1、Intercultural Communication,Lecture 9,Reading II,Language, Thought and Culture,Language affects thought,Weasel words glorify ordinary products. sparkling, refreshing drinks; enriched, fortified nutrients; jumbo eggs etc Euphemisms connote things that are not desirable. Taboos; receiving waters (lake
2、s family (a micro cluster of structured role expectations),Words shape the way in storing events in memory,The experiments:eyeglasses vs dumbbells ships wheel vs sun gun vs broom crescent moon vs letter “C”,Sentence structure affects meaning,“Did you see the broken light?” “Did you see a broken ligh
3、t?” the definite article: there was a broken headlight“Did you see some people watching the accident?” “Did you see any people watching the accident?” Similar results as above,“How fast was the car going when it hit the stop sign?” Containing a presupposition: the existence of a stop sign and the ca
4、r hit the stop sign,Culture as an integral part of the interaction between language and thought,Cultural patterns, customs and ways of life are expressed in language. Culture-specific world views are reflected in language.,Cultures are different in dividing the color spectrum,Chinese Purple, blue, b
5、lack, green, yellow, orange, red English Purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red Shona Cipsuka, citema, cicena, cipsuka Bassa Hui, ziza,The use of verbs,English: “He is running.” Hopi: “I know that he is running at this moment”; “I remember that I saw him running and I presume he is still running”,
6、 “I am told that he is running” In Hopi, Time is expressed in terms of events, sequences and development. The development of events is important.,Does language reflect or shape the world view?,Wilhelm von Humboldt Language shapes a persons world view. Sapir Linguistic determinism,Language and cultur
7、e interact,World views differ among cultures. Language is relative to the world view. Language is specific to the world view.,Unit 5 Culture and Verbal Communication,Colin Cherry(1914 1979) British cognitive scientist,Words have frightening power.,English proverb,More is meant than meets the ear.,Al
8、fred North Whitehead (1861 1947) English mathematician&philosopher,The notion that thought can be perfectly or even adequately expressed in verbal symbols is idiotic.,Warming up,Question 1,What was wrong? Which of the following may have been the factors contributing to the failure of the presentatio
9、n?,Answers to question 1,C Starting his presentation with several jokes made the Germans think that he was not very serious about the business.,D The Germans considered the American executive too young for such an important job.,Question 2,What can we learn for the story?,Answer to question 2,It is
10、often customary for Americans to start their talk with some jokes or humorous anecdotes, but Germans have different ideas and they tend to consider telling jokes inappropriate in talks on serious matters. In German culture, executives who occupy important positions are usually senior in age and they
11、 had not expected the American manufacturer to send a young man as their representative to start business with them. They may have found it difficult to trust such a young person.,Reading I Understanding the Culture of Conversation,Answer to Question 1,Its easier because Mexicans service the relatio
12、nship and they care about everyone in the conversation. But their conversation doesnt move in a straight line, drifting around both in the topic and in the way they use words.,Answer to Question 2,For the Mexican, the conversation starts with one topic, but if another interesting topic seeps in, s/h
13、e will ride it around for a while. Sticking to the first topic is less important than having an interesting conversation.,Answer to Question 3,For the American, a conversation should have a topic and he wants to take a straight line through it from beginning to end. So he felt very impatient about t
14、he Mexicans way of conversation.,Answer to Question 4,The Swedish conversational ideal is to respond in a concise manner without elaborating specific details, especially those for self-promotion.,Answer to Question 5,The American may feel totally lost in the conversation since s/he would not get as
15、much information from the Swede as s/he has expected.,Answer to Question 6,There are a lot of differences between them. For instance, at the beginning of a conversation, Anglos almost always speak first. Athabaskans think it important to know what the relationship is before they talk with someone. T
16、here is another difference in how long one should talk. Athabaskans tend to have longer turns when they talk with each other, but Anglos expect shorter turns.,Answer to Question 7,It is far from enough just to learn to speak in grammatically correct manners when one learns a foreign language. One al
17、so has to know the culture of using the language in social life, things like who talks first, who talks next, who opens and closes conversations and how they do it, in order to be able to use the language in culturally appropriate manners.,Answer to Question 8,It seems that we Chinese are somewhat s
18、imilar to Mexicans in the way we have a conversation. Unlike Americans, we do not usually move in a straight line in a conversation and also care much about the others feeling.,Fill-in task,What is confusing to American English speakers?,They 7. keep silent. They only want to talk to 6. close acquai
19、ntances. They never 9. start a conversation. They never say anything 1. about themselves. They are 8. slow to take a turn in talking. They are 11. too indirect and inexplicit.,Whats confusing to Athabaskans about American English speakers?,They talk 12. too much. They often talk to 10. strangers or
20、people they do not know. They 4. ask too many questions. They 5. brag about themselves. They only talk 2. about what they are interested in. They are 3. always getting excited when they talk.,Why do they have negative impressions of each other?,Because they tend to judge the others way of talking ac
21、cording to their own culture.,Identifying difference,Compliment Response,Questions for discussion,Do you think there has been some change in the way we Chinese respond to compliments in the last decade or two? What basic differences can we still find between the English speaking people and the Chine
22、se people concerning compliment and response?,Yes. More and more Chinese people tend to use 谢谢 to respond to a compliment. Implicit compliments are used, e.g. (对一位家庭主妇说）你丈夫真有福气。（一位年轻棋手对一位老年棋手说）今天我体会到姜还是老的辣。,In China today, it is common to see people respond by combining the western style and the Chi
23、nese style, e.g. 谢谢，你过奖了，我的文笔一般。 真的？多谢捧场。,Interview,Answer to Questions,Obviously Paula considers it inappropriate for Mary Ann to ask how much her dress and shoes have cost her, for in her culture one should never ask the cost of something they have bought. Therefore, she leaves quickly so as to av
24、oid answering the questions.,Acceptable and unacceptable topics,Acceptable topics in English-speaking cultures,Weather Pet Work Hobby Sex,Unacceptable topics,Age, especially a ladys age Marital status Property Politics Religious belief,Acceptable topics in our culture,Family Age Income Property Marital status,Unacceptable topics,Disease Death Sex Pregnancy Disability,More-or-less rather than either-or,In every culture, some topics are more or less acceptable than others It depends on many factors such as the relationship between one another, etc.,Next week,Reading II,The End,
