语言学课件9 Chapter Nine Language and culture.ppt

Chapter Nine Language and Culture 1. What is culture? 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 or customs, which can be mostly found in folk culture, enterprise culture or food culture, etc. There are generally two types of culture: material and spiritual. The former refers to something concrete, substantial and observable, for example, the forbidden city, the great pyramid, etc. The latter can either be tangible as works of philosophy, literature, or intangible as ideologies, beliefs, values etc. 2. The relationship between language and culture 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 culture is that of part to whole. Every people have its distinct language and culture. Different cultures make their different ideas, values and beliefs reflected in different languages. eg. dragon; That is, the same word may stir up different associations in people under different cultural background, e.g. the word “dog”. Language expresses cultural reality, reflects the people’s attitudes, beliefs, world outlooks, etc. The culture both emancipates and constrains people socially, historically and metaphorically. Culture also affects its people’s imagination or common dreams which are mediated through the language and reflected in their life. On the one hand, language as an integral part of human being, permeates in his thinking and way of viewing the world, language both expresses and embodies cultural reality; On the other, language, as a product of culture, helps perpetuate the culture, and the changes in language uses reflect the cultural