1、Chapter 7,Language, Culture, and Society,I. Language and Culture,1. What is language? Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.,I. Language and Culture,2. What is culture? In a broad sense, it means the total way of a people, including the patterns of belief, cust
2、oms, 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.,“Culture is a bunch of g
3、rapes. if one plucks away at a bunch of grapes, isolating each separate grape, the cluster disappears. ”“Culture comes in layers, like an onion. To understand it you have to unpeel it layer by layer.”,I. Language and Culture,3. The relationship between language and culture. “Language is a mirror, in
4、 front of which culture is reflected.” Language determines culture (linguistic determinism) Culture determines language (culture determinism),3. The relationship between language and culture.,(1) Culture is a wider system that completely includes language as a subsystem. The relation of language to
5、culture is that of part to whole.,3. The relationship between language and culture.,(2) Language both expresses and embodies cultural reality. A language not only expresses facts, ideas, or events which represent similar world knowledge by its people, but also reflects the peoples attitudes, beliefs
6、, world outlooks etc.,3. The relationship between language and culture.,(2) Language both expresses and embodies cultural reality. Language embodies cultural identity. E.g. When a child acquires his mother tongue, he also acquires a language-specific culture and becomes socialized in certain ways.,3
7、. The relationship between language and culture,(3) Language plays a major role in perpetuating culture (or consolidating it over time), esp. in print form. E.g. USA, advanced computer technology, Microsoft, pop songs, the Hollywood movies; however, incomplete without the Declaration of Independence
8、 and other historic event.,3. The relationship between language and culture,(4) Culture affects language. Culture universals and biological universals lead to linguistic universals. E.g. the seven days of a week; color word system.(P230),3. The relationship between language and culture,(4) Culture a
9、ffects language. Different cultural features (environmental, material or social) produce different linguistic features. E.g. “24 jie qi” in Chinese立春、雨水、惊蛰、春分、清明、谷雨、立夏、小满、芒种、夏至、小暑、大暑、立秋、处暑、白露、秋分、寒露、霜降、立冬、小雪、大雪、冬至、小寒、大寒。,3. The relationship between language and culture,Conclusion: On the one hand, la
10、nguage as an integral part of human being, permeates his thinking and way of viewing the world, language both expresses and embodies cultural reality. On the other hand, language, as a product of culture, helps perpetuate the culture, and the changes in language uses reflect the cultural changes in
11、return.,II. Anthropological study of linguistics,It is the study of language in a socio-cultural context. 1. Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) P160: The meaning of a word greatly depends upon its occurrence in a given context. Language functions as a link in human activity, a mode of action.,2. J. R.
12、 Firth (1890-1960): theory of the context of situation The relevant features of the participants, persons, personalities. The relevant objects. The effects of the verbal action. “who speaks what to whom and when and to what end”,3. Dell Hymes (1927- ): Ethnography of communication Speech community:
13、a group of people who share not only the same rules of speaking, but at least one linguistic variety as well. Situation, event, and act: speech acts are part of speech events which are, in turn, part of speech situations. SPEAKING,S - setting and scene P - participants E - ends: expected outcomes; p
14、articipants personal goals A - act sequence: actual form and content of what is said K - key: tone, manner, spirit (serious, light-hearted, joke) I - instrumentalities: choice of channel (written-spoken; English-Chinese) N - norms of interaction and interpretation (in church service) G - genre (lect
15、ures, poems) (Setting, Topic and Participant are three main factors in communication.),4. Sapir-Whorf HypothesisEdward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf are credited with developing the most relevant explanation outlining the relationship between thought and language, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.,
16、Edward Sapir (1884 - 1939),1884 Born in Germany, Lauenberg 1909 PhD from Columbia University, 1925-31 University of Chicago 1931-39 Yale UniversityEdward Sapir studied linguistic anthropology at Columbia University where he was heavily influenced by the teachings of the anthropologist Franz Boaz. He
17、 developed an active interest in native American languages, especially those spoken by the Yana and Paiute tribes. He taught at University of Chicago in 1925 before moving on to Yale University in 1931.,Benjamin Lee Whorf 1897-1941,1913 Bachelors degree in chemical engineering from MIT 1931 Studied
18、linguistics at Yale University studied Hopi under the supervision of Edward Sapir.,Benjamin Lee Whorf studied at Yale University under Edward Sapir and became interested in Sapirs ideas. He was influenced by the work of 18th-century German philosophers John Gottfried von Herder and Wilhelm von Humbo
19、lt, who theorized, based on their study of European languages, that language had a bearing on how people viewed the world.,Whorf worked mainly on languages such as Hopi（霍皮语美国亚利桑那州北部一印第安部落）, Hebrew（希伯来语）, and some indigenous（土著） languages of Mexico. Whorf reasoned that the way people view the world i
20、s determined wholly or partly by the structure of their native language. This has come to be known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.,S-W Hypothesis: Our language helps mould our way of thinking and, consequently, different languages may probably express speakers unique ways of understanding the world.,
21、Linguistic determinism: L may determine our thinking patterns. (original hypothesis) Linguistic relativity: Similarity between language is relative, the greater their structural differentiation is, the more diverse their conceptualisation of the world will be. (modified hypothesis),Supporting Eviden
22、ce,Evidence 1 Hopi P164 “timeless language” English-speakers speak of time in spatial metaphors (“a long time“ “between 9 and 10A.M.”, before noon, in the morning) English speakers think of time as countable units (“4 days ago“) English divides time into past, present, future, Hopi does not. English
23、 uses a monetary metaphor (“time is money“) Hopi speak of events as continuously unfolding（展开）, rather than happening in x number of days Hopi has no word for “fast” “He very runs” But exhaustive research since Whorf have shown that the Hopi do recognize past, present and future, do understand tempo
24、ral units (days, weeks, months, etc.), and are about as obsessed with time as we are.,Evidence 2 Eskimos snow Americans use only a handful of terms to describe snow, including the actual word snow, sleet, freezing rain, and a few others. Eskimos, on the other hand, have many words to describe snow (
25、Hayes et al. 96). Snow that is falling, snow on the ground, snow in blocks, and snow that makes wavy patterns each are explained through the use of separate words (Hayes et al. 96). (reversal influence),Evidence 3 Zuni and Dani: the color word Monolingual speakers of Zuni, a native American language
26、, used the color term “ihupz inna” to name both “yellow” and “orange”. Zuni-English bilinguals often used “olenchi” (a loan word for Engish “orange”) or its derivatives “olenchianne”, for the orange color, reserving “ihupzinna” for “yellow”. Lenneberg and Roberts (1956) found that all 4 monolingual
27、Zuni speakers a recognition memory test for yellow and orange; the 8 Zuni English bilinguals remembered the two colors better but not as well as the native English speakers. Dani: modla and mili for whitewarmness and blackcoldness (other types of color words from names, plants, animals and so on),En
28、glish has three words for “insect“, “aeroplane“, and “aviator“. But Hopi has only one word for all three: “masajtaka“ because these things do not matter that much to them.,Opposing evidence,Brent Berlin and Paul Kays study P165,Comment,1. Merely a hypothesis. Not widely accepted. The Sapir-Whorf hyp
29、othesis remains a controversy to this day.,(1) It is not helped by the fact that neither Sapir nor Whorf made any explicit statement as to whether they subscribed to（同意，赞成） a strong or weak version of the hypothesis.,(2) The debate and published work in this area are largely interpretive of the original ideas put forward by Sapir and Whorf.,(3) It is certain that language has a certain effect on human thought. But to what extent linguistic structure influences human perception? Does human thought also influence language?,
