Language, culture, society.ppt

Language, culture, society Chapter 7 Language, culture, society This chapter focuses on the discussion of relationship between language and culture, language and society. 7.1 Language and culture Language is an indispensable carrier of culture. Culture finds a better representation through language use. 语言是文化的载体,具有不可替代的重要性; 文化通过语言得以凸现,其表现力得到充分展示. 7.1.1 How does language relate to culture? Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, the linguistic study of language has been either comparative and historical or structural and formalized in nature. Some change was observed at the start of the 20th century, language was studied in a sociocultural context. Language, culture, society Malinowski马林诺夫斯基 and Firth弗斯 can be regarded as the pioneers of this movement in England. Franz Boas鲍厄斯, Edward Sapir萨丕尔 and Whorf沃尔夫 are the representatives from North America. As early as in the 1920s, a school of anthropological study of linguistics came into being in England. Malinowski, an anthropologist, did his field work on an island, he observed that in this primitive culture the meaning of a word greatly depended upon its coccurrence in a given cotext, or rather, upon a real language situation in life. Take the word “wood” for example, in this culture, the word may be used either to refer to the solid substance of a tree , more specifically, to designate a canoe树干雕凿而成的独木舟, which serves as a useful means of transportation to these islanders. The second interpretation turned out to be heavily situationally or culturally specified and may not be easily captured by an outsider from a different cultural background. Language, culture, society The work by Malinowski paved the way for a cultural, rather, a contextual study of language use in Britain. Strongly influenced by the anthropological view of language and being fully aware of the importance of the context in the study of language use, Firth(弗斯), a leading figure of the London School, developed his own theory of context