Language and Culture
As a Chinese International student, I speak both Chinese and English in my campus life. In many aspects, I can feel the different between Chinese and English and how they relate to different cultures. And the purpose of language is very easy, communication. If wewant to express our opinion, we need to speak to others so that people can know what are we thinking. Commuication depends on languagae a lot.
For my perspective, leaning English is very important. Why? Because I study abroad, so I need to know what teachers say during the class, how to talk with the stuff in the market, and how to successfully express my own opinion to others. Speaking Chinese in America is useless because no one can understand, so we need to learn and speak English. That’s the purpose of the language. Though there are many kinds of language, every kind of language’s main point is to communication. For example, when I wake up at my American friend’s home, I want to come back to my home, I can’t just leave without a word. When I leave, I need to tell my friend where am I going and I need to appreciate my friend for keeping me in his house for a night. I can’t do these things in action, so I need to talk to him. I will say “ Thank you!” and “ See you next time.” etc. Then my friends will not feel that I am rude and the relationship can still be kept through the communication. That’s the function of the language.
How to relate language to the culture. Because of the culture, many different ways of language will come up, or some special language combination will show up. For example, in China there is a word called “ Pixiu”, it is hard to translate into english because it is a very ancient and traditional animal in China. We think that this animal can bring us good luck, so we can see a lot of Chinese take a kind of decoration in the shape of Pixiu. This word in Chinese is revolution from very old time and is it very hard to write in Chinese. The shape of the word of “Pixiu” is really like this animal. That’s how the language relates to the culture I think. Because of the culture, some words come up and have it’s special meaning.
