课外延伸-Language and Culture资料文件与下载

Recommended Books推荐书目

Samovar, L. A., Porter, E. & el. (2017). Cross-Cultural Communication. Beijing: Peking University press. pp. 142-160.

Neuliep, J. W.(2018) Intercultural Communication---A Contextual Approach. Sage Publications, Inc. pp. 371-422.

Recommended websites推荐网址

https://oureverydaylife.com/verbal-communication-tools-12081579.html

Further Reading拓展阅读

The Relationship Between Language and Culture

Linguist and cultural anthropologist Zdenek Salzmann points out that, historically, anthropologists and linguists often grouped language, culture, and race together as though any one of them automatically implied the other two. Contemporary linguistic anthropologists generally agree, however, that culture, race, and language are historically distinct. In other words, a person’s race does not determine what language he or she will speak. However, the language of a particular culture and the thought processes of its people are related.

Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis

In 1929, anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir published a paper in the journal Language that changed the face of the study of language and culture. Sapir’s thesis was that the language of a particular culture directly influences how people think. In the paper, he wrote: “The network of cultural patterns of a civilization is indexed in the language which expresses that civilization…. Language is a guide to “social reality.” …Human beings do not live in the objective world alone … but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.”

Sapir continued to argue that the ways people perceive the world around them, including their natural and social environments, are essentially dictated by their language. In fact, Sapir argued that the speakers of different languages see different worlds. Strongly influenced by Sapir was one of his students, Benjamin Whorf. Whorf was persuaded by Sapir’s writings and further developed this line of thought. In 1940, Whorf wrote: “The background linguistic system (in other words the grammar) of each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas…. We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages.” Moreover, he continued: “No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.”

Like Sapir, Whorf believed that the people who speak different languages are directed to different types of observations; therefore, they are not equivalent as observers and must arrive at somewhat different views of the world. Sapir and Whorf’s ideas received a great deal of attention and have become well known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis delineates two principles. One is the principle of linguistic determinism, which is articulated in the previous first two quotes and posits that the way one thinks is determined by the language one speaks. Taken at its extreme, this principle means that if we don’t have a word for it, then we can’t think about it. The second is the principle of linguistic relativity, which is articulated in the third quote by Whorf and asserts that the world’s languages are all very different and that these differences among languages are reflected in the differences in the worldviews of their speakers.

These principles raise some important issues for cross-cultural communication. If how we think is a reflection of the language we speak, and we believe that the world’s languages are all very different, then the speakers of two different languages must think very differently. This could render effective and successful intercultural communication extremely difficult, if not impossible. The well-known linguist Steven Pinker maintains that the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis may be overstated and that if the principle of linguistic determinism were valid, speakers of one language would find it impossible, or at least extremely difficult, to think in a particular way that comes naturally to speakers of another language. Another reason why Pinker believes that language does not determine thought is because people consistently create new language forms.

Today, most linguists, like Pinker, believe that the reason the vocabulary and grammar of a particular language differ from others is because languages reflect nonverbal elements of culture. In other words, the geographic, climatic, kinesic, spatial, and proxemic aspects of a culture are emphasized and accented in a culture’s language. Salzmann notes, for example, that in Pintupi (one of the aboriginal languages of Australia), there are at least 10 words designating various kinds of holes. Mutara is a special hole in a spear, pulpa refers to a rabbit burrow, makarnpa is the burrow of a monitor lizard, and katarta is the hole left by a monitor lizard after it has broken the surface after hibernation.

Moreover, linguists believe that the syntactic features of a language influence how speakers of that language categorize and mentally organize their worlds. For example, speakers of English use the personal pronoun you whether they are addressing one or several children, adults, old persons, subordinates, or individuals much superior in rank to themselves. Other languages operate differently. When addressing someone, speakers of Dutch, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish must choose between the “familiar” personal pronoun and the “polite” personal pronoun and/or the corresponding verb form. In English, the word teacher refers to a person who teaches, whether it is a man or a woman. In German, Lehrer is the masculine form of teacher and Lehrerin is the feminine form. In this way, speakers of Dutch, French, German, and Italian may be more conscious of the status differences between them and another person because their language requires them to use words designating the power differential. Therefore, most linguists now believe that the users of a particular language may overlook or ignore objects or events that speakers of another language may emphasize.

(Adapted from James William Neuliep “Intercultural Communication---A Contextual Approach , 2018)