Language and Culture

Language and Culture between Eastern and Western Abstract In our world people talks and talks everyday What can they use in daily talking That is language The relationship between language and culture is very close The language is like a human behavior tool and also is the carrier of culture The language itself is also a kind of culture different human come from different culture system have different characteristics in language activities Western people is forthright Eastern people is implicit both of this behalf shows the different of two cultures Key words Language Culture Western Eastern Different Misunderstand Text With the development of human civilization the world get more different than before Now the human beings become more intelligent the whole world are more like a whole entity or we can call it big home When people live in this big home we are all its family member nations are like families and the countries are like neighborhood When people comes from different countries get together they may get misunderstandings as well as conflicts come up All of this is because of they share different cultures In terms of our country China After the experience of Reform and Open our country is on the way to the world specially since we entered WTO we got faster step to communicate with other countries More and more Chinese people use English as their second language Even some students go abroad to study more about the education The following is a report from a British magazine The Economist 2003 31 Chinese students are flooding into British universities Seen from close to Britain s universities are in a sorry state overcrowded cash stapped and Demoralized But from far away they can look very attractive Their marketing to foreign students is excellent especially in China where Educating children abroad is increasingly fashionable The latest firm Fingers from 2001 show around 18 000 Chinese students in British higher Education That makes then the largest group out of a total of 143 000 Foreigners And it is a 71 increase on 2000 preliminary figure for 2002 shows a further increase of 67 taking the likely total over 25 000 from British magazine There comes a question Could Chinese student communicate with English student propitiously by using what they learned in China With this question we can think in this part Although language only can help you understand some meaning of the words or sentence that other people talk to you you can t experience it completely So what is the relationship between language and cultures And now I begin with this article tries to identity what actual relationship between culture and language with the question that what s the relationship between culture and language According to the different culture system between China and west I want to deal with this topic Language and Culture Do you know what Zhong shen Da Shi means In a CCTV quiz program hosted by WangXiaoYa an American guest who could speak some Chinese was to choose its proper meaning from the following four choices gongzuo shiye hunyin shenshi Although he fully understand the meaning of this term the most important thing in one s life he didn t work out the meaning we Chinese attach to it until the host give him some hint The problem of this American is he only know the meaning on the surface not its primary meaning For many words there are both connotations and denotations An English term politician whose denotation is a person whose business is politics But its connotation is a person who does not usually keep his promises often cheats for his own selfish purpose Which is derogative The relationship between language and culture has been point out at early time by E spair s book language There are always something behind the language and language can not exist without culture And linguist Palmer also said that the history and the culture of the language play a part together they can get inspire from each other According to the relationship between cultures and language we can divide it into follow parts 1 Language is an important part of culture Why I say that It is based on the point that language has some features from culture Frist from the connotation of culture it is conclude two parts one is material wealth and another is spirit wealth The language is a kind of spirit wealth which made by the evolution of human beings It belongs to culture Culture and language both be possessed by human beings Then language is not a genetic behavior as well as culture they are both the behavior that people learn to get it People can not own it when someone is born Next culture is a common wealth of all human beings so is language It is owned by all society 2 Language make record for culture As for a social phenomenon language not only exist for the communication tool of human beings At the same time when people use this tool they also blend life phenomenon nature phenomenon in our daily language Thus language has the function of record culture For example people always talk about the students life now When the society get more and more difficult to find a job students are going to continue their study so people always ask Are you going to continue your study after graduate Blogs xiaosan copy All these examples record all kinds of culture in today s life 3 Language promote the development of culture When people make the frist meaningful sounds and finally accept it This action becomes to a sign With the growth of this sign the horizon of people will get more and more opened it will become easier to communicate for human beings And this sign is language After having language people express themselves conveniently thus brings thousands of culture 4 Language and culture interacts each other Between them the two way relationship can be viewed from the relationship between language and thinkings language as the cultural dissemination tool this two respects to try to understand Language is the tool of thinking but the constitution of culture is inseparable from thinking As a tool of thinking language to a certain extent influence and restrict the way of thinking and the scope and depth However when the thought development to a certain extent the language form can not fit their needs or hinder its development people will consciously reformation thinking tools prompting language change In this sense thought influences and restricts language Cultural is in propagation Language as a mean of cultural transmission natural plays a fundamental role to the dissemination of culture cultural survival strength On the other hand with the spread of culture especially the alien culture language and will appear in a number of new words and the new modes of expression so that culture do influences and restricts the language Here is some another examples Basically Equivalent English Idioms and Chinese Idioms Resulting from the Resemblances between Two Cultures Because of similar cultural backgrounds we can find some common traits between certain English idioms and Chinese idioms These English idioms and Chinese idioms are not only equivalent in meaning but also alike in forms Here are two examples 破釜沉舟 and burn one s boat 千钧一发 and Hang by a hair Chinese idiom 破釜沉舟 came from one historical event at the end of the Qin Dynasty In the Battle of Julu against the Qin troop Xiang Yu led his soldiers to cross the Zhangshui River and when they arrived at the other side of the river he ordered his soldiers to sink all the boats and broke all the pots and bowls they used for dinner By doing so he meant to show his determination of fighting to death Finally his troop gained the battle In 419 B C Julius Caesar led his soldiers to fight with Pompey s troop In this battle Julius burned all the boats after his troop passed the Rubicon River to show his determination to fight to the last drop of blood with his soldiers Because of resemblance in same culture 破釜沉舟 and burn one s boat are basically equivalent in form and meaning The Chinese idiom 千钧一发 is associated with a historical story in the Western Han Dynasty One day Liu Bi told Mei Cheng that he intended to rebel against the court Mei Cheng advised him not to do so He said Wouldn t you think it is dangerous to tie a heavy object weighed one thousand Jun 钧 a kind of weight unit in ancient China to one single hair Once the hair break you will fall into the endless abyss Your idea of fighting against the court in just as dangerous as the hair that is going to break up Please don t take such a risk Dionysius decided to teach Damocles who was his courtiers a good lesson One day Dionysius invited his courtiers to a banquet During the meal he told Damocles to sit on his throne Damocles did as he was told He felt so happy and excited But when he looked up he got very frightened because there was a sharp sword right over his head which was suspended by only a single hair It looked as if the sword would drop and cut him at any time Because of resemblance in same culture 千钧一发 and hang by a hair are basically equivalent in form and meaning Basically Equivalent English Idioms and Chinese Idioms with the Same Cultural Origin There are some borrowed idioms both in English and Chinese which are usually equivalent to the original idioms both in meaning and expression form due to their same cultural roots For example in Chinese we often use the idiom 以眼还眼 以牙还牙 to refer to the action of revenging on somebody in the same way he did to you Its original text from Bible goes like this And if any mischief follow then thou shah give life for life eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot 若有别害 就要以命偿命 以眼还眼 以牙还牙 以手还手 以脚还 脚 More examples 鳄鱼的眼泪 crocodile tears 火中取栗 pull the chestnuts out of the fire 酸葡萄 sour grapes 诺业方舟 Noah s Ark They are all based on their own culture Language is like a mirror reflecting all the culture of a nation people from different country can only understand the customs and habits of their own countries using their own patterns of thinking For example Chinese student always say hello teacher when they meet their teacher But students in west are different they always use Mrs XX Professor XX or directly their name Without the knowledge of the differences between English and Chinese People will have problems in their communication which thus leads to the confusion of communication People s material and spiritual exchanges activities can t separable from the language Human belief and the world view production experience and knowledge of culture from generation to generation also because of the language Otherwise our history will be a blank At the same time the language is also a kind of culture different culture system of human language activities have different characteristics West forthright Oriental implicitly both show the different culture of Eastern and Western Similarly the savage nation language rough lack of abstraction also reflects a culture pattern When people meet greet to each other Westerners say good morning Chinese ask did you eat anything also represent two different cultures Culture produce language language generation promotes the cultural development these two interactions and tolerance so the language study of language is inseparable from culture culture is inseparable from the language study It is because of the relationship between culture and language People with different cultural backgrounds in communicative activities showed the most apparently At the 50 s Western appeared in intercultural communication intercultural communication Study of intercultural communication is that people from different cultural backgrounds in various communicative activities related to cultural problems Potter put the effects of communicative factors into 8 variables attitudes social organization mode of thinking role language the use of space and organization the concept of time nonverbal expression With the develop of China and other country Cross Culture Communication get closer to the foreign teaching The experts of foreign teaching divide the language communication mistake into two parts One is language mistake the other is culture mistake Woltsen said that when talk to foreign people The native people get relatively tolerant in their speech and grammar errors To the opposite go against speaking rules is considered impolitely because the native people can hardly recognize the relative of social linguistic Therefore some foreigners who just arrived in china have the same feeling Chinese policeman often interrogating them with what in your name how old are you are you married how many children do you have where do you go a and so on These questions in the grammar is correct but these for us is quite common but for problem in foreign people it becomes privacy This made the cultural errors caused by cultural barriers or culture shock often lesd to complain Thus foreign language teaching is not only teaching language but also should include the culture teaching This already became the consensus of people gradually American Association of foreign language teaching in writing language ability clear requirements students should possess four kinds of language skills listening say read write also asked the students must also have cultural character social cultural ability That is to say one language communicative ability including not only the language ability but also the close relationship with social and culture understanding If you do not understand the cultural connotation of the language will suffer from culture shock and difficult to escape No matter a person s linguistics how standard for communication often in the cultural barriers he will meet the problems The culture factor of linguistic Language is a cultural phenomenon any development of a language is a improvement of people s living conditions especially in a certain extent reflects the national culture s development the political revolution the natural and geographical conditions the evolution of production Each nation has its own unique culture which determines the national language of certain features and give it some special cultural connection Culture consists all of the products of human society the language is part of culture and therefore it plays an important role in culture Some sociologists think the language is the cultural foundation no language no culture on the other hand language is influenced by culture reflecting the culture When Chinese people meet each other not only to say hello early come go and so on but also often hear the dinner or where to go If a British or Americans hear these phrases they will be surprised even causing some resentment In fact Chinese in this case said for dinner or where to go is same as How are you in English Western country have the same communicative function but they does not actually go against each other and know exactly what they have eat In general it is difficult for us to understand this kind of people little speech never talk about yourself the feelings are not show to any thing this is the British people The most prominent character of Britain is lonely which means I m British please stay away from me I would like to be alone I don t need you please don t ignore me Secondly the British another notable feature