crossculturalcommunication辅导跨文化交际胡文仲视频演讲稿含重点和内容.docx

1、crossculturalcommunication辅导跨文化交际胡文仲视频演讲稿含重点和内容cross-cultural communication辅导（2）跨文化交际 胡文仲视频演讲稿（含重点和PPT内容）Hello, every one, this is the second talk, intercultural communication. In this talk, we will be talking about verbal communication. verbal communication is communication using words. we will be

2、talking about language and culture and their relationships. There is a very close relationship between language and culture. In Arab, there are many words related to camel. Because camel used to be a very important part of the life of Arabs. In the Chinese language, there is an elaborate system of k

3、inship terms. Because Chinese families used to be large and hierarchical. We care about whether the grandmother is on the father side or on the mother side. If it is on the side of mother, it is called外祖母. If it is on the side of the father, it is called祖母. But in English, normally, they do not have

4、 such distinction. In Chinese, we make a distinction between哥哥and弟弟. Because哥哥has more authorship than弟弟. But in English, normally, they just use brother to refer to either哥哥or弟弟. From this we can see, language is very much influenced by culture. Language is a mirror of culture, because language ref

5、lects human relationships. It reflects the way the society operates. Firth thing is language of kinship terms is a reflection of our family system. As a matter of fact, language is a part of the culture or we can say language is culture. There is no doubt there is a very close relationship between l

6、anguage and culture. Some people go even further and claim that language determines the way we think. This is what we call linguistic determinism(语言决定主义语言决定了我们思考的方式。).It based upon hypothesis put forward by Sapir and Whorf. Now here we have Sapir and Whorf hypothesis. This is what Sapir says: Now, h

7、ere, we should spend special attention to this: it powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and processes. that is, it influences our thinking greatly. This is what Sapir said in one of the books he wrote on language. His idea is language influences the way we think, influences o

8、ur thinking processes. His student is Whorf. This is what Whorf said about the influences of language on peoples thinking. What he said is basically this: language influences the way we think, and language influences the way we perceive nature, we analyze society. Now lets have some example. Eskimo

9、has three words for snow. For falling snow, there is one word. And for fallen snow, there is another word. And then for the snow which is packed into ice. So in Eskimo, there are three words for snow. While we see English, there is only one word for snow. And if you want to describe this kind of sno

10、w, you have to use another word. You will have to use falling snow. And for this one, you will have to use fallen snow. Now because snow is very important to Eskimos, so they make distinctions between different kinds of snow. And Whorfs idea is in their language, there are three different words of s

11、now. And that influences the way they look at things. That is they look at snow different form us. We just take snow as one kind of snow. While they make very fine distinctions between falling snow, fallen snow and snow packed into ice. Now here Hopi, Hopi is another example. It is an Indian tribe i

12、n north America. Now in Hopi, in the language of Hopi, they dont make the distinction between certain things like airplane, a dragonfly and a pilot. Anything that flies is masa taka. masa taka refers to either an airplane or a dragonfly or a pilot. Now this seems to be pretty absurd to us. But to th

13、em, this is very natural. They think anything that flies is the same. And, according to Whorf, because they only have one word for anything that flies, so they tend to not make clear distinctions between these flying things. Here is another example from Hopi. Now in Hopi, when he wants to say: “he i

14、s running” or “he ran”. He just says “walr”. “walr” refers to both present, continuous and past. They dont make distinctions between the two. But in English, as we know, the distinctions between the continuous and past is a very important one. They are very different. One refers to an action that is

15、 taking place. One refers to an action that took place in the past. So, according to Whorf, the Hopis do not make distinctions between a past action and an action that is taking place. Because in their language, there is no difference. They just have one form for both. Now in Navaho, Navaho is an an

16、other Indian tribe in north America. there is no distinction between horse, singular, and horses, plural. And there is no distinction between his/her/its/ and their. But in English, of course, we do make distinctions between horse and horses, his or her or its or their. Because in Navaho, they dont

17、have distinctions between singular and plural, according to Whorf, the way they look at singular things and plural things are influenced by their language. That is, the distinctions between singular and plural are not an important one to Hopis. But to us, it is very important. A singular refers to j

18、ust one thing whereas plural refers to more than one. When Sapir and Whorf put forward this hypothesis about “linguistic determinism”. There are some scholars disagreed with them. And Gail Robison is one of them. This is what Robison says: “First, it is difficult to conclude form such linguistic evi

19、dence that users of different languages perceive the world differently. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it is difficult to conclude that different language use is the cause of difference in perception. We are back to the chicken-egg dilemma. Later research in the perception of color actually s

20、hows that users of a particular language can distinguish between different hues even when their language does not have terms to label the distinction. ”Now what she means is what actually this, in your language, Robison talked about different colors. In your language, there may be just four colors.

21、But when you actually see five colors, you can still distinguish them. It is not that in your language, there are four colors, so when you see five different colors, you cant tell the difference. So, from this example, Gail Robison wants to show that “linguistic determinism” has no foundation. First

22、, it has a very powerful impact on vocabulary of our language. And that is impact on language at lexical level. And then at pragmatic(语用学) level, there are also many impacts on language. We will give more examples of this as we go on. And thirdly, cultures impact on discoursal(语篇) level. Finally , a

23、t stylistic(语体) level, culture also exerts its influences. Next, we will be talking about cultures impact on language at lexical level. First, we look at the denotation and connotation of words. What is denotation? Denotation is the dictionary definition of a word. A lot of words have two layers of

24、meanings. It is denotation meaning and connotative meaning. Denotation is “原意”. Connotation is “引申的意义”or extended meaning or associated meaning. Connotative meaning have developed over time. First through use by poets and writers. Some words acquired some extended meanings. So we are mostly concerne

25、d about the denotation meaning. And sometimes, we do not really care about the connotative meaning. First thing, with science terms, we only care about its denotation meaning. And in fact, most of the science words have only the denotation meaning. They dont actually carry connotative meaning. But w

26、ords in general use often acquire connotative meaning. That is extended meaning. First thing, once mother is the woman who gave birth to the person. So this is the original meaning of mother. But the word mother has also extended meanings, such as love, naturing, kindness etc. now these are connotat

27、ive meanings of the word, mother. In 1982, professor Yu Guozhang published an article called culturally loaded words in English language teaching. In this article, he points out the differences between English words and Chinese words in terms of cultural loading. What he means by cultural loading? I

28、t is actually the extended meaning of a word. He has given a lot of examples in his article. If you are interested, you can look it up. It is a very important article because it is the first article published in early 80s, the cultural loaded words. Ever since he published this article, there have b

29、een many articles published on the connotative meaning. Of words. And this is an very important area of vocabulary study. Now we have just said, the words has extended meanings because poets and writers have used them in their essays and extended the meanings of the words. Now lets look at a poem wr

30、itten by Li Bai. And Li Bai, of course, is a poet that we are all very familiar with. And this is a very well-known poem too. So you look up on the moon, and you look down and you miss your home. So here the moon is a associate with ones home or ones hometown. And then we have a poem of Du Fu. So th

31、e moon in your hometown is the brightest. And in this poem, Du Fu also relate the moon to ones home or ones hometown. When a lot of poets used the moon in this connection with such extended meaning. Then gradually, the word moon has acquired this connotative meaning which is home or hometown. So in

32、china, we have autumn festival. And this is a festival in which a members of the family are supposed to have a family reunion. But the English word moon does not have such connotative meaning. So probably, when you in the united states, when a child looks at the moon, he doesnt think of his home or his hometown. He may think of someday, landing on the moon, or use space shuffle to get to the moon. So this cultural meaning of the moon in relation to ones hometown is peculiar to the Chinese language or is peculiar to the Chinese culture. Now, here we can co