1、姓名：张佳佳 学号：100201137 专业：英语Language and Social StatusOnes language can hardly be separated from its social status. I remember when I lived in Australia, one neighbor wanted to run for congress. Thus, he practiced pronunciation every morning so as to make his speech pleasing and decent.Indeed, language
2、 is the symbol of ones social status, especially in multi-nation and multi-cultural society. Status, also known as knowledge structure, indicates the cultural background, knowledge degree and geographical position that you come from.Language can influence cognition of relevant culture. For instance,
3、 someone makes investigation on Chinese who speak two languages and finds that when they are asked questions about cultural conception, their responses approach more Chinese behavior than by English language. Interestingly, when Hong Kong people are asked questions about china culture or religion by
4、 Putonghua, their answers tend to be more western expression than by Guangdong language.In fact, most of them are not real bilingual but bilingual users for Chinese who learn foreign languages. The latter emphasizes on language and expression while the former concentrates on thinking and life habits
5、. However, this process are not motionless but can be transformed. Therefore, what language learners learn is actually a kind of social relationship, which he thinks is formed by travelling through space-time. So, what he faces is not only linguistics, but more of multiple and transformed social sta
6、tus questions.The study also shows that a persons speech style is not fixed, but alters along with the social environment and listeners. Generally speaking, personal speech has a tendency to convergence (go with the stream) but also has divergent tendency (show their character). For example, when I
7、get back to Beijing, the Beijing cavity is naturally stronger. But when my British friends are in Australia, their British accent is more obvious as if expressing their status.When people adapt their habits to foreign culture, they will possess two kinds of choices of their native language attitude-
8、 positive or negative. Some people are actively engaged in other mainstream culture in order to weaken their native language ability. On the contrary, some people serve it as an advantage to strengthen and emphasize this aspect.Generally speaking, the speech or language that a social group of people
9、 express is respected by public (such as in England, the language spoken by queen on behalf of aristocrats), which will possess much more social priority. In the meantime, its members will also show exclusive points to maintain their positive group characteristics. Certainly, it is inevitable that o
10、thers will draw close to this group.Ones language can be used as an object that others may criticize. According to research, people can estimate his social status, education degree, goodness level, intelligence, ability even wealth and so on. It follows that language makes difference to individual. If clothing is the body decoration, language is the external expression of ones comprehensive value. Therefore, language should not only be treated as a tool but as a kind of quality.
