Language and culture

1、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，customs and so

2、 on, but various nationalities culture and the social custom all display in this nationalitys 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 and cultural backgrounds c

3、an 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, communication摘 要：語言和文化均屬于社會現(xiàn)象，語言是社

4、會文化的要素之一，是文化的載體.語言是一個民族文化的一部分。不同民族有不同的文化，歷史，風俗，習慣等等，但各民族的文化和社會習俗都能顯示出該民族的語言。語言和文化是相互依賴、相互影響的，另一方面，文化對語言也有制約作用。了解語言文化知識有助于我們的交際。相反地，缺乏語言文化背景知識必然會導致交際障礙。本文列舉了語言與文化的關系并舉例說明了這種關系對跨文化交際的影響。關鍵詞：語言;文化;關系;交際language and culturecontent: as we all know, language is a kind of tool which is used for communicati

5、on. 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 different perspectives and

6、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 definition that enjoys a general

7、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 human community. in a narrow

8、 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 culture. material culture r

9、efers 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 and customs, assumptions

10、, 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 between language and cultur

11、e. 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 highlighted, and its expressi

12、on 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. in order to define the relationship betwe

13、en 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 culture side by side relationship.language is a special part of the cultu

14、re. 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 relations with other components in the overall culture that corresponds

15、 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 society and change.from the cultural point of view, language and cultur

16、e 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 culture. language is an important symbol of human difference and animals. from

17、 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 animals can not. the human language used to create a culture, and cultur

18、e, 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 of human society and human society, human culture, it has many close re

19、lationships.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 the cultural differences between different nationalities to a maximum ext

20、ent. from different nationalities languages, we can find the evidences of different nationalitys values, is or not standard, customs, and religious beliefs, social system, and so on. these cultural factors have restriction on language and language communication. but his own people are not always eas

21、y to detect that. only through the comparison of the different nationalitys language and language communication, it can be revealed. the so-called language communication culture, is a special cultural factor implied in the language system which reflects a nations mental state, values, life style, mo

22、ral 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 illustrate some examples of culture in the language communication through comparison between china and we

23、stern 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 farming community, theres lot of food in the daily expression. when people meet with each other, they will

24、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 think this greeting seems to be saying: i have nothing to eat. come on. lets go to eat something. or i

25、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 you been?. in china, this greeting is just polite formula. but if you use these sentences to greet to west

26、ern 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 respect the privacy of others, and will not ask others privacy issues. in short, when people make a greeting,

27、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 communication more smooth and natural.2、farewells.between the social and cultural customs between china and

28、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. you must be very tired or you will have to go to work tomorrow, i should go now. but the american peopl

29、e, 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 more politely, while westerners are always somewhat straightforward. 3、 taboos.in cross-cultural communic

30、ation, 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 in daily life or their work. taboo is almost everywhere, from daily life to the political and economic as

31、pects. 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 normal 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 expresses and embodie