社会语言学 第九章 作业.docx

Language and Culture刘颖anguage is a major component and supporter of culture as well as a primary tool for translating message, which is inextricable bound with culture. The relation of language to culture is that of part to whole. Language and culture are inextricable intertwined and it is difficult to separate language from culture for language both expresses and embodies cultural reality. A language not only expresses facts, ideas or events which represents similar world knowledge by its people, but also reflects the people’s attitudes, beliefs and world outlooks. A similar relationship can be found between local dialect and regional culture. Local dialect is an integral part of regional culture and it is influenced and shaped by regional culture. Within tile broad limits set by the specific needs of a culture, a language is free to make arbitrary selections of signified. That is to say, language is not a passive reflector of culture. Even assuming that culture is in many cases the first cause in the language-culture relationship, language as the effect in the first link of the causal chain will in turn be the cause in the next link, reinforcing and preserving beliefs and customs and conditioning their future course. We can find similar relationship between local dialect and regional culture. For example, in China, there are many local dialects and many regional operas. Those regional operas can only be performed in the local dialects; meanwhile those regional operas are part of local cultures.“Culture” is more or less synonymous with “civilization” and in an older and extreme formulation of the contrast, opposed to “barbarism”. People cannot communicate without language, and language has a close relationship with society and culture. Language is a part of culture in a larger sense and it occupies a very special position in culture. In a broad sense, culture means the total way of life of a people, including the patterns of belief, customs, objects, inst