Culture英语语言与文化论文.doc

CultureEnglish is a kind of language, its also a culture. I once thought that the English-speaking peoples culture is simple, because of its short history. However, the idea is definitely wrong. Every culture origins from the ancestors wisdom and many generations joint efforts, it deserves our respect. English cultures have its spirits. There are a lot of things we should learn about. Thanks to Prof Moye and Prof Osborne that give us a good chance to have access to more English cultures.In the first class, I was impressed on the beautiful letters that Prof Moye showed us. It is amazing. I have been used to appreciating different fonts of Chinese words, and it never occurred to me that English letters should be written in this way. Its hard to recognize, yet its lovely to enjoy. The word “LIBER”, which means “LIBRARY”, Prof Moye said that even many Americans dont know it. It does make me surprised. He tells us the story of Beowulf, a hero of the Geats in Scandinavia. And theres also an epic poem, which written to compliment him. The Kenning and Synecdoche of the ancient poem bring us a new idea of poem-writing. Around the story, there is much knowledge to grasp. The names of King and place at those times are strange to remember. And because we are foreign to the west, some of the ancient things can be confused. We seldom learned about it before, and we knew very less about that; however, in this case, we have more interests to learn more. Besides the above, therere beautiful Runes, they are simple symbols, but they stand for certain means, just like the ancient Chinese inscriptions engraved on bones or tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty. All of those are just the beginning; we learn a very small piece of the beginning, we will have a meaningful try on our own in the future. Prof Osborne gives us a vivid description of modern Americans foods. She broadens our horizon. At the beginning, I thought it would be very easy, because we eat food every day, and we have watched foods on American TV shows and TV serials. But the FOOD is not just FOOD. Theres culture behind it. The first thing is that there are some foods that can seldom be eaten in China, like collard, gumbo, fried green tomatoes and so on. I even cant tell their names. Food has something to do with holidays. People eat different foods on different holidays, New Years Day, Valentines Day, Easter, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Also, food has its Festivals, Contests, Museums, etc. And people eat different foods on wedding, birthday and funerals. Food also can be served as metaphor. For examples, “the rice bowl has been broken= I have lost my job”, “As American as apple pie”, “Not worth a hill of beans”. They are very interesting. Moreover, food has something to do with environment and peoples health. We should produce healthily and eat healthily.I gain a lot from the class, and I begin to consider that culture has no nationality. Although Chinese long history and traditional culture are full of the characteristics of Chinese people, yet it belongs to the whole world, and same things to western culture. Different cultures should know each other peacefully, and have a common development and good inheritance.