北京大学出版社《跨文化交际》unit34verbalcommunication详解.pptVIP

Verbal Communication What is verbal communication? Verbal communication refers to the spoken or written words you send or receive when communication. It involves the choice and order of words and their appropriateness for your listeners. Two lexical meanings of a word: Denotative meaning: dictionary meaning Connotative meaning: a person’s emotional or personal response to a word Try it out! If someone say to you “You’re too funny”. How would you understand it? You have a good sense of humor. You are a clown. You can’t take things seriously. … Example: Father A male parent of a child or animal: a person who is acting as a father to a child (These are the denotation of father) Sometimes when we think about “father”, we remind of the responsibility, qualities, respecting, stern. (These are the connotation of father). Example: woman Woman: female Frail, emotional, prone to tears, inconstant, compassionate. How language and culture are linked closely ! Words are the basic units of meaning. Critical to understand the meanings conveyed in verbal communication. Lexical meaning: Denotation Connotation Cultural differences in denotative meaning Each culture creates certain vocabulary to describe environments in those contexts, so the absence of certain objects, events, concepts or state in one culture will result in the absence of the necessary vocabulary to refer to them. 炕，节气，关系，太极拳，功夫，德育，红卫兵，三纲五常。 Thanksgiving Day, parliament, motel. Cultural differences in connotative meaning Color language : “yellow” Animal words : “dragon” “owl” Numbers: 4, 8, 13 The Chinese and English both have words denoting the basic colors, but the meanings associated with these color words are quiet different. Yellow appears in such Chinese expressions as 黄色电影，黄色书刊，黄色音乐. How should these be translated into English? Not as yellow movies, yellow books, yellow music. Such terms would not be understood. For 黄色 one might use pornographic, trashy, obscene, filthy, or vulgar, as in pornographic