Cultural Linguistics and Intercultural Communication

The relationship between language and culture is the core issue in intercultural communication.For native language learners,their native language and local culture are in perfect harmony;while for foreign language learners,they often unconsciously separate the two,resulting in the phenomenon of“half-cooked rice”in foreign language education.This phenomenon makes us reflect on the purpose,content,and methods of foreign language education and seek theoretical guidance.Foreign language teaching aims to improve intercultural competencies,so it must face language and culture in intercultural communication.As a branch of cultural linguistics with multidisciplinary origins,intercultural linguistics focuses on the relationship between language and culture in intercultural communication.In the process of exploring how to apply linguistic theories in second language acquisition,it shows that intercultural linguistics not only has important enlightenment and application value,but also needs further studies.

Metaphor Interpretation and Cultural Linguistics

Metaphor use is characterised by conceptual variation that can be explained with reference to culture-specifi c discourse traditions.Cognitively oriented metaphor analyses that are interested in cultural relativity have so far concentrated mainly on the production side of metaphors and their misunderstanding by ESL learners.This study,by contrast,focuses on variation in metaphor interpretation across groups of ESL/EFL users from 31 cultural and linguistic backgrounds.Its data consist of a questionnaire survey,administered in 10 countries,which gave students the task of applying the metaphor of the"body politic"to one’s home nation.The results show systematic variation between four interpretation models for this metaphor,i.e.NATION AS GEOBODY,NATION AS FUNCTIONAL WHOLE,NATION AS PART OF SELF and NATION AS PART OF INTERNATIONAL/GLOBAL STRUCTURE,as well as some evidence of polemical and/or political elaboration.The two main versions,i.e.NATION AS GEOBODY and NATION AS FUNCTIONAL WHOLE,were represented across all cohorts but exhibited opposite frequency patterns across Chinese v.Western cohorts,with the former favouring GEOBODYbased,the latter functional interpretations.This fi nding provides evidence of culture-specifi c variation in metaphor interpretation(as well as in metaphor production),specifically with regard to the frequency and distribution patterns of source concepts.Metaphor interpretation analysis can thus contribute to a cognitive metaphor analysis in general and especially to the"cultural linguistics"approach to metaphor.

Cultural Linguistics: The Development of a Multidisciplinary Paradigm

Cultural Linguistics is a multidisciplinary area of research that explores the relationship between language and cultural conceptualisations. It offers both a theoretical framework and an analytical framework for examining features of languages that are entrenched in cultural conceptualisations, including cultural schemas, cultural categories, and cultural metaphors. In recent years, Cultural Linguistics has drawn on several disciplines and sub-disciplines, such as complexity science and distributed cognition, to enrich its theoretical basis, particularly the notion of cultural cognition. Applications of Cultural Linguistics have enabled fruitful investigations of the cultural grounding of language in several applied domains such as World Englishes, intercultural communication, and political discourse analysis. This paper elaborates on these observations and provides illustrative examples of linguistic research from the perspective of Cultural Linguistics.

China English and College Intercultural Education:A Cultural Linguistic Perspective

In the era of globalization,English as an international language(EIL) is also the medium of intercultural communication for the international community.Based on the theory of cultural linguistics(CL),which regards language as culture-oriented rather than structure-oriented,Sharifian(2009,p.4) has proposed that varieties of English which constitute EIL result from the interaction between the English language and different local cultures.CL suggests that China English(CE) should be understood in this light:It is not a substandard interlanguage,but a variety of English with its own cultural value and right.This paper intends to systemically analyze the nature of CE and its value in intercultural communication so as to better understand current intercultural education.Over a long time,much emphasis has been laid on the importance of adapting to the target language culture to the neglect of home language culture in our College English classrooms,thus resulting in what is known as Chinese cultural aphasia.In the light of CL,intercultural communication competence(ICC) encompasses not only knowing English and adapting to its culture,but also using CE to introduce the native culture in which CE plays an irreplaceable role.Therefore,CE is undoubtedly a key remedy for Chinese cultural aphasia.More research on CL should be conducted as it provides felicitous disciplinary guidance for our college intercultural education.

Linguistic Cultural Signs in College English Teaching

This paper explores the relationship of language and culture in College English teaching, taking further discussion about the current linguistic cultural issues. Therefore, English culture should be introduced in college English teaching to help students better understand the English language as well as the English society. Due to the close relationship between culture and language and the great difference between Chinese and English

Protecting intangible cultural heritage of linguistic culture resources and developing strategies from the perspective of cultural ecology

From the perspective of cultural ecology, the thesis takes the linguistic culture resources as the research object, analyzes the diversified and endangered characteristics of linguistic cultural resources, and then comes up with three different strategies to protect intangible cultural heritage of linguistic culture domain and to develop cultural industry. Then it stresses cultural self-consciousness, sustainable development of cultural ecology to develop and protect the linguistic culture resources under the protection mechanism of intangible cultural heritage.

Cultural conceptulisations in Elijah Akintunde's Yoruba ballad gospel song Jjo Odi‘Dance of the Deaf’

What kind of actions or reactions can sudden good news elicit in the experiencer?How can these actions/reactions be cognitively interpreted by others?Is there a nexus between social realities and the gospel?Using these questions as a spark,this article critically examines the cultural conceptualisations in Jjo Odi,a Yoruba gospel ballad by Elijah Akintunde.Drawing insights from Cultural Linguistics,this study argues that cultural symbols and structures(schemas,categories,and metaphors)are deployed in gospel music to capture the message of liberation from socio-economic challenges.Specifically,DANCE and DEAFNESS are mapped to express the kind of PERPLEXITY and ABSURDITY that characterise reaction to SUDDEN PLEASANT NEWS.The song also invokes cognitive schemas and cultural memories of dance,cultural class categories and metaphorization of dance and its internalized network of cognitive associations in the Yoruba world view to project the message of prosperity as a miracle.The study concludes that language is firmly grounded in cultural cognition and the complex socio-economic lives of Nigerians can be captured in the negotiation of spirituality in gospel songs.Future research may explore how the artistic performance of other music genres equally evoke cultural imageries in communicating other diverse issues.

Bilingualism and Culture:Psycholinguistic Aspect

The development of bilingualism of a bilingual child is inextricably linked with the formation of an individual folklore-linguistic picture of the world.In this regard,proverbs,sayings,riddles and folk phraseology as universal phenomena of folklore of the Russian and Greek languages,which have important linguistic and cultural potential,are of particular interest from the point of view of their presence in the bilingual speech and thought activity.The quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the functioning of paremiological and phraseological units in a bilingual speech determine the content of folklore language worldview and directly depend on the type of formation of the child’s early bilingualism.Phraseological and paremiological composition of the folklore picture of the world of natural Russian-Greek bilinguals is asymmetric and directly depends on the type of early bilingualism–in bilinguals who learn two languages on the principle of“one-person-one-language”,asymmetry prevails in favor of the Greek language,children from Russian-speaking families whose bilingualism develops according to the principle“family language is the language of society”exhibit better knowledge of Russian folklore elements compared to Greek.

A Study of Chinese Students in the United States and Its Implication for English Teaching in China

Language acquisition is a system with four components： language development, academic development, cognitive development and sociocultural development. Based on this theory, Chinese students in the United States are studied from three perspectives： linguistically, culturally, and social psychologically. It indicated that, to help Chinese students develop their English performance and cultural appreciation in this diverse world, the profession of English teaching in China should cover a variety of domains, including linguistic, cultural and psychological input. Both American and Chinese education can benefit from this special group of Chinese students if they can be better understood, and used as a bridge between China and U. S. cultural and academic exchange. In the meantime, the mirror held up to the Chinese students in these perspectives reflects not only who they are but also who they can become.