Language and Culture---语言与文化的关系.doc

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1、Language and Culturel IntroductionSince human being appeared ,all kinds of languages came into being bir by bit .And with the development of languages ,cultures, varieties of cultures grew ,too .What we can not deny is that there is a intimate relationship between language and culture . There are ma

2、ny ways in which the phenomena of language and culture are intimately related. Both phenomena are unique to humans and have therefore been the subject of a great deal of anthropological, sociological, and even memetic study. Language, of course, is determined by culture, though the extent to which t

3、his is true is now under debate. The converse is also true to some degree: culture is determined by language - or rather, by the replicators that created both, memes.l Language as Determined by CultureEarly anthropologists, following the theory that words determine thought, believed that language an

4、d its structure were entirely dependent on the cultural context in which they existed. This was a logical extension of what is termed the Standard Social Science Model, which views the human mind as an indefinitely malleable structure capable of absorbing any sort of culture without constraints from

5、 genetic or neurological factors.In this vein, anthropologist Verne Ray conducted a study in the 1950s, giving color samples to different American Indian tribes and asking them to give the names of the colors. He concluded that the spectrum we see as green, yellow, etc. was an entirely arbitrary div

6、ision, and each culture divided the spectrum separately. According to this hypothesis, the divisions seen between colors are a consequence of the language we learn, and do not correspond to divisions in the natural world. A similar hypothesis is upheld in the extremely popular meme of Eskimo words f

7、or snow - common stories vary from fifty to upwards of two hundred.Extreme cultural relativism of this type has now been clearly refuted. Eskimos use at most twelve different words for snow, which is not many more than English speakers and should be expected since they exist in a cold climate. The c

8、olor-relativity hypothesis has now been completely debunked by more careful, thorough, and systematic studies which show a remarkable similarity between the ways in which different cultures divide the spectrum.Of course, there are ways in which culture really does determine language, or at least cer

9、tain facets thereof. Obviously, the ancient Romans did not have words for radios, televisions, or computers because these items were simply not part of their cultural context. In the same vein, uncivilized tribes living in Europe in the time of the Romans did not have words for tribunes, praetors, o

10、r any other trapping of Roman government because Roman law was not part of their culture.Our culture does, sometimes, restrict what we can think about efficiently in our own language. For example, some languages have only three color terms equivalent to black, white, and red; a native speaker of thi

11、s language would have a difficult time expressing the concept of purple efficiently. Some languages are also more expressive about certain topics. For example, it is commonly acknowledged that Yiddish is a linguistic champion, with an amazing number of words referring to the simpleminded.Language is

12、 never the entity which has been invented or scripted in isolation. It certainly has evolved gradually with the continuous development of a culture. A culture being a building made of social behaviors, human emotions, or way of expressing feelings, the language has continually adapted accordingly to

13、 accommodate these identified notion and gesture of human activity. Finding a symbolism every time to register it in the language, thus contributing to its growth. A language has always been a weapon to express ones ideas and feelings. And the reason enough to make this weapon more efficient to hand

14、le ones need of expressing things with intended accuracy. It has been tuned-up with each new finding, getting honed up continually to get its flawless shape with developing culture. l Cultu Culture and Language - United by Memes According to the memetic theorist Susan Blackmore, language developed a

15、s a result of memetic evolution and is an example of memes providing a selection pressure on genes themselves. The definition of a culture in memetic theory is an aggregate of many different meme sets or memeplexes shared by the majority of a population. Using memetic reasoning, it can be seen that

16、language - itself created by memes and for memes - is the principal medium used for spreading memes from one person to another.As Blackmore states in The Meme Machine, memes were born when humans began to imitate each other. According to her theory, this event preceded - indeed, had to precede - the

17、 development of language. When imitation became widespread, producing selection pressure on genes for successful imitation, memes began to exploit verbalizations for better and more frequent transmission. The end result of this complex process was language, and the anatomical alterations needed for

18、its successful use.Language, created by memes as a mechanism for ensuring better memetic propagation, has certainly been a success. Today, the vast majority of memes are transmitted via language, through direct speech, written communication, radio or television, and the internet. Relatively few meme

19、s are transmitted in a non-linguistic way, and those that are have very specific, localized purposes, such as artwork and photography. Even these media, though nonlinguistic in themselves, assume language and very rarely appear without some sort of linguistic commentary. This might take the form of

20、a critical analysis of an artwork, a caption for a photograph, a voice-over for a video, etc.l Language as Part of CultureFor many people, language is not just the medium of culture but also is a part of culture. It is quite common for immigrants to a new country to retain their old customs and to s

21、peak their first language amid fellow immigrants, even if all present are comfortable in their new language. This occurs because the immigrants are eager to preserve their own heritage, which includes not only customs and traditions but also language. This is also seen in many Jewish communities, es

22、pecially in older members: Yiddish is commonly spoken because it is seen as a part of Jewish culture.Linguistic differences are also often seen as the mark of another culture, and they very commonly create divisiveness among neighboring peoples or even among different groups of the same nation. A go

23、od example of this is in Canada, where French-speaking natives of Quebec clash with the English-speaking majority. This sort of conflict is also common in areas with a great deal of tribal warfare. It is even becoming an issue in America as speakers of standard American English - mainly whites and e

24、ducated minorities - observe the growing number of speakers of black English vernacular. Debates are common over whether it is proper to use Ebonics in schools, while its speakers continue to assert that the dialect is a fundamental part of the black culture.English is far more world wide in its dis

25、tribution than all other spoken languages. It is an official language in 52 countries as well as many small colonies and territories. In addition, 1/4 to 1/3 of the people in the world understand and speak English to some degree. It has become the most useful language to learn for international trav

26、el and is now the de facto language of diplomacy. In 2001, the 189 member countries in the United Nations were asked what language they wish to use for communication with embassies from other countries. More than 120 chose English, 40 selected French, and 20 wanted to use Spanish. Those who wanted E

27、nglish to be the common language included all of the former Soviet republics, Viet Nam, and most of the Arab world. English is also the dominant language in electronic communication, particularly on the Internet. However, the percentage of Internet users who are not native English speakers is increa

28、sing rapidly, especially in Asia. In fact, China estimated in 2008 that there are now more people who have online access in their country than in the U.S., which had been the global leader in Internet access.In reality, the distribution of languages globally is very complex and difficult to easily d

29、escribe. Numerous migrations of people over the last several centuries have resulted in most large nations now having many different languages. There are at least 165 languages spoken in the United States today. Consequently, it is somewhat misleading to describe the U.S. as being an English speakin

30、g country. The same caution applies to other multicultural nations as well.Some parts of the world have unusually high concentrations of different languages. There are around 900 native languages spoken by the 5-10 million people of New Guinea and its neighboring islands. That is roughly 1/6 of all

31、languages being spoken by far less than 1% of the worlds people. Other language high density areas have been native California and the Caucasus Mountains north of Turkey and Iran.The majority of the languages in the world are unwritten and many of them are disappearing. About 1/2 of the worlds langu

32、ages are no longer spoken by children. This is the first step in the extinction of a language. About 2,000 languages now have less than 1,000 speakers. The most threatened are the indigenous languages of Australia and the Americas. By the end of the 20th century, about 200 Australian languages survi

33、ved, but more than 1/2 had less than 10 speakers. Two dozen had a single elderly speaker. Young Aborigines now predominantly speak English, especially in urban areas. There has been a similar pattern in California where Indian languages disappeared at the rate of nearly one a year during the late 20

34、th century. Globally, the rate of language loss now is one every two weeks. The areas where indigenous languages are being lost the most rapidly are central South America, Oklahoma and the American Southwest, the Northwest coastal region of the U.S. and Canada, eastern Siberia, and northern Australi

35、a. There are no primitive languages. All languages have a system of sounds, words, and sentences that can adequately communicate the content of culture. The languages of the so-called primitive peoples are often very complex in their grammatical structures. There seems to be no correlation between a

36、 languages grammatical complexity and the technological level of a society or other aspects of culture. However, cultures that have more complex, diverse economies and advanced technologies have larger vocabularies. For instance, English has roughly 615,000 non-technical words. If slang and speciali

37、zed technical words are added, English has more than 2,000,000 words and is growing at a rate of hundreds to thousands every year. By comparison, German has about 185,000 non-technical words, French may have less than 100,000, and Spanish even fewer. The major reason that English has so many more no

38、n-technical words is the fact that as it evolved from its Germanic roots, it acquired words from more than 240 other languages. However, it is unlikely that any one individual knows the meaning of all English words. Most Americans only use 800-1,000 words in everyday conversation. A typical American

39、 college student knows 20,000-30,000 words by the time he or she graduates. While this is 20-37 times more than the average person who has not gone to college, it is still less than 2% of all English words.Every language can create new words to describe new situations and objects. Therefore, it is n

40、ot surprising that all languages change through time. None is static. However, they change at different rates at different times in response to new social, cultural, and environmental situations. Some nations strongly resist the acquisition of new words from other languages. This has been the case w

41、ith the French governments response to the relentless invasion of English words in recent decades, especially in pop culture and technology. However, young people in most developed nations eagerly embrace new words regardless of attempts by their governments to retain language purity.From hat has be

42、en discussed above ,we may safely draw the conclusion that the word men use not only express but shape their ideas .Language is an instrument ;it is even more an environment .It has as much to do with the philosophical and political conditioning of a society as geography or climate .Just as Ludwing

43、Wittgenstein said “the limits of my language are the limits of my world”.References:n The Language Instinct n How the Mind Worksn Words and Rules n The Meme Machinen The Environment of Languagen 1.爱不释手fondle admiringly.n 2.百闻不如一见（眼见为实） Seeing is believing.n 3.比上不足比下有余 worse off than some, better off

44、 than many; to fall short of the best, but be better than the worst. n 4.笨鸟先飞 A slow sparrow should make an early start. n 5.不眠之夜 white night n 6.不以物喜不以己悲 not pleased by external gains, not saddened by personnal losses n 7.不遗余力 spare no effort; go all out; do ones best n 8.不打不成交 No discord, no conco

45、rd. n 9.拆东墙补西墙 rob Peter to pay Paul n 10.辞旧迎新 bid farewell to the old and usher in the new; ring out the old year and ring in the new n 11.大事化小小事化了 try first to make their mistake sound less serious and then to reduce it to nothing at all n 12.大开眼界 open ones eyes; broaden ones horizon; be an eye-op

46、ener n 13.国泰民安 The country flourishes and people live in peace.n 14.过犹不及 going too far is as bad as not going far enough; beyond is as wrong as falling short; too much is as bad as too little n 15.功夫不负有心人 Everything comes to him who waits. n 16.好了伤疤忘了疼 once on shore, one prays no more n 17.好事不出门恶事传千

47、里 Good news never goes beyond the gate, while bad news spread far and wide. n 18.和气生财 Harmony brings wealth. n 19.活到老学到老 One is never too old to learn. n 20.既往不咎 let bygones be bygones n 21.金无足赤人无完人 Gold cant be pure and man cant be perfect. n 22.金玉满堂 Treasures fill the home. n 23.脚踏实地 be down-to-ea

48、rth n 24.脚踩两只船 sit on the fence n 25.君子之交淡如水 the friendship between gentlemen is as pure as crystal; a hedge between keeps friendship green n 26.老生常谈陈词滥调 cut and dried, clich n 27.礼尚往来 Courtesy calls for reciprocity. n 28.留得青山在不怕没柴烧 Where there is life, there is hope. n 29.马到成功 achieve immediate vic

49、tory; win instant success n 30.名利双收 gain in both fame and wealth n 31.茅塞顿开 be suddenly enlightened n 32.没有规矩不成方圆 Nothing can be accomplished without norms or standards. n 33.每逢佳节倍思亲 On festive occasions more than ever one thinks of ones dear ones far away.It is on the festival occasions when one misses his dear most. n 34.谋事在人成事在天 The planning lies with man, the outcome with Heaven. Man