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西安外国语大学英文学院陕西西安710128
1. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The Sapir- Whorf Hypothesis, a term first used by J.B. Carroll (1956), refers to the view held by Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf on the relationship among language, thought, and culture (Hudson, 2007). According to this hypothesis, speakers of different languages are said to think in different ways and differences among languages must be reflected in the differences of the worldviews of their speakers. So learning a new language is not only learning the language itself, but also a new mode of thinking.
2. Implications for Learning English or Chinese as Foreign Languages
2.1 Differences at the Vocabulary Level
At first, Chinese-speakers are accustomed to imagery thinking, and using the concrete image to refer to the abstract object is an example in terms of vocabulary, which is evident in classic Chinese poetry with the accepted title of “image”. However, it is difficult for westerners who are used to logical thinking to understand the abstract meaning in a way of concrete expression.
Secondly, the preference for ambiguity and accuracy is also obvious in vocabulary learning. For example, a single word “饭”could refer to “早饭”、“午饭”and “晚饭”in Chinese, while they need respective titles in most western language-speaking countries. i.e. “breakfast”, “lunch” and “supper”. This is also reflected by the fact that westerners advocate individualism and pay attention to the personality; while oriental people lay stress on collectivism and cooperation.
2.2 Differences at the Syntax Level
Firstly, the differences in frequency of active sentences and passive sentences in Chinese and English reflect the different mode of thinking of Eastern and Western. Chinese favors the people-centered thinking way which is based on the stress of the unity of man and nature by ancient Chinese philosophy. Therefore, the person is usually used as the subject of sentences. On the contrary, because of the stress on objectivity and logic, English speaking people prefer to use passive sentences to express the objectivity of things. For instance, for the sentence in English “some things have been said here tonight that ought not to have been spoken”, the translation is “今晚有人在此讲了不该讲的话”( not “今晚有些不该被讲的话被有些人讲了”).
The second difference is about the presence of the subject in two languages. Chinese people prefer imaginary thinking while English-speaking people cling to logic thinking. The result is that the subjects in Chinese are not related closely to the whole sentence as the subjects of English do. So when the subject is obviously known to everyone, it will be omitted. While, in English every sentence exists with a subject. This difference can be reflected in a pair of equivalents: “下雪了” in Chinese with “It rains” in English.
Another example is that the Chinese synthetic or collective thinking, figurative thinking, and obscure thinking, which is related to its linguistic feature, namely, paratactic, while the English analytic, logic, abstract, and accurate thinking makes English hypotactic. Chinese lacks inflection and infinite verbs and has very few prepositions, thus the grammar function of words is determined by the word order, which is based on the position of the verb in the sentence. Here is a comparison of these differences: “我们进了车站。 我买了票， 他忙着照看行李”vs. “We arrived at the station, where I bought a ticket while he saw to my luggage” (Lian, 2010).
2.3 Differences at the Discourse Level
Firstly, Chinese learners like to use induction in English writing while deductive discourse model is common in English culture. Secondly, Chinese semantic structure is gyre and the English structure linear. Moreover, since the western thinking emphasize on individualism, the writer is advocated to express his own ideas right from the beginning. Therefore, an English discourse usually begins with the topic and states clearly the author’s opinion and then develops in a linear line to lead the reader deeply inside the details of the topic. However, in Chinese discourse the main idea or topic will be implied or hidden behind the descriptions and arguments.
3. Conclusion
In order to learn these two languages as foreign languages, it is necessary for the foreign learners to be aware of the characteristics of the target language and its relation with thinking mode. It is also important for the learners to compare these characteristics with those of their own language, and then find out the relevant differences in thinking and cultural patterns to help them understand the target language better and learn it consciously, to some extent.
References
[1] John B. Carroll. Language, Thought, and Reality, Selected Writings, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1956.
[2] R.A. Hudson, Sociolinguistics, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2007.
[3] 连淑能. 英汉对比研究 (增订本) [M]. 北京：高等教育出版社, 2010.
作者简介：田晓，1993年6月12日出生，女，汉族，山西省太原市阳曲县人，现就读于西安外国语大学英文学院2016级外国语言学及应用语言学专业。主要研究方向：二语习得。
论文作者:田晓
论文发表刊物:《语言文字学》2017年4月
论文发表时间:2017/7/27
标签：英文论文; 西安论文; 语言学论文; 讲了论文; 高等教育出版社论文; 太原市论文; 汉族论文; 《语言文字学》2017年4月论文;