Language Culture and society语言学

Language,Culture and society 语言学

Sociolinguistics ---- a sub-field of linguists that studies the relation between language and society, between the uses of language and the social structures in which the users of language live.

Language,Culture and society 语言学

In a broad sense, culture means the total way of life of a people, including the patterns of belief, customs, objects, institutions, techniques, and language that characterizes the life of the 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, etc. There are generally two types of culture: material and spiritual.

Language,Culture and society 语言学

The same word may stir up different associations in people under different cultural background, e.g. the word “dog”. Language expresses cultural reality, reflects the people’s attitudes, beliefs, world outlooks, etc. The culture both emancipates and constrains people socially, historically and metaphorically. Culture also affects its people’s imagination or common dreams which are mediated through the language and reflected in their life. On the one hand, language as an integral part of human being, permeates in his thinking and way of viewing the world, language both expresses and embodies cultural reality; on the other, language, as a product of culture, helps perpetuate the culture, and the changes in language uses reflect the cultural changes in return.

Language,Culture and society 语言学

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf, proclaimed that the structure of the language people habitually use influences the ways they think and behave, i.e. different languages offer people different ways of expressing the world around, they think and speak differently, this is also known as linguistic relativity. Sapir and Whorf believe that language filters people’s perception and the way they categorize experiences. This interdependence of language and thought is now known as Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

Language,Culture and society 语言学

Strong version believes that the language patterns determine people’s thinking and behavior; Weak version holds that the former influence the latter. ----The study of the linguistic relativity or SWH has shed two important insights: There is nowadays a recognition that language, as code, reflects cultural preoccupations and constrains the way people think. More than in Whorf’s days, however, we recognize how important context is in complementing the meanings encoded in the language.

Language,Culture and society 语言学

Denotative meaning ---- a meaning that can be found in a dictionary. Connotative meaning ---- a meaning or idea suggested by a word or thing in addition to the formal meaning or nature of the word or thing. Iconic meaning ---- the image or icon invoked in mind by a word. For example, “rose”.

Language,Culture and society 语言学

Greetings and terms of address Thanks and compliments Color words Privacy and taboos Rounding off numbers Words and cultural-specific connotations Cultural-relat

ed idioms, proverbs and metaphor

Language,Culture and society 语言学

Learning a foreign language is inseparable from learning its culture. We need to learn enough about the language’s culture so that we can communicate in the target language properly to achieve not only the linguistic competence but also the pragmatic or communicative competence as well.

Language,Culture and society 语言学

Cultural overlap refers to the identical part of culture between two societies owing to some similarities in the natural environment and psychology of human beings. For example, the superior tends to refer to himself or herself by means of kinship terms, such as

“Have daddy/mummy/teacher told you that?”

Language,Culture and society 语言学

Through communication, some elements of culture A enter culture B and become part of culture B, this phenomenon is known as cultural diffusion. One typical example of cultural diffusion is the appearance of loan words. (肥皂剧、卡通、布丁、苹果派、雀巢、巴士、因特网、 KTV、EMAIL; Typhoon、gongfu) The practice of observing holidays of foreign origins and accepting concepts from other cultures.

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