Language and culture

1、外国语学院语言学导论课程论文language and cultureabstract: 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 nations culture. the different nationality has different culture, history, manners，

2、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 an

3、d 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 its impact on cross-culture communication. key words: language , culture , relationship, communicat

4、ion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 culturecontent: as we all know, language is a kind of tool which

5、 is used for communication. so far, a lot of linguists have made researches on all aspects of language and come out a grate 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 dif

6、ferent 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 definitio

7、n 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 huma

8、n 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 cul

9、ture. 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

10、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 bet

11、ween 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 highl

12、ighted, 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 culture: "the language in the language and culture" and "cultural&

13、quot;. in order to define the relationship between language and other cultural phenomena, and some linguists culture is divided into two major areas, "culture" and "small culture" (bright, 1976). among them, the relationship of language and cultural affiliation, and with little c

14、ulture 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

15、 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

16、 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 cultur

17、e. 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

18、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

19、 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 t

20、he cultural differences between different nationalities to a maximum extent. from 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 restric

21、tion 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 communication culture", is a special cultural

22、factor implied in the 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 i

23、llustrate 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 far

24、ming community, theres 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 dont think so. they may

25、 think this greeting seems to be saying: i have nothing to eat. come on. lets 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 yo

26、u 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: its none of your business! western people always talk about the weather when they meet. such as the weather is fine. they respec

27、t 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 comm

28、unication more smooth 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 peoples homes. when it is the time to say goodbye, they often say: id better be going now.

29、 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 id better to leave now. chinese people are always m

30、ore 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 cant say i

31、n 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 no

32、rmal 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