chapter9BYLXW--Languageandculture2011-12-12.pptVIP

Good  morning! Chapter 9 Language and Culture 9.1 Introduction General Idea 1. Language and culture are intrinsically interdependent, and have evolved together through the history. 2. Language is related to cognition, and cognition in turn is related to the cultural setting that is particular to the language. 9.2 What Is Culture? 1. Definition In a broad sense, culture means the total way of life of a people including the patterns of belief, customs, objects, institutions, techniques, and language that characterizes the life of the human community. In a narrow sense, culture may refer to local or specific practice, beliefs of customs, which can be mostly found in folk culture, enterprise culture or food culture etc. 2. Classification of culture There are generally two types of culture: material and spiritual. ① Material cultural: concrete, substantial and observable(for example, the Forbidden City, the Great Pyramid, etc) ② Spiritual culture: the products of mind (ideologies, beliefs, values and concepts of time and space, for example), abstract, ambiguous, and hidden 3. Culture Vs. Nature Nature refers to what is born and grows, while culture refers to what has been grown and brought up with, in other words, what can be nurtured. 9.3 The relationship between language and culture Language and culture: A dialectical relationship 1. Every language is part of a culture. As such, it cannot but serve and reflect cultural needs. 2. Yet, in another sense, language is not a passive reflector of culture. It reinforces and preserves beliefs and customs and conditions their future course. (胡壮麟等 1988：250) 2. Language and culture: A relationship of “part to whole” Culture is a wider system that completely includes language as a subsystem. Language is the primary means by which a culture transmits its beliefs, values, and norms. It gives people a means of interacting with other members of the culture and a means of thinking. The relation of language to