回复: 伦敦絮语
“语言和文化的关系”的一点心得
随着英语学习的不断深入,越来越觉得,“文字”远非文字本身。从前只认为,是不同的文化造就了各异的文字,却没曾想过,在特定文化之下形成的不同文字其实也反作用于文化。移居加拿大后我自身的常识性体会包括:我们中国人在数学方面的擅长可能很大程度上得益于我们对数字的表述法;被剥夺语言能力后人会表现得“十分愚蠢”,跟“原本的自己”判若两人;成年人学习新语言的困难不仅仅由于记忆力衰退,更多地是由于我们的母文化“不肯让位”......等等。
最近的一篇英语作业,被要求找一篇跟自己的职业或个人目标相关的文章,通读并写SUMMARY(梗概)和REFLECTION(读后感)。于是我选了“华尔街周刊”上斯坦福大学一位心理学教授的文章,题目就叫“语言影响文化吗?”。读后的感觉是,自己原本模糊的英语“学后感”也是有些科学依据的。原文比较长,我的“家庭作业”短得多,贴于此,有兴趣的同学可以“顺藤摸瓜”看一下原文,虽是一家之言,但是挺有意思的。
我的SUMMARY:
Does Language Influence Culture?
Lera Boroditsky, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and editor in chief of Frontiers in Cultural Psychology, published an article entitled “Does Language Influence Culture?” at Wall Street Journal online (http://online.wsj.com) in July, 2010. In the article, he states that “the languages we speak not only reflect or express our thoughts, but also shape the very thoughts we wish to express” (Boroditsky 4). By providing plenty of data from investigations and tests, the author proves that our understanding of experience such as space, time and causality are constructed by language; as well, patterns in language shape many other ways of thinking. Boroditsky starts from the study of how language influences people’s spatial knowledge. For instance, some people (e.g. Pormpuraawans) are extremely good at orientation and navigation just because their languages describe everything in terms of absolute cardinal directions (north, south, east, west). Then, he says that spatial knowledge also helps to build other abstract representations including time, number, kinship relations, and etc. In a test in which the author was involved, people were asked to arrange the shuffled photos on the ground to show the correct time order. English speakers always arranged time from left to right because of the language habit, and Pormpuraawans arranged time from east to west no matter what direction they were facing. Furthermore, the author claims that languages shape how we understand causality too. For example, English speakers like to use active voice; Spanish and Japanese speakers tend to use passive voice; as a result of this habit, in studies of videos of two people popping balloons, breaking eggs and spilling drinks either intentionally or accidentally, English speakers remembered the actor of accidental events while neither Spanish nor Japanese speakers did. Besides the aforementioned, Boroditsky also believes that patterns in language play a role in many other aspects. Proofs include: Russian speakers are more capable of visually discriminating shades of blue, the Piraha are not able to keep track of exact quantities, Shakespeare was wrong about roses, English sentence structures focus on punishing criminals rather than restituting victims, people’s performance change dramatically when their language ability is taken away, and so on(Boroditsky 3-4 ). Therefore, the author asserts that languages does influence the culture.