跨文化交际languageandculture.ppt

Language and intercultural communication What’s language? Language is an organized system using signs that carry intentional meaning from one person to another. P.63 Characteristics of Language Language is arbitrary. kangaroo Language is conventional. Please choose the correct meaning of 终身大事 a. 工作 b. 事业 c. 婚姻 d. 生死 relationship between language and culture Language is flesh, and culture is blood. Without culture, language would be dead; without language, culture would have no shape. Communication is the swimming motion, language is the swimming skill, and Culture is water. Without language, communication would remain to a very limited degree (in very shallow water); Without culture, there would be no communication at all. Relationship between Language and Culture Language is part of culture. Language is the carrier and container of culture. Language is influenced and shaped by culture. Language also exerts its influence on culture. Language and culture are closely related. Language and thought The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (萨丕尔—沃尔夫假说) Our language helps mould our way of thinking and different languages may probably express our unique ways of understanding the world. Two points in his theory: 1) Language may determine our thinking patterns; 2) similarity between languages is relative, the greater their structural differentiation is, the more diverse their conceptualization of the world will be. Linguistic determinism(语言决定论):语言决定思维 Linguistic relativity (语言相对论)：思维相对于语言，思维模式随着语言的不同而不同。 Example 1 1. If my language has only one term---brother-in-law--- that is applied to my sister’s husband, my husband’s brother, and my husband’s sisters’ husbands, I am led by my language to perceive all of these relatives in a similar way. Vocabulary, through what it groups together under one label and what it differentiates with different labels, is one way in which language shapes our perception of the world. Example 2 Have you read the Chinese classic the Red Chamber Dr