宁夏泾源县职业中学 王敏
Culture is a complicated social phenomenon. It exists everywhere; it covers everything and it is involved in all aspects of social life. Thus, it is considered as the sum of all the achievements got from social and spiritual life. Generally speaking, culture can be divided into two parts: one is Formal Culture, or Knowledge Culture. It includes all the accomplishments in social and physical science and highly reflects humans’ material and moral civilization. The other is Common Culture, or say Communicative Culture. It has a series of different features in daily life, such as customs, ceremonies, manners and holidays, etc. In addition, people’s actions or speeches all directly or indirectly reflect their self-cultivation.
H. Goodenough, a famous linguist stated in Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics like this: a society’s language is one aspect of the society’s culture. Language is merely a part of culture. The special feature is that language is the main tool to learn culture. People can acquire the whole culture in the process of learning and using language. From this point, we can see that language and culture are closely connected; we can hardly understand and use language correctly if we know nothing about its culture. Languages can be considered as remarkably complex and wonderfully complicated organs of culture. They contain the quickest and the most efficient means of communicating within their respective culture. A culture and its language are as necessary as brain and body; while one is a part of the other, neither can function without the other.
As for the language, the major functions of it can be summarized as following three aspects: (1) Language is the primary vehicle of communication; (2) Language reflects both the personality of the individual and the culture of his history. In turn, it helps shape both personality and culture; (3) Language makes possible the growth and transmission of culture, the continuity of societies, and the effective functioning and control of social group. The important functions of language and its special role in the culture show that the language can be used to explain differences among different countries.
In a word, language is a mirror, in front of which culture is reflected. As a student majoring in English as a foreign language, the author of the thesis like to take this advantage to discuss the cultural differences between Chinese and English. In the following passage, I will elaborate on the cultural differences reflecting in people’s daily conversation, and then the reasons for the culture differences will be anglicized. Some suggestions on learning English are also put forward in the paper.
Cultural differences in daily communication between Chinese and English.Cultural differences between English and Chinese can be found in many aspects of daily communication, including address forms, greeting and saying good-bye, compliments, the ways to say “please”, thanks, apologies, and showing concern for someone, etc. In the following, we will look at some cultural differences between Chinese and English from the above aspects.
There are many differences in address forms between Chinese and English. Words used in Chinese to address people are closely related to Chinese social life. In China, it is considered polite to address one’s elders, superiors or people of importance by their titles, such as 杨老师 (Teacher Yang), 李校长 (President Li) and 张经理 (Manager Zhang), and family members by their relation, such as王叔叔 (Uncle Wang), 徐大妈 (Aunt Xu) and 周爷爷(Grandpa Zhou). These honorifics are troublesome for English-speaking people to communicate with Chinese, because Teacher Yang sounds awkward, Aunt Xu may well be a neighbor of the speaker’s and Grandpa Zhou is likely not a family member at all. These expressions of respect serve only to demonstrate a very natural tendency among Chinese to use polite terms. In English, given name will be called in any occasions, and some title like Mr., Miss, Mrs., Dr. or Professor will be added before the given name to show status of the people. English think the use of the given name indicates friendliness, and addition of the title indicates respect they feel they ought to show.2.2 Greeting and saying good-bye
When people meet acquaintances or friends, people usually greet each other. The purpose of greeting is to establish or maintain social contact. So formulaic expressions are often used, but such formulaic expressions often causes conflict because of the great cultural differences between Chinese and native English speakers. In English, people often employ the following expressions to greet each other: “Good morning/evening/afternoon.”, “Fine day, isn't it?”, “How is everything going?”, “Have you eaten yet?”, and “What are you going to do?”, “Where have you been?” etc. While in Chinese, we always say “你吃了吗?”, “你上哪里去?” and “你干什么去?” to show our consideration.
Saying good-bye may be divided into two steps. Before the final talking, there is usual a leave-taking. English and Chinese have diverse ways to deal with leave-takings. Firstly, in English society, during the closing phase of an encounter, from “I” perspectives, reasons for terminating the encounter are presented in mitigatory comments. Typical comments are associated with expressions of apology, such as “I am afraid I must be off.” or “I have to relieve the baby-sitter”, etc. English people believe that to be willing to visit and converse with someone is to show respect for him; to terminate the visiting is not of one’s own free will, but because of some other arrangements, therefore they always try to make their leaving sound reluctant by finding some reasons and apologize for it to make the leaving acceptable for both parties. English speakers often signal several times before leaving. So some comments will be expressed, such as “Well, it’s been nice to see you again. I do enjoy our talk and the lovely dinner, but I must be going soon.” or “Thank you very much for asking me over. I hope we’ll be able to get together again before long…”, however, in Chinese society, during the closing phase of an encounter, usually, from a “you” perspective, reasons for ending the encounter are set forth in mitigatory expressions. Such expressions include “你挺忙的，我就不多打扰了。” or “你一定累了，早点休息吧，我要告辞了。” With these words, they may stand up from their seats. While moving to the door, Chinese employ expressions of apology like “对不起没，打扰了。” or “对不起，占用你不少时间。”. It should be noted that these expressions employed by Chinese guests to show concern for their hosts can only be appropriate for Business visits in the English environment
Compliments are communicative behaviors. People make compliments in order to start a conversation, smooth an interaction, strengthen an emotional exchange and enhance the mutual understanding and friendship of the people who are involved in the conversation. When people make compliments, they consider showing politeness in the first place.
Culture differences can also be inferred from different responses to compliments between Chinese and English. Responses to English compliments form one of the numerous types of rule-governed linguistic behaviors that are conventional. Simple appreciation tokens like “Thank you” are always appropriate and most compliments are made to establish a harmonious relation. However, Chinese speakers are accustomed to making complimenting responses by the use of self-negating or self-deprecation token as follows: (a) 哪里哪里 (No, no. It is nothing.), (b) 过奖过奖 (You are praising me too much.), (c) 不行不行 ( No good. No good.). The ways to say “please”:The word of “please” is used in many occasions in English. It is a pervasive expression among English people, even used among the intimate’s relationship. But the word “please” is only used by Chinese on special occasion. Because many Chinese think that the intimate relationship would be disturbed by the word of “please”, so the word is usually used when the Chinese meet with strangers or when the respect need to be showed in conversation.
“Thank you” is widely used in English to show gratitude in such cases as being invited, helped, given a gift, etc. Cultural differences exist between Chinese and English in how to express thanks and responses. In fact, “Thank you” is uttered in English for more than acknowledging favor or gratitude, and it is often a means to show politeness. On many occasions, the English use this utterance while the Chinese may say “有劳您了。
期刊文章分类查询,尽在期刊图书馆” or do not say a word at all but just smile or nod. As a matter of fact, “Thank you” is used more widely by westerners than Chinese use “谢谢”, for minor favors like borrowing pen, asking way, requesting someone to pass on a message, etc. “Thank you” not only shows politeness but also carries a person’s grateful feeling for those who offer help. Without using expressions of gratitude, misunderstandings may arise because the help seems to be taken for granted and is not appreciated. For English, each person is an equal individual, whether he is a family member or not. In Chinese, “谢谢” is not frequently used between intimate friends and family members because it may imply a certain distance between the speakers. English speakers may respond to “Thank you” by saying: “You are welcome/It's my pleasure/Not at all/Don’t mention it/That’s all right”. While Chinese people may say: “这是我应该做的”, which may convey to westerners the message that the Chinese did not really want to do it, or that he did it only because it is his duty. This message is quite different from what the Chinese speaker intended to express.
If wrong things are done, there must be apologies. As to how to offer apologies, both English and Chinese people may say “I am sorry….”, “I apologize for…” etc. But Chinese would like to apologize for something like small numbers of dishes, although there are many dishes. Chinese say these to express self-depreciation only out of courtesy, not having other implication.
In China, we always say “你辛苦了!”, “你一定累了吧!” to show our consideration when somebody come from far place. While the English do it in a different way. They will say “How is your trip?” or “You must be very interesting”. These sentences are all expressions in psychological aspect. Concerning the old people is the virtue of human race. But different cultures have different styles. In China, people will say “您年纪大了，你坐吧!” when they give a seat to a old man. But this is regarded as taboo in English, because the English people are not willing to be thought as the elder.
Different cultural factors may result in cultural differences, and consequently, to know the factors that affect the cultural differences will facilitate the understanding of such differences. Some important factors will be discussed in the following.
Nationalism is one of reasons for forming different cultures in different countries. Since the ancient China, the nation form of China is based solely on the Han nationality. The Han nationality developed their privities in the language expression and social contact during the common life and work of their forefathers in the history. Just a subtle facial expression or a slight action can express some meanings. People can understand what you want to say when you say half of you comment or just say little things. So people do not need to say all their intention when they express their own feelings. While in English, due to the short history, people in English cannot reach privities. They must express clearly what they thought, they want. Only by this way can the others understand very well. So their language must speak out what they have to say.
Different religion is another important reason causing the cultural differences.
In Spring and Autumn and Warring’s periods of China emerged Confucianism, Taoism and other ideologies. As different ideologies developed and combated each other, the basic framework of Chinese civilization was established. And then Confucianism became the foundation stone of Chinese philosophy system. Confucianism’s central doctrine is the virtue of “Ren”. “Ren” is translated variously as goodness, benevolence, humanity and human-heartedness. In short, “Ren” means affection and love. For more than two thousand years, it has molded and shaped the civilization of China and exerted a profound influence upon almost one fourth of human race.
Different from China, Christianity plays an important role in English. The English speaking countries are generally considered as Christian countries where many people believe in Christianity. Christianity is the region based on the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. He is the founder of Christianity. According to the doctrine of Christianity, the Trinity is the union of the three forms of God, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ the son of the God and the holy book of Christianity is the Bible, which consists of the Old Testament and the New Testament. However, the power of the church cannot compare with the past times; it still influences many aspects of people’s daily life. For example, there are a few important festivals in the West are concern with Jesus Christ. Christmas day is a festival in celebration of the birth of the Jesus Christ on Dec.25.Virgin Birth refers to the birth of Christ, which Christians believe to have been caused by God rather than by ordinary sexual union.
The concept of Chinese values is often consciously or unconsciously placed in opposition with Western values. Therefore, it is necessary to determine how people define Western values. Some have stated that the modern Western value system originated in Victorian England, and describe it as social norms and behaviors common in European people during that time. The core of Western values is individualism. David Hitchcock described Western values from a Chinese perspective. He said that, from the Chinese viewpoint, Western values have three levels: (1) physical level – science, technology, Business, public administration, and modern capitalist economics; (2) conceptual level – equal opportunity, the role of law; and time management; and (3) core values – open debate, equality, balance of power; free speech, and democracy. The core of the Chinese value has some relationship with the Confucianism. The ethnic principle of Confucianism is its discovery of the ultimate in the moral character of human relationships in which Confucius offered the solution for the ills and evils of his days. That is the well-known five relationships: ruler-minister, father-son, husband-wife, elder-younger and friend-friend. This was explained as “There should be affection between father and son, righteous sense of duty between ruler and minister, division of function between man and wife, stratification between old and young, and good faith between friends.” During the more than two thousand years of the feudal period, the ruling class arranged every thing by this relationship, and then formed a class society. In this kind of society, a minister owes loyalty to his ruler, and a child filial respect to his parent. The result is the humanity is neglected and people have no equality.
Different from China, in the Renaissance period of England, people began to emphasize the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life, they voiced their beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of their life, but also have the ability to perfect themselves and perform wonders. This is the rudiment of Humanism. People became respect the humanity from then on. And then develop into the ideas of what we always said freedom, democracy. Today, the top personal values in English were self-reliance, hard work, and a tie between achieving success in life, personal achievement, and helping others. Hard work, respect for learning, honesty, and self-reliance were most valued among Chinese people. In terms of social values, the top six for English were freedom of expression, personal freedom, rights of the individual, open debate; thinking for oneself, and official accountability. The top six social values for Asian people were maintenance of an orderly society, harmony, accountability of public officials, openness to new ideas, freedom of expression, and respect for authority. This study finds that unlike English, the Chinese people are generally more respectful of authority and prize an orderly society, however in concurrence with the West, Chinese honor new ideas, official accountability, and free expression.
Word order in English simple sentences is as follows: “S + V + O + Adverbial of manner + Ad. of place + Ad. of time”, in which adverbial of time can also be placed at the very beginning of a sentence. For instance, “The children played games quietly in their room yesterday”. Or “Yesterday the children played games quietly in their room”. By contrast, word order in Chinese simple sentences is quite different: “Adverbial of time + S + Ad. of place +Ad. of manner +V+O”. For example, “今天早晨孩子们在自己的房间里尽情地游戏。” The biggest difference between English word order and Chinese one lies in the position of adverbials of manner. In English, most of them occur after verbs, while Chinese adverbials of manner can only be put before verbs. For example, the English equivalent for “他尽情地玩” should be “He played joyfully”. One of the common mistakes learners made is I very much love my mother, which is attributed to the negative transfer of Chinese word order to English one. Besides, the phrases and clauses serving as attributives come before center nouns or noun phrases in English, while in Chinese those occur after nouns. Moreover, some adverbs of frequency like always, often, usually are fixed in position in Chinese but varied in English. In Chinese, they show up before verbs, including main verbs, auxiliary verbs and link verbs, and in English, the position of these adverbs varies with types of verbs, that is, before verbs of action, after link verbs and auxiliary verbs. For example: “He can always answer the teacher’s question” means“他总是能回答老师的问题。” and “He is often the last person to get off work” means “他经常是最后一个下班。”
As there are too many differences in culture between Chinese and English, so it is difficult to understand the English culture for most people. Here some suggestions on learning are put forward to students, who are learning English:
1. Establish a right attitude toward cultural differences. For a foreign language learner, he/she should set up a right attitude toward different culture. Prejudice should be avoided. When facing a new culture, people should be flexible and able to adapt themselves to the new situation. Therefore, being open-minded to cultural difference is a prerequisite to a successful communication with native speakers.
2. Reading extensively for cultural information. Having the successful communication is the main purpose of English. The cultural information that the students need in authentic communication greatly exceeds that covered in any courses. To developed people’s communication competence, people should read authentic materials such as foreign newspapers, advertisements, journals, short stories, novels, plays and other types of literature works. In many cultures, particularly those whose languages are widely taught, literature performs an important role in society. They can reflect a culture, help readers gain deeper insights into the target society enable them to have a better understanding, go the national character of the people who produce the literature, and of the values they cherish. English learners can benefit a lot from these English books since the books provide them with a detailed explanation of the people’s character in the target culture. There are some other reading materials, which are related closely to our daily life, such as newspapers and magazines. Because most contents of these materials are authentic, they expose to us various cultural backgrounds, ranging from geography, history, customs, religion and philosophy, to entertainment, fashion and tourism. This kind of reading materials will help foreign learners get a better understanding of the target culture and keep a keen eye on it.
3. Learn culture through TV and movies. English learners can get a vivid picture of what the people’s life is like in the target culture. From the observation through the media, the features of everyday situations will impress them, such as, sightseeing, telephoning, shopping, or asking directions. What they have learned from books can be verified by the performance of the native English speakers. While enjoying the attractive performance, English learners have to observe details of everyday situations, in case of greeting, farewell, compliment, apology, requirement, etc.
4. Attend lectures on culture. English learners should attend lectures on culture given by English teachers or those who have experience in foreign countries. Some lectures may be centered on the target culture while others may be a comparison between two cultures. Whichever lecture the learners attend, it may increase their cultural awareness through the description of different cultures and the techniques for proper behavior in cross-cultural communication. Participating in discussions after the lecture will reinforce the cultural information they have got from the lecture. What’s more, such discussions can reveal the relation between value system and people’s behavior in social activities.
5. Communicate with English speakers. English learners can go to English Corners to learn culture. While communicating with people from the other culture, students are easily hesitating to speak. They often ask themselves questions like these, “I wonder whether they will like me?”, “Suppose they disagree with my arguments?”, “What if they misinterpret what I say?”, and “What if I say something inappropriate?” etc. All these would make the English embarrassed. So Chinese must try to talk to English and take advantage of every opportunity to talk with English teachers and students available in a relaxed atmosphere. They will benefit from such talks since they can not only practice language, but also observe native speakers’ behavior and exchange their feelings about cultural differences with native speakers. While they attend classes given by foreign teachers, observation and exchange of feelings are of the same importance. Foreign language learners should not hesitate to ask foreigners questions concerning cultural differences, and foreigners may like to answer them since them equally eager to know such differences, which have much to do with their life in China.
In conclusion, language communication is a major component and supporter of culture as well as a primary tool for transferring message, which is inextricably bound with culture. Learning a second language also involves learning a second culture to varying degrees. On the other hand, cultural differences have many reasons, such as nationalism, religion, and values, etc. Finally, the cultural differences are the most serious areas causing misunderstanding, unpleasantness and even conflict in cross-cultural communication. So both foreign language learners and teachers should pay more attention to cultural communication information.
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论文作者:王敏
论文发表刊物:《创新人才教育》2016年第6期
论文发表时间:2016/6/29
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