社会语言学culture language and thought

A Summary of Language, Culture and Thought For Course of SociolinguisticsA Summary of Chapter3---Language, culture and thoughtThis chapter will turn to the external relations of language, to ask whether there are natural boundaries between the phenomena covered by the term …language‟and other kinds of phenomena, notably those called …culture‟ and …thought‟.1.0 Introduction1.1 CultureCulture is a term that has different meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compile d a list of 164 definitions of “culture”in Culture:A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. However, the word “culture”is most commonly used in three basic senses:（1）Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture.（2）An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning.（3）The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group.In Hudson‟s description, The word culture is taken in the sense in which it is used by cultural anthropologists, according to whom culture is something that everybody has, in contrast with the …culture‟ which is found only in …cultured‟ circles —in opera houses, universities and the like. The term is used differently by different anthropologists, but always refers to some characteristics shared by a community, especially those which might distinguish it from other communities. Ward Goodenough takes culture as socially acquired knowledge:As I see it, a society’s culture consist of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a matter acceptable to its members…Culture, being what people have to learn as distinct from their biological heritage, must consist of the end-product of learning: knowledge, in a most general…sense of the term. (Goodenough 1957)Therefore, the term “knowledge” which includes common-sense knowledge andspecialist knowledge should be discussed belloew:As Goodenough points out, we must take …knowledge‟here in a broad sense, to include both …know-how‟and …know-that‟—for instance, to cover both the ability to tie knots and the knowledge that one pound coin buy as much as ten ten-penny coins.Lay people‟s knowledge is often refers to as common-sense knowledge, and is the kind which is of most interest to anthropologists, just as linguists are more interested in day-to-day usage than in prescriptive grammars or dictionaries. On the other hand, the specialist knowledge of scientist or scholar is also a part of culture, and one of the most interesting questions in the study of culture is about the relations between common-sense and specialist knowledge, since it is clear that influence goes in both directions.1.2 Thought1.2.1 Distinction of memory and inference; Distinction of concepts and propositionThe term …thought‟covers a number of different types of mental activity, and Hudson distinguishes first between MEMORY and INFERENCE, and then between CONCEPTS and PROPOSITIONS, as the objects of memory or inference. A concept may either exist in our memory, as a category used in thinking, or may be created as a new category which could then be stored away in memory.1.2.2The relation between thought and culture.Given the definition of culture as …socially acquired knowledge‟, it is easy to see that culture is one part of memory, namely the part which is …acquired socially‟in contrast with that which does not involve other people. This distinction might distinguish between propositions which are known to be true from one‟s own experience and those which have been learned from other people.Some concepts are cultural and others are not. A non-cultural concept, on the other hand, is one which we build without reference to other people, as a convenient way of interpreting our experience. If it means an approximation to the concepts or propositions in other people‟s minds, it is culture, but otherwise not. However, it does not follow that non-culture knowledge must differ from person to person, sincedifferent people can arrive at similar experiences of the universe or similar genetic predispositions.There are three kinds of knowledge:(1)culture knowledge, which is learned from other people;(2)sharednon-cultural knowledge, which is shared by people within the samecommunity or the world over, but is not learned from each other;(3)non-shared non-cultural knowledge, which is unique to the individual.In this schema, we can see that most language is cultural language, since it has to be learned from others, but some is shared non-cultural knowledge.1.2.3 The ‘classical’ theory of concepts; the ‘prototype’ theory of conceptThe …classical‟theory of concepts is that each one consists of a set of features which are necessary and sufficient for something to account as an instance of that concept. For example, the concept …bird‟consists of a set of features referring to wings, eggs, and so on. But there are problems with this theory, such as what is covered by the words and so on.The psychologist Eleanor Rosch showed that at least some concepts are organized around clear cases, or PROTOTYPES. In this theory, a concept has a feature-based definition, but the definition applies to the prototype, an abstract description of the most typical examples, with other examples fitting in as best they can. The prototype for …bird‟has all the features we associate with typical birds. This applies the relationship between general concepts and their subconcepts: if we have to classify, we choose the concept that provides the best and most relevant fit.There is no agreed answer on the definition of concept. Hudson prefers a much simple theory in which everything that we about a concept has the same status, without any at tempt to distinguish its …criterial‟features from the rest, but where exceptions are allowed freely.There is a good deal of evidence in favor of the prototype theory of concepts as opposed to the …criterial feature‟theory. Some of the evidence comes from experimentation; for instance, it takes people less time to verify a sentence like x is a bird if the word x is the name of a typical bird than if it is a name of very atypicalbirds. Evidence has also come from experiments in which people were asked to rate members of a more general categories according to how typical they were of the category concerned. For instance, trousers and coats were most typical items of clothing, and purses least typical.Three attractions of the prototype is listed as follows::(1) It is not too hard to understand how people can learn concepts from each other.(2) It allows for the kind of creativity in the application of concepts which we find in real life—in other words, it predicts that the boundaries of concepts will be fuzzy, as they in fact are.(3) It offers sociolinguist is the possibility of using the theory in explaining how people categorize the social variables to which they relate language—variables such as the kind of person who is speaking and the circumstances in which they are doing so.1.3 Language, Culture and thoughtCulture may be defined as the kind of knowledge which we learn from other people, either by direct instruction or by watching their behavior. This knowledge can be broken down into small units which we have called …concepts‟and …propositions‟. Most word express concepts，e.g. the concept of …bird‟, or …walking‟or …language‟. Similarly, sentences generally express propositions, e.g. …oil floats on water‟. However, there are three points of controversy that need to be considered: …classical‟and …prototype-based‟concepts; …concepts‟and …precepts‟; …knowing that‟and …knowing how‟.There are three points at which language makes contact with knowledge, and more specially with the kind of knowledge that we call …culture‟. As a distinguished anthropologist said, …a society‟s language is an aspect of its culture…The relation of language to culture is that of part to whole‟ (Goodenough 1957)(1)Language consist of concepts and propositions. In whichever way weunderstand the notion …linguistic items‟, we can see them as thecategories which we use to analyze our experience, i.e. as concepts.(2)Meanings are concepts and propositions. There is considerablecontroversy over the definition of …meaning‟, but there is widespreadagreement that the meaning of a linguistic item is its sense.(3)Understanding and using speech involves the whole of knowledge. Thisis the province of pragmatics, the study of how we use language.(4)Linguistically relevant social categories are concepts. As was pointedout in the part of thought, we may assume that we categorize speakersand circumstances in terms of concepts based, as usual, on prototypes.2.0 Linguistic and culture relativity2.1 Semantic relativityRelativity concerns on how far meanings may differ from variety and to variety and whether there are any connections between differences in meaning and differences in culture.Semantic relativity is a kind of variability which holds that different languages do not simply provide different ways of expressing the same ideas, but they are also different in the more fundamental sense that the ideas that can be expressed differ from language to language.There are some limits on semantic relativity, one limit is that all the concepts that serve as word-meaning in different languages are simply different ways if combining a limited range of rather basic …components‟. For example, the English verb eat is translated into two different ways, according to whether the eater is a human or an animal. Then, …componential analysis‟ is used to be described in introductions to semantics, and analyzes the structure of a word‟s meaning. It attempts to develop a universal semantic vocabulary for defining all words in all languages. However, it is not so applicable for culture-specific concepts.Another possible limit to semantic relativity is that it only applies to vocabulary. Because of the different constructions of different languages, we can see that even different varieties of the same language, may allow different concepts to be expressedby grammatical constructions. But even if we concentrate on grammatical constructions, we can still find differences from language to language in the kinds of meaning that can be expressed. Therefore, we can see that semantic relativity can be limited only by the limits of cultural variations.2.2 PrototypesA prototype is an abstract description of the most typical examples, with other examples fitting in as best they can. Rosch defines prototype as the “clearest cases of category membership defined operationall y by people‟s judgments of goodness of membership in the category”.Lounsbury studies on American Indian Kinship System, and the field he works in is called Cognitive Anthropology. Kinship terminologies include the terms of address used in different languages or communities for different relatives and the terms of reference used to identify the relationship of these relatives to each other. According to Lounsbury, all the concept meanings may be predicated by the meaning of the prototype. But it is impossible to translate directly the kinship terms of a society that uses one system into the language of a society that uses a different system.Even if we take the prototype approach to kinship terminology, there is still ample scope for reflecting differences in social organization, either in the prototypes themselves or in the rules for deriving other meanings from them.There are three different ways in which a word‟s prototypical meaning. Firstly, a speaker or hearer may exploit the creative flexibility by mak ing an original extension to the meaning. Secondly, there may be clear rules for extending meaning. And thirdly, there are words whose meanings centre on some prototype but whose extended meanings are stored in memory as well.2.3 Basic-level conceptsRosch defines the basic level as the level that has the highest degree of cue validity. And it can easily be categorized in terms of semantic features. Basic level concepts are the main level which we use in the day to day living, and the basic level categories not only share many attributes but also have attributes that differ from those of items in other basic level categories. For example, chair is a basic levelconcept, furniture is a superordinate concept and kitchen chair is a subordinate concept. Therefore, the superordinate categories have fewer common attributes, and the subordinate categories shares more attributes with other subordinate categories.The relevance of basic-level concepts to relativity is two-fold. First, if concepts could be organized hierarchically around basic ones, we should see similarities between languages in the hierarchical organization of their vocabulary. The second connection between basic-level concepts and relativity is that they offer an additional area with respect to which people may differ in their language, thus making the relativity of language look rather greater.The relationship between linguistic and culture relativity demonstrates that the semantic system of a language is linked to the culture of its speakers, b ut it depends on various conditions.3.0 Language and thought3.1 Language and socialisationSocialization is usually defined as the process whereby an individual takes on the behaviors, beliefs, and values that are appropriate to a particular society. This includes fairly general beliefs and behaviors shared by all members of a society, such as the conviction that marrying one‟s mother is wrong, as well as the more particularistic attributes of an individual‟s role at a given time. Language is an important medium of cultural transmission, allows our socialist to teach us facts. (For example, …Beethoven was a composer‟) and to name our concepts. It seems to be more important in learning some concepts than others.There are some concepts are independent of language. Some we learned as babies and others were formed later. There are also some concepts which we should not have if it were not for language. the more obvious cases are those relate to language as phenomenon. For example, the concepts “language”, “meaning”. Additionally, We learn many concepts by being told about them, especially during our formal education, so we do in fact learn them through language, whether or not wecould have learned them without it.3.2The Sapir-Whorf HypothesisBoth Sapir and Whoof worked extensively on American Indian languages and made important contributions to our knowledge if those languages and also to linguistic theory. They put forward The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. The most important point is that Whorf is talking about how our thinking is affected by the grammar of our language. Whorf claims that Grammar involves conceptual distinctions that are very general and that we use very frequently. Whorf holds that these distinctions affect the way in which we understand our experiences at all time, whether or not we are using language. There are two important points could be captured in this theory: Language may determine our thinking patterns; Similarity between languages is relative, the greater their structural differentiation is, the more diverse their conceptualization of the world will be.Two versions of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis have been developed:(1) The strong version of the theory emphasizing the decisive role of language asthe shaper of our thinking patterns which is known as linguistic determinism.(2) The weak version of this hypothesis is a modified type of its original theorywhich is kown as the linguistic relativity suggesting that there is a correlationbetween language, culture and thought, but the cross-cultural differencesthus produced in our ways of thinking are relative, rather than categorical.The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis shows that concepts are wholly or partly determined by the structure of their native language. Moreover, Language dose effect thought in ways that go beyond the rather obvious effects of specific items, and it is not the only kind of experience which does affect thought.3.3 Sexism in the language systemSexism refers to the belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other. It can also refer to hatred of, or prejudice towards, either sex as a whole (see misogyny and misandry), or the application of stereotypes of masculinity in relation to men, or of femininity in relation to women. It is also called male and female chauvinism.Sexism in language has launched along with the vigorous development of women‟s liberation movement since the end of 1960s. As a mirror reflecting the society, language images the social views and values. Sexism in society is thus inevitably reflected in the use of language. In the light of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, there are more general trends that run right through a language rather than being confined to individual lexical items. In English, and many other languages, there are two such tendencies that have been studied recently. Firstly, Words those are clearly restricted in reference to one sex or the other, with female words tending to have less favorable meanings. For example, a classic pair “master” and “mistress” where the male meaning is good and the female is bad. Secondly, a person whose sex is unknown with a higher position in society is often considered to be a male. People often use male-gendered terms such as "he" and "man" as generic. People often take the male as the prototype even for the sex-neutral concept.Although more and more attention has been paid on Sexism in the Language System, there are also some difficulties for those of us who want to eliminate linguistic bias against females. For example, the pronoun he surely encourages this basis.To sum up, some cultural concepts are learned through language, so language is an important …instrument of socialization.‟ Moreover, …thought patterns‟ may be influenced by the grammatical patterns of the language concerned. However, language is not the only one influence on human‟s thinking, so …linguistic determinism‟ is unacceptable. All of those mentioned above are involved in the relations between language, culture and thought.。