culture systems. However, the culture-pattern is the basic dominating part abstracted from the cultural products of various types, namely, it deals with the interior model of the culture. The culture-pattern is the abstract concept of the cultural products of a culture type, while the cultural products are the specific accounts of the culture pattern (Liu I). Thus, comparative study between cultures is just to reveal the culture pattern through the comparison of the cultural products such as traditional clothes, architectures, religions and so on.Architecture is one type of the cultural product created by people of certain culture pattern. There have been lots of books and papers studying on the comparison between Chinese and western cultures through architectural features from a variety of aspects such as concepts of nature, states of independence, aesthetic standards, and ways of naming the architectures and so on. And there are also comparative studies on architectures built in Chinese and British landscape gardens. However, this paper deals with different cultural values in the residences of Chinese and British from the view of cultural semantics. It is mainly divided into three parts. The first part concerns the theories of my paper. The second part is about the architecture as the cultural product reflects the culture and conventions of the people whos living in. Then a brief account on the main features of the Chinese and British residences is given in the third part. And the next part is about the reason of the distinctions and different conventions resulted in the two styles of residences shaped by the values of individualism and collectivism. 2. Theoretical foundation: culture and cultural semantics2.1 Comparative study of culturesThere have been over four hundred definitions made for culture according to the Course of Culturology. Here are two typical ones in the field.They take that of the British anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor as the first definition of culture. He said: “Culture . is 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.” And A.L.Kroeber defined it as “Culture is made up of exterior and interior behavior patterns. These behavior patterns are obtained and transferred through symbolic signals. The culture represents the remarkable achievements of the group of human, including the embodiment in man-made things; the core part of culture is the traditional idea (namely idea obtained and selected in the history) and especially the value it brought in. On the one hand the culture system can be regarded as the product of social activity; on the other hand it is the determining factor of the movements in the future” (Wu Keli 50).Tylors definition has the most far-reaching influence in the field of culturology since the beginning of the subject. And Kroebers is now widely accepted and is considered to be the most complete one.Because of the complication of the culture and its hard to give a complete definition, many scholars are inclined to reduce it into concise parts. For example, someone has divided it into four parts as culture-product, culture-capability, culture-spirit and culture-act-pattern. In order to be pithier, Liu made it into two parts, culture-product and culture-pattern. And the culture-pattern includes the patterns of behavior, thought and value (Liu). And I prefer this type of conception of culture because it sums up the culture in both broad and narrow senses.Culture-product is the culture in broad sense. It includes all the achievements human beings made in the society such as architectures, clothes, laws, literatures, social ideology and so on. Such culture-product is the specific display of the culture-pattern. For example, the features of Chinese quadrangle courtyard show vividly the value pattern of collectivism of the country; while British type of detached houses disclose the individualism of the culture.Culture-pattern, which is the domination of its culture-product, is the narrow sense of culture. The pattern is embodied in all its products and is the abstract image of the achievements. This sense of culture concerns the characteristics and status of the interior structure to make out the internal cause of the external appearances of the cultural products. For instance, because of Chinese value of collectivism, the people would like to live together and the houses are connected together to form a courtyard. And as a result of the individualism, the British prefer the detached houses separated far from each other.Culture can be divided into two parts, culture-product and culture-pattern. Then which sense is the comparison studying on? Generally speaking, such study concerns the culture pattern through comparing the features of the cultural products. For example, this paper deals with the features of Chinese and British architectures to study the cultures. Then, to find out the distinctions of the architectures is on the level of studying the culture-product. However, in order to compare the different cultures, it should be researched on the culture pattern which conducted the distinctions, that is, different values of individualism and collectivism. 2.2 Cultural semanticsCulture is a ethnical phenomenon of the life in human society, and different nations and countries have different cultures. That is, culture is differentiated with national marks. The national character of culture decides that the language depends on culture as the background, namely, language will not exist without its culture; it is the culture that people depending on to comprehend and use a language. As a branch of the cultural linguistics, cultural semantics concerns the ethnocultural semantic character of the words, and the irrational analysis method in form restricted by the national culture; it is research on the influence process that cultural factors affect the semantic part from the aspect of semiotics and semantics; it is the comparison on two languages to reveal the categories of culture-functional semantics and ethnocultural semantics(e.g. culture-synonymy and culture-antonym) and so on(Wu Guohua 17). Language is the product of the culture in the civil society. It shows peoples attitudes towards the world and their standards for activities. Language is a remarkable achievement of the civil human society and the sign of distinguished from the animals. Language depends on culture and is the reflection of culture. Words come out of the life style, living conventions, surroundings, social conditions of a nation. And this conducts the national characteristic of the word and the language.Architecture is the cultural product that most closely related with peoples living activities and also affects the national language and the semantics. 3. Architecture and cultureArchitecture is of the cultural product created in the human society. Its shapes, functions and appearances are all catering for the certain culture pattern of the society. And residence takes the lead position in all kinds of buildings.3.1 Architecture as the culture productArchitectures appear as a result of residence, one of the basic material needs of human beings for sheltering from wind and rain. Thus, architectures are considered to be one of the most important material needs for human living. “Material needs for living are the basic needs of great importance for man kinds existence, and they are the base on which people carry out their activities. Judging from the quality of the materials, they are natural. While they are made use of in the society of human civilization, the materials are shaped as a result of catering for peoples tastes of different cultures. Thus, the substances from the natural world had been affected by various cultures and became containers full of cultural information ” (Liu 104). Said Liu in his book and he took the building as one of the examples for his comparative study between Chinese and western cultures. Descriptions on how architectures received the cultural meanings were made that: “Houses in the ancient times were very simple without any decoration. With the development of the social technology, people began to add their designing thoughts and decorative things to the simple houses they built as their abilities of building and modeling were strengthened. As time went by, the houses gradually got on cultural information and became the embodiment of different cultures” (Liu 117). Resulted in the variation of peoples intention and activities, various kinds of architectures with different functions came into being, such as palaces, churches, temples, gardens and so on. And it is said that: “The ability of building a house demands for a comprehensive capability from a variety of aspects of fields. Architectures can most directly disclose the different cultures and peoples living styles in various areas and historical periods” (Fan 25).From this, it is obvious that architecture is the most important one among the cultural products. And it is the culture pattern that leads to the different features.3.2 ResidenceHouse built for living in is the kind of architectures for the basic practical use in the daily life. And it takes a leading position among all the buildings. There is a saying of behavioral scientists that: “The clothes are the expansion of ones skin, while the residence is the limbs.” Such a saying explains to the full that what one thinking in his mind would certainly affect his environmental conditions (Meng 2). “Residence is one of the basic living materials of mankind. It is the place where people carry out most of their activities, such as having meals, sleeps, holding marriage, sacrifices and so on. The appearance of the so called houses is the mark of the human civilizations” (Tang 5). Wang Wei also said in his book that: “House is certainly a kind of receptacle of concepts besides its basic practical functions for residing, and it keeps a relation to the creation of beauty” (Wang 137). From all the words above, the residence maintains most close relationship with peoples life and it is the house people spend most thoughts on. Hence, a conclusion can be reached that architecture is able to mirror the culture of the society and the residence, to some extent, reflects the character and concepts of the residents characters towards the society and the world. Therefore, we can say that the residence is the expansion not only of ones limbs but also of the ideas and concepts. Residence is the form of architecture that can be to some extent a representative of the character and the thoughts of the resident. Then, the main features of residences in a country may surely be the reflection of the traditional culture of the nation.4. Residences and the featuresChina, one of the birthplaces of the oldest civilizations in the world, has a culture of extensive influence on the world history. The Great Britain is like other countries on the continent which had experienced the Roman Times, the Mid-Ages and the Christ Society, a typical country of western culture. The book of Travels of Marco Polo brought Chinese cultures into the European world and made great impact on peoples lives, including the British. Most of the British people showed great interest in Chinese Confucius, tea, china, classical gardens, etc. Then the culture of tea had been developed in a unique British way and the gardens of “Le Jardin Anglo-Chinois” had once been focused on attentively all over the European continent.Generally speaking, the distinctions between the architectural features of these two countries are obvious because they are typical countries of two extremely different culture patterns in the world.4.1 Chinese residences Any country has not one certain style of house, but there must be a typical ones or a basic framework to be followed.China is the third largest country in the world with a large territory of various geographical conditions and the climates. As composed of 56 ethic groups, the cultures in China are of various kinds. For these reasons, the residences are of various styles. There are numbers of types of traditional living houses such as the bamboo houses in the southwest of the country, the “den residence” on the Loess Plateau and so on. However, among all the types of Chinese architectures, there is a basic form called quadrangle courtyard as the most original structure on which Chinese architectures developed. Someone explained how the courtyard developed from the basic structure of Chinese common dwellings:The original Chinese form of common people living house is the residence of three rooms in a line with a door in the central one Then as the population grows larger, the family builds houses lengthwise on the two sides and the opposite as the wing-rooms to form an enclosure in the middle. Such an enclosure is called the quadrangle courtyard. And for a bigger family, they base on the single courtyard and add to it more yards to the length or to the width. Its popular to extend the length of the yard and then it came into being the second yard, the third yard, or even more. Its so easy to change the yard in size that it caters for Chinese extended families in the traditional society (Zhang 7-8).As the city of Beijing is famous for its traditional quadrangle courtyard, many people may have the idea that its just the type of house in the city only. In fact, such quadrangle frame is the basic structure of Chinese buildings that can be found all over the country.“Seeing from the aspect of history, there are many ethnic conventions of various characteristics. However, as a unified country for such a long age in the history, all the peoples shared a common culture traditionally. The evolution of architecture covered a process from the nest and cave residences in the far ancient times, then the house of timber structure and soil wall built on the ground to the well-formed quadrangle courtyard. The complete quadrangle courtyard had appeared for a long time since the West Zhou Dynasty. Construction of timber framework, quadrangle courtyard formation makes the basic and unique Chinese architectures characteristics. This kind of structure is the root of most Chinese buildings that it can be found all over the country. For instance, all the Chinese styles of palaces, offices, monasteries, ancestral temples are based on this structure” (Gao 3-4).It shows out that the quadrangle courtyard is so common a structure that spreading all over the country and it is the most traditional type of house in China. A quadrangle courtyard refers to an enclosure with rooms on four sides, each which is occupied by a unit of a few rooms. The four sides are linked by covered corridors. The enclosure is compact and cozy and is usually with gardens inside the compound. For the comple