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From Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis to Foreign Language Learning i From Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis to Foreign Language Learning

Abstract

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which studies the relationship between language and thought,it has played a leading role in the academic world for a long time. Some scholars claim that people's thought was influenced, directly and definitely, by language. But some stick to the view that this hypothesis is characterized by the following shortcomings: the exaggeration of the function of language, the limited explanatory ability, the ignorance of diachronic change and language and the lack of ability to explain language variance. But after the analysis of the linguistic features of Chinese and English, as well as their respective modes of thought, both the strong and weak version seems invalid. Maybe it is more correct to say that language is the carrier of thought and reflects thought. Language and thought interact with each other. Though the relationship between language and thought is hard to define, the study itself has its implications for foreign language teaching and learning: in concept understanding, in syntax study or discourse study, as well as in vocabulary study, will be more effective if it is from different cognitive perspectives and different modes of thought.

Contents

Chapter I Introduction to Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (1)

Chapter II Contrastive linguistic features of Chinese and English (2)

2.1 Parataxis an d Hypotaxis (2)

2.2 Active and Passive (3)

2.3 Dynamic and Static (3)

2.4 Person and Imperson (4)

Chapter III Contrastive thinking-patterns of Chinese and English (4)

3.1 Ethics and Cognition (4)

3.2 Synthetic and Analytic............... . (5)

3.3 Intuition and Evidence (5)

3.4 Figurative thinking and Logic thinking (5)

Chapter IV Relationship between language and though t (6)

Chapter V The implication of Relationship between language and thought on foreign language learning (7)

5.1Conceptuallevel (7)

5.2 Word level (8)

5.3 Syntactic level (8)

5.4 Textual level (9)

Chapter VI Conclusion (9)

References (10)

From Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis to Foreign Language Learning

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which studies the relationship between language and thought. It has two versions-------the strong version, language determinism and the weak version--------language relativism. It holds that language shapes thought, and at least influences thought, but I content that language is the manifestation of thought. has its implications for foreign language teaching and learning: learning, in concept understanding, in syntax study or discourse study, as well as in vocabulary study, will be more effective if it is from different cognitive perspectives and different cultures.

Learning a foreign language, Chinese or English, it’s learning how to use the foreign language as a tool for second mode of thought. So the comparison of the two different thinking-patterns is beneficial and essential to master the target language and improve ability of second mode of thought. For example, it will give the guide to the teaching of second language and the writing of composition. Of course mode of thought belongs to philosophy. So it is a very complicated concept, and to go deep into it will need a very long time and also requires many efforts.

Chapter I Introduction to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is a theory put forward by the American anthropological linguists Sapir and Whorf. It states that language determines thought and speakers of different languages perceive and experience the world differently.

As a very influential but also extremely controversial theory that has ever been made in the study of the relationships between language and culture. It has played a leading role in the

academic world for a long time, claimed that people's thought was influenced, directly and definitely, by language. It has evolved into two versions; the strong version: Linguistic determinism, which holds that Language is a shaper of ideas; the structure of a language shapes or constrains the way we think about and interpret reality in that language; another is the weak version: Linguistic relativism, which believes that Language influences the way we think abou t and conceptualize reality; our thought processes are “filtered” through the language we speak.

I don't think the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is valid, because as for as I am concerned, our thinking-patterns have controlled over our languages, and languages are the concrete manifestation of our modes of thought. Modes of thought decide the use of languages, and the reasons how languages are influenced by modes of thought should be examined from their relationship.

In order to find the relationship between language and thought, first it is necessary to analyze the different linguistic features of Chinese and English as well as their respective modes of thought.

Chapter II A contrastive of linguistic features of Chinese and English Chinese and English belong to different language families, of which the former is a branch of Sino-Tibetan; the latter is o part of Indo-European. They are doomed to have different features. Specifically, the main differences of linguistic features between Chinese and language are as follows:

2.1 Parataxis and Hypotaxis

Chinese is a kind of paratactic language while English is hypotactic. As Nida states in his book that study from linguistics, the most important different characteristic between Chinese and English is the difference of parataxis and hypotaxis. LiuMiqing holds the opinion that hypotaxis and parataxis are the “unique characteristic” for English and Chinese. (转引自张思洁, 张柏然，2001：13)

Parataxis means that the component parts of the sentence are placed in a definite order to indicate their relationship without any connectives in between. So, the syntactic structure appears to be somewhat loose, but rather concise and expressive. (贾德江，2002：36) Hypotaxis refers to the case that the component parts of a sentence are joined together by using definite connectives, such as preposition, relative pronouns, conjunction, affixes, etc.（孙萍，2004：35）

That is to say, Chinese grammar is more covert, and it's more concerned with the unity of meaning rather than the form; while English is an overt language, as its sentence structure is well-formed and strict.

2.2 Active and Passive

Chinese is in favor of active voice and English is likely to use passive voice. For example, It has been known for a long time that there is a first relationship between the heart and liver（长期以来，大家都知道心脏和肝脏的关系是最主要的。）.

2.3Dynamic and Static

Chinese is dynamic and English is a static language: Chinese prefers to use verbs while English tend s to use more nouns .For example: Good eaters and sleepers are not always

healthy(能吃能喝不见得就健康。). She is a regular visitor of the museum（她经常参观博物馆。）.

2.4Person and Imperson

Chinese is a personal language and English is an impersonal. For instance, Excitement deprived me of all power of utterance（我兴奋得说不出话来。）. His return brings great relief to everybody in his family（他回来了，全家人都如释重负。）.

Besides, there re also some other differences. In Chinese, sentences are usually simple and short while those of English are almost complicated and long. Then when it comes to the position of modifier, in Chinese modifiers are usually put before the noun, unlike those in English which are always located after the noun. The last difference is that Chinese is an inflectionless language while English is an inflectional one.

Chapter III Difference in thinking patterns

People of different nationalities differ not only in language, but also differ in thinking patterns. The differences of philosophy and cultural background between English and Chinese have resulted in the rethinking of the Han nationality as an entirety thinking country and the English people individual characteristics of thinking.

3.1 Ethics and Cognition

Chinese emphasizes ethics, and the westerns emphasizes on cognition. And this can be shown from the vocabularies. One of Chinese core values is ordering relationships by status and observing this order, so when it comes to the addressing of kinship, Chinese has a more complicated system than that of English. So when we want say爸爸and 妈妈, they use

parents, when we use舅妈，姑姑，婶婶，阿姨，they use aunt. They have some general terms to refer to some totally different relatives.

3.2 Synthetic and Analytic

Chinese emphasizes on integrity, so the thinking pattern is synthetic, which can be seen from the covertness of Chinese grammar and its parataxis of syntax; while English emphasizes on individualism, of which the thinking pattern is analytic, which can be seen from the overtness of its grammar and hypotaxis of its syntax.

3.3 Intuition and Evidence

Chinese people depend on intuition, while westerners value evidence. The Chinese people are concerned more with their own bodies in expressing emotions, so intuition thinking is the main feature of their mode of thought, for which people study objects as a whole and emphasize entirety. Chinese philosophy is systematical naturalism. （毛荣贵，2002：420）.On the contrary, the English people link their own emotion to planetary influence and the natural elements, so they prefer analytical logic thinking. Target objects are subordinated into small parts in order to be scrutinized, which, of course, may lead them to place the components before the whole when they try to know something. （毛荣贵，2002：420）

3.4 Figurative thinking and Logic thinking

Chinese people like figurative thinking, but English people tend to like logic thinking. Figurative thinking is the process in which one forms a new presentation in his mind after analyzing an image and remoulding it. Logic thinking is the process in which one uses

reasoning consistently to come to a conclusion. Problems or situations that involve logical thinking call for structure, for relationships between facts, and for chains of reasoning that “make sense.”

Chapter IV Relationship between language and thought From the analysis of Chinese and English mode of thinking, we can see that language does not shape our thought; at best we may say language reflects our thought, and to some extent, modes of thought and languages influence and reflect each other closely. Language is the carrier of thinking and abstraction of reality, and mode of thought is the conscious activity in which people’s minds reflect and realize the objective reality. （汪德华，2003：36）The differences between thinking patterns are the main reasons that result in the differences of language forms, so I think the study of the features, the transition and the relationship of languages should be started with the study of modes of thought which connect closely with the cultures and the language.

The Chinese is intuitional, which is to say the Chinese sentences express the meanings by personal intuition and lead the readers to apperceive the deep meanings by logic analysis and the connecting context. Comparing with English, Chinese is more compact and faintness. In intuitional thinking people study objects as a whole and emphasize entirety. So when people are organizing or understanding language, they prefer to start from the entirety and get the whole feeling first.

The phrases are unique sentences in Chinese, but can be directly placed together, which is unacceptable in English. But though there is not any conjunction to link them it can also be

clearly understood. So the readers could not judge the relationship from the language expression just like that in English. In order to understand the meanings implied in the phrases the readers must judge from a higher degree ----intuition. In a word, based on visualized mode of thought, Chinese tends to express abstract concept using paratactic forms that contains many implied meanings between the lines. Only simple sentences can express abundant meanings with artistic conceptions.

Chapter V The implication of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis on foreign language

learning

Although the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is an influential issue under active discussion, it goes deep into the relationship between language and thought, and sometimes culture is also involved in the study since language is also part of culture. As a controversial issue, Valid or not, the study itself has, to some extent, exerted some positive and far-reaching impact on foreign language teaching and learning.

5.1 Conceptual level

It gives implication on the understanding of concepts. Since every language has its unique framework of concept due to their own cultural background and modes of thinking, they have different divisions of conceptual category. For example, in Chinese we have notions of星期一，星期二，星期三，星期四，星期五to indicate the first , the third ,the fourth and the fifth day of a week, but in English they have no such numerical patterns in expressing days. So for westerners who learn Chinese, if they notice this difference, it will be better to understand and learn this Chinese concept and make up for his conceptu al gap.

5.2 Word level

It helps a lot in vocabulary learning. In Western countries, especially in the U.S, individualism is the core value, which encourages people to seek for self-realization and

self-happiness. While in the east, the priority is given to collectivism and team spirit. So the word "ambition" is a commendatory term in America, while it bears some derogatory sense." always means"野心勃勃". Besides, the addressing for kinships can also show the different thinking-patterns in different nations. In English, cousin will be enough to express the concepts “堂兄（弟）”，“堂姐（妹）”，“表兄(弟)”,“表（姐妹）”。In Chinese, we have“打的”、“打铁”、“打人”、“打官司”、“打毛衣”、“打电话”，one character “打”can be used in many different phrases to express totally different meanings. While in English, many different verbs will be employed to form a certain grammatically correct phrases such as take a taxi, hit the iron, beat somebody, engage in a lawsuit, etc.

5.3 Syntactic level

It also has implication on the syntactic level. As mentioned in the second part, Chinese and English use passive and active voices differently and with different frequency, and this also can reflect their different thinking-patterns. Chinese are more subjective, so active voice is preferred while English tends to be more objective. For example, Table tennis is played all over China. In Chinese it is“中国到处都打乒乓球”。So when learning Chinese, westerners should follow the Chinese thinking pattern, bearing the fact that Chinese are more intuitional and tend to use active voice which is more subjective. While for Chinese people who learn English, they should do the opposite way. For Chinese it usually makes good use of verbs

together in one sentence to present the things one by one according to the time when the things happened.

5.4 Textual level

Due to the difference in culture, foreign language learners from different cultures will express their thoughts through different textual structures. When writing a composition, Chinese likes using inductive method while English often use deductive method. Besides, as what I said above English is a hypotactic language, the strict SVO sentence structure is commonly used word order in English, while Chinese is a kind of paratactic language, and the sentence structure for Chinese is not so strictly required. Usually several SVO structures can be placed one by one to express some things in one sentence only. Besides, cohesive devices are more frequently used in English since it is strict in text structures. So when learning a foreign language, the linguistic feature and thinking pattern of the target language should be born in mind.

Chapter VI Conclusion

From the comparison of the English-Chinese languages and their modes of thought, we may see that they are of one thing but two aspects. Resulted from different cultural background, the differences of their modes of thought have greatly determined their own languages. On the other hand, the languages also reflect their thinking patterns. So in order to learn English well and better master the two languages the thinking patterns should be studied deeply. In my own opinion, the study of languages from the degree of thinking pattern will greatly benefit the learners.

From Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis to Foreign Language Learning 10

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