Culture And Language

Culture both liberates and constrains. It liberates by investing the randomness of nature with meaning, order, and rationality and by providing safeguards against chaos; it constrains by imposing a structure on nature and by limiting the range of possible meanings created by the individual I quite agree with this oppinion by Claire Kramsch, especially after I have read the first 10 pages of his book Language and Culture and gained a basic understanding of his views. Accoridng ot Claire, "nature refers to what is born and grows organically", and "culture refers ot what has been grown and groomed" (1998, p. ).

He took roses as an example to illusrate the relationship between nature and culture. Nature emdows roses with beauty but can not keep them from dying, while culture acts as techonogical procedure that perserves the fragrance of roses by making them into perfume. In other words, culture is essential to keep things born in nature alive for long period. Language is one of the most significant evidence that culture renders our world rational and orderly but not in a mess. From the lexical perspective, people who are speaking the same language communicate with each other under the guidance of the ame grammar, pronounciation and vocabulary.

This is because they share common experience and understanding of the world with their fellows. The shared knowledge and perceptions of the world allow them to be understood by others easily. Also, written language can reflect how culture plays an important part in regulating our daily interactions with other people. For instance, in American, when a person is offered a cup of coffee, he should say "Yes, please" or "No, thanks". But in China, under the situation, a person is more likely to say "Yes, thank you" when he''d like to take the offer.

However, culture can also impose restrictions on individuals'' freedom of making choices and expressing themselves, mainly because they are afraid of what''s in their minds less likely to be accepted by the society. People have been taught what is valued right and wrong in their societies since they were little children, and in their later life, such perceptions are reinforced time by time through family upbringing, school educaiton as well as socialization. For example, Chinese people tend to act modestly when they are complimented by others.

If someone says "Congratulations or your winning the first prize" to a Chinese, it always happens that he gets a reply like "l will work harder and achieve more". This is what we have been instructed since we were young. Even though we are very satisfied with the fulfillment, it would be seen as arrogance if we responed like "l think so and I am so happy now". As a result, we are not used to, and not encouraged to speak out our true feelings when being praised, though things have changed a lot due to more cultural communication with foreign countries. culture and language By mountainsechoed