語言影響思維-外語學習對中國人思維造成的影響論文
無論是在學習還是在工作中，大家最不陌生的就是論文了吧，論文是指進行各個學術領域的研究和描述學術研究成果的文章。你所見過的論文是什么樣的呢？下面是小編為大家整理的語言影響思維-外語學習對中國人思維造成的影響論文，希望對大家有所幫助。
[Abstract] This paper presents a careful analysis of the relations between thought and language, which provides the precondition for the exploration in the rest chapters. There have been many arguments for the exploration between thought and language. Among them is the famous Spair-Whorf hypothesis, which proposes linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity. From this hypothesis we deduce that since every language has a form and no two forms are the same, no two cultures having different languages can have identical views of the world. Chapter Two of this thesis makes a comparative study of the thinking styles of the Chinese and English in four aspects: figurative thinking vs. abstract thinking, comprehensive thinking vs. analytical thinking, subject-centered thinking vs. object-centered thinking as well as straight thinking vs. converse thinking. Thought is the basis of language and language has to depend on thought for its content; at the same time, language provides the best instrument for the expression and communication of thought. The illustration of the relation between thought and language places us in a better position to clarify that language influences thought, particularly how English studying could influence Chinese’s thought.
[Key Words] language; thought; Spair-Whorf hypothesis; English study
【摘 要】 迄今為止，有許多關于思維和語言兩者之間關系的爭論，其中最著名的就是薩丕爾-沃爾夫假設，它提出了語言決定論和語言相對論的觀點。從這個假設中，我們可以推導出，由于每種語言都有自己的形式，沒有兩種語言的形式是一模一樣的，因此具有不同語言的不同文化對世界可能有不同的看法。不同民族的思維方式雖相似之處頗多，但又各具特點。因此，本文的第二部分著重從四個方面對漢、英兩種語言所體現的邏輯思維進行了分析和對比，即：具象思維和抽象思維;綜合思維和分析思維；主體思維和客體思維以及順向思維和逆向思維。語言是表達和傳播思維的最佳工具。思維作用于語言，語言也作用于思維。闡釋過思維與語言的關系之后，我們能夠更好的分析語言對思維的影響，特別是英語學習對中國人的思維產生的影響。
【關鍵詞】 語言；思維；薩丕爾-沃爾夫假設；英語學習
1. Introduction
There have been many arguments for the exploration between thought and language. Among them is the famous Spair-Whorf hypothesis[1], which proposes linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity. Put in an extreme form, this hypothesis follows that since every language has a form and no two forms are the same, no two cultures having different languages can have identical views of the world. Thought is the basis of language and language has to depend on thought for its content, at the same time, language provides the best instrument for the expression and communication of thought. The illustration of the relation between thought and language places us in a better position to clarify that language influences thought, particularly how English studying could influence Chinese’s thought, for Chinese people have been studying English for very a long time and almost every student in Chinese has to study it. Having learned the English for 10 years, the Chinese students maybe influenced by the language in thought. Here presents the hypothesis that English studying could influence Chinese people’s thought in some aspects.
2. Language and Thought
2.1 What is language?
Modern linguists have proposed various definitions of language, and some of them are quoted below:
“Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.”(Sapir, 1921) [2]
Language is “the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols.”(Hall, 1968) [3]
“From now on I will consider language to be a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements.”(Chomsky, 1957) [4]
Each of these definitions has its own special emphasis, and is not a totally free from limitations. However, there are some important characteristics of human language linguists have agreed on; the most commonly accepted definition of language is:
“Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication”.[5]
So language is a special tool for human beings to communicate. It is possessed by human beings and allows people to say things to one another and to express thoughts and needs. In short, language is a unique system of communication and it is the cornerstone of society.
2.2 What is thought?
“Thought is a function of human brain, and is a cognitive activity for human to understand the objective world. Thought is a process that uses the conceptions, judgment and reasoning to reflect the objective world. Thought can process all kinds of information that enters the human’s brain, therefore we can reflect the nature of things and can solve problems when we think.” [6] “Thought is a power or process of thinking.”(Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary,2002,P1588)
Thought is a process that information enters the brain and is analyzed, synthesized, judged and inferred on the basis of presentation and concept. After the spoken and written language come into being the information which enters the human’s brain comes most from language either by heard or by seen thus what we could think is mostly based on the two styles of language and sometimes led by what we are told. That is to say, without the information entering human’s brain there is no thought or thinking comes into being.
2.3 The Relationship between Language and Thought
2.3.1 Humboldt’s Views
Whilhelm von Humblodt, a famous German diplomat and scholar, states the relationship between language and thought as the following views:
“The spiritual traits and the structure of the language of a people are so intimately blended that, given either of the two, one should be able to derive the other from it to the fullest extent... Language is the outward manifestation of the spirit of people; their language is their spirit, and their spirit is their language; it is difficult to imagine any two things more identical”. [7]
“Language has the function of forming thought. W V Humboldt, a German philosopher and linguist, pointed out that people usually see communication as the primary function of language. However, people must have the content for communication before they start to communicate, and the formation of this content is closely associated with language, or to be more specific, people use language to express thought, yet language is, at the very beginning, involved in the formation of thought, just as he said, ‘language is the formative organ of thought’.” [8]
“Humboldt said that if the sole function of language is to express and convey thoughts and feelings, then language will not be absolutely necessary for human beings, because they can also use other symbols or means to express themselves (though not so effective as language).” [9]
From the above it can make a conclusion that language is not only the function for human to express and communicate but also has the function for humans to form thought. The extent of nearness between language and thought may be exaggerated, but it points out rightly the notion that the two interact with each other. He believes that language incomes from spirit and then reacts upon spirit. Moreover, he put the studies into the specific cultural background and views that no nation can avoid injecting their subjective consciousness into their language to form a special "worldview" in the language, which would in turn restrict people’s language usage. That is to say the language what people saying contains the thinking action. Followed by this view, we may get the idea that different people speak differently because they think differently, and they think differently because their languages offer them different ways to express the surrounding world. The most important part is the language can provide sorts of thinking ways in this paper.
2.3.2 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Humboldt’s view on the inseparability of language and thought is later picked up by Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf in the United States.
The complement must be the most famous theory on discussing the relation between language and thought in this field. Since its inception in the 1920s and 1930s, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has caused controversy and spawned research in a variety of disciplines including linguistics, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and education.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis claims that the structure of the language one usually uses influences the manner in which one thinks and behaves. When he was working as a fire insurance risk assessor, he noticed that the way people behaved toward things was often dangerously correlated to the way these things were called. For example, the sight of the sign ‘EMPTY’ on empty gasoline drums would prompt passersby to toss cigarette butts into these drums, not realizing that the remaining gasoline fumes ‘EMPTY’ evoked a neutral space, free of danger. “Whorf concluded that the reason why different languages can lead people to different actions is because language filters their perception and the way they categorize experience.” [10]
“During the 1930s, Edward Sapir’s student Benjamin Lee Whorf promoted the following ideas, which have come to be known as the tenets of the Sapir-Whorfian hypothesis:
1) The worldviews of a culture are embodied in the language forms of that culture.
2) The syntactic and semantic forms of a language determine thought, and therefore:
3) Differences in thought among cultures are due to differences in the linguistic forms of the cultures in question.”[11]
“The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis theorizes that thoughts and behavior are determined (or are at least partially influenced) by language. Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf brought attention to the relationship between language, thought, and culture, but neither of them formally wrote the hypothesis nor supported it with empirical evidence, but through a thorough study of their writings about linguistics, researchers have found two main ideas. First, a strong theory of linguistic determinism that states that the language you speak determines the way that you will interpret the world around you (or the way one thinks is determined by the language one speaks). Second, a weak theory of linguistic relativity that states that language merely influences your thoughts about the real world (or differences among languages must be reflected in the differences in the worldviews of their speakers).”[12]
There is no enough powerful support for the strong version—the linguistic determinism because people have found that the thought has been formed former than the language, that is to say the thought comes first and there exist the non-verbal thought. For the weak version which is also called linguistic relativity is the more reasonable and can be adopted. “In most cases, they coexist with and influence each other: Human cognitive ability can develop to a very high level and still can be expressed by language. There is no thought that goes beyond the expression of language. Meanwhile, language is by no means passive as it is determined by thought. Instead, it influences people’s modes of thinking to some extent.”[13]
“Therefore, the relationship between thought and language is: language determines thought (linguistic determinism) and there is no limit to the structural diversity of languages (linguistic relativity), as Whorf concluded. He claimed that:
... It was found that the background linguistic system (in other words, the grammar) of each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas, the program and guide for the individual’s mental activity, for his analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental stock in trade. Formulation of ideas is not an independent process, strictly rational in the old sense, but is part of a particular grammar, and differs, from slightly to greatly, between different grammars...” [14]
The different grammars create the different ideas, maybe we can further understand it with the following words:
“So, for example, according to Whorf, whereas English speakers conceive of time as a linear, objective sequence of events encoded in a system of past, present, and future tenses(for example, ‘He ran’ or ‘He will run’), or a discrete number of days as encoded in cardinal numerals (for example, ten days), the Hopi conceive of it as intensity and duration in the analysis and reporting of experience (for example, wari=’He ran’ or statement of fact, warikni=’He ran’ or statement of fact from memory). Similarly ‘They stayed ten day’s becomes in Hopi ‘They stayed until the eleventh day’ or ‘They left after the tenth day’.” [15]
“Whorf insists that the English language binds English speakers to a Newtonian view of objectified time, neatly bounded and classifiable, ideal for record-keeping, time–saving, clock-punching, that cuts up reality into ‘afters’ and ‘untils’, but is incapable of expressing time as a cyclic, unitary whole. By contrast, the Hopi language does not regard time as measurable length, but as a relation between two events in lateness, a kind of ‘eventing’ referred to in an objective way (as duration) and in a subjective way (as intensity). ‘Nothing is suggested about time [in Hopi] except the perpetual “getting later” of it’ writes Whorf. Thus it would be very difficult, Whorf argues, for an English and a Hopi physicist to understand each other’s thinking, given the major differences between their languages. Despite the general translatability from one language to another, there will always be an incommensurable residue of untranslatable culture associated with the linguistic structures of any given language.” [16]
We can see the best example in the above to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and could better understand how language influence thought. But, we may make another hypothesis that if the Hopi want to learn or to understand the English expression of time (the time conceptions) first they must learn the English language structures and grammar. Maybe it is a complement for them to build up the time system, and further more the Hopi could view the time in a new way. Through studying the foreigner language they can develop their own theory on only in time. So does our Chinese students learning English language.
3. Linguistic Logics of Chinese and English
The thinking styles of the East and the West are different: Easterners tend to seek sameness from difference while Westerners are likely to find difference from sameness. To a certain degree, true in that the thinking styles and viewing angles between the East and the West is different. As a matter of fact, as early as the 19th century, the German Materialistic philosopher Feuerbach(費爾巴哈)pointed out that “Easterners tend to neglect discrepancy in consistency while Westerners tend to ignore consistency in discrepancy.” [17]
Then where on earth does Eastern thinking differ from Western thinking? For decades people have been trying to dichotomize the thinking styles. Eastern thinking is described as "holistic", "dialectical", "figurative", "subjective" and "fuzzy". By contrast, Western thinking is "analytical", "abstract", "objective" and "precise". Chinese language is developing towards fuzziness, obscurity and generalization, whereas Western language is towards precision and concretion.
The Chinese scholar, Jia Yuxing holds the views that Western thinking is characterized by logic, analysis and linearity, while Eastern thinking is known for its integrity of intuitive perception and harmonious dialectics. Westerners are apt at analysis and reasoning, as a result, their thinking pattern is linear; Easterners are prominent in holistic thinking, as they are imaginative and rely more on intuition, therefore their thinking pattern is rather circular. Still there are scholars who hold an ontological point of view and believe that Easterners emphasize the overall consonance as well as all things of creation are integrated with me; in contrast, Westerners are rational, analytical and analogical, which is best manifested by the Greek viewpoint "Man is the gauge of all things in the universe". In terms of thinking patterns, Eastern thinking is radiating while Western’s is rather perspective, the knowledge of which might be of great help to us in further investigating the logical principle underlying the structuring of the Chinese and English languages.
Fu Lei，the well-known translator, thinks that “Eastern thinking differs from that of the West in that Easterners emphasize comprehension, induction and implication, whereas Westerners attach great importance to subtle, precise and in-depth analysis as well as comprehensive description.” [18]
3.1 Figurative Thinking v s. Abstract Thinking
The above-mentioned styles of thinking can be found in all nations, but owing to their particular historical and cultural reasons, different nations might be prominent of one style of thinking. Generally speaking, Chinese is featured by concrete style of thinking in contrast to Westerners’ abstract thinking.
The two different thinking styles are directly reflected on sentence and vocabulary. In Chinese, more concrete nouns are used, but the case is quite different in English, where more abstract nouns are found. An important reason why Chinese in figurative thinking is that a lot of concrete forms are used to express abstract concepts, giving readers the being concrete, definite, direct and lucid impression. While English likes to use abstract nouns in English sentences. These nouns’ meaning is nonfigurative and general and could strike the receivers as abstract, indistinct, obscure and misty.
Chinese scholar Wang Li believed the so-called nouns in Chinese are slightly different from their counterparts in English in terms of denotation and connotation. Generally speaking, Chinese nouns, except for those used in such fields as philosophy, science, economy, politics, etc., usually denote concrete, tangible things that can be sensed by the five sense faculties. Wang also pointed out that strictly speaking, nouns derived from adjectives, such as `kindness’, `wisdom’, `humility’, `youth’, as well as those derived from verbs, like `invitation’, `movement’, `choice’, `arrival’, `assistance’, `discovery’, etc., can find no equivalents in Chinese vocabulary.
Figurative thinking requires the combination of image and meaning, which means that a concrete image carries a particular meaning and they combine to express concepts, feelings and images. To do this, abstract thinking, in contrast, usually resorts to concepts, judgments and precise reasoning. E.g.:
(1)枯藤老樹昏鴉;
小橋流水人家;
古道西風瘦馬;
《天凈沙秋思》(元)馬致遠
Translated version:
O’er old trees wreathed with rotten vine fly evening crows;
’Neath tiny bridge beside a cot a clear stream flows;
On ancient road in western breeze a lean horse goes;
In the original Chinese, the "old tree(老樹)”，"rotten vine (枯藤)”，"evening crow(昏鴉)”and "tiny bridge(小橋)”，etc., those images are put together, with no overt connectives in between, to present the readers with a tranquil and leisure picture. The translated version is faithful to the original poem by retaining these concrete images; however, some articles (the, a), prepositions (o’er, ’neath, with, in, etc.) and verbs (fly, flow, go, etc.) are added in the translated version to indicate the relationships among these images, to meet the requirements on rigorous abstract thinking in English as well as on syntax too.
3. 2 Comprehensive Thinking vs. Analytical Thinking
Both of the two styles of thinking are found in all nations. However, due to the impact exerted by their respective tradition of culture, the Chinese nation tends to be more comprehensive in their thinking whereas Western nations are more analytical.
As two basic forms of thinking, comprehensive thinking and analytical thinking have their respective advantages: to analyze is to break up the whole into many parts in order to get down to the core of targeted object; to synthesize is to study the targeted object in a comprehensive way by combining the parts which maybe seem isolated into the integrated whole. Analysis played a key role in the establishment and development of modern sciences, despite the fact that systemization was also in service. In a sense, modern sciences would not have come into being had it not been for analytical thinking, not to mention the prosperity of economy and flourish of science and technology of the West world.
Chinese people are more comprehensive in their thinking. In traditional Chinese philosophy, they viewed the heaven, the earth and man as a whole and the harmony between man and nature was their constant pursuit. Thus, analytical methods are less valued and the Chinese nation tends to take the whole situation into consideration and observe the universe from a comprehensive point of view.
These two different styles of thinking have exerted their respective impact on the syntactical structures of English and Chinese. Due to the influence of analytical thinking, the English language is endowed with distinct changes of word forms, varied grammatical forms and flexible sentence orders; In contrast, words almost do not change in form in Chinese and grammatical requirements are usually met by lexical means. What is more, phrases and clauses are usually arranged in chronological order or in logical sequence. Parataxis in the Chinese language best manifests this phenomenon: propositions are coordinatively arranged one after another with no connectives indicating the syntactic relations between them. Chinese sentences, in most styles of the language, tend to be short and seemingly loosely connected with connecting words omitted, but the meaning can be decided from the context. Oftentimes, certain members of a sentence (usually the subject of a clause or the sentence) are omitted, and the sentence is still intelligible to Chinese readers.
E.g.:
(2)我買了六支鋼筆，(這六支鋼筆)一共三十元，(我)拿回家一看，(這六支鋼筆)都用過的了。
I bought six pens for 30 yuan. When taking home, I found they were used.
With the concealed or omitted subjects of the clauses(“這六支鋼筆”and“我”)，the original Chinese, which can be taken as one sentence, poses no difficulty in understanding to a Chinese reader. Moreover, no connectives are found in the sentence and the meaning as well as the chronological sequence is self-evident from the context. In contrast, the translated English version, which consists of two sentences, cannot do without these omitted subjects, and a time-marker "when" is also added to indicate the time sequence as well as the subordinate relationship between the time-adverbial clause and the main clause.
3.3 Subject-centered Thinking vs. Object-centered Thinking
It’s generally accepted that Chinese culture is subject-oriented while Western culture centers on the object. Laozi，founder of Taoism, held that "The ways of men are conditioned by those of earth; the ways of earth by those of heaven; the ways of heaven by those of Tao; and the ways of Tao by the self-so". Mencius also said, "I know everything about the universe". “Qian Mu，a master of Chinese national culture, made his penetrating remark that Chinese culture, with its emphasis on humanitarianism, is human-oriented in essence, and has given birth to the subject-oriented thinking style of the Chinese nation. That’s to say, center on themselves in making observation, analysis and reasoning people.” [19]
In Western culture, however, people take the objects and nature as the center of their research, which places great importance on the observation and study of the objective with the absolute authority nature. Westerners hold that man is endowed and transcendental power over nature and is, on the strength of his intelligence and science, to conquer and transform nature and put nature at his service. The proverb "knowledge is strength" best illustrates this perseverant spirit of pursuit and exploration, which takes the universe as its to-be-conquered antagonist. Such notion has fathered the object-oriented style of thinking, namely the objective nature is the focus of all man’s exploratory activities, his observation, analysis and reasoning.
Due to the different thought pattern English likes the passive form. It is very common for them use the passive expression. While, the Chinese usually used the passive form together with the agent of the action; otherwise the notional passive is used instead.
“In English, on the other hand, when the agent or doer of the action expressed by the predicate verb is to emphasized, we make it the subject of the sentence, which is thus in the active form. Or when the subject of the action is to be emphasized, we make the object of the verbal action the subject of the sentence and the sentence is thus said to be in the passive form. From this conception, it is clear why the agent of the action is usually not expressed in an English sentence in the passive form, just contrary to the Chinese construction.” [20]
Both of these thinking styles have left their respective marks on Chinese and English. The animate subject of the Chinese sentence and the inanimate subject of the sentence in English best exemplify the case. In describing or explicating, an animate subject is adopted in the Chinese language as the agent of action whereas an inanimate subject is usually preferred in the English language.
3. 4 Straight Thinking vs. Converse Thinking
Different nations might take different angles in their observation and ways of thinking. A manifestation of this in language is that different or even complete converse linguistic forms might be adopted in describing or explicating the same phenomenon. For example, priority is considered an honor or privilege in Chinese culture, and to show his politeness or courtesy, a-Chinese would ask his guest to eat or go first by saying“您(先) 請!”，a phrase literally meaning "You do this (before me), please". In English the counterpart of“您(先)請!”is "After you".“先”(before) is rendered into "after"(后)in English, completely opposite in sequence.
English people are different from the Chinese in expressing time sequence. In the English language, "back" refers to the past time and "forward" to future time. In sharp contrast, the Chinese refer back with “前”(forward) and forward with“后”(afterward). It can be said that the Chinese is "facing the past time" (or past-oriented) in expressing chronological sequence, i.e.“前/后年(last year/next year)，前/后人(predecessor/successor)，前/后世(previous incarnation/afterlife)"; the English are "facing the future". For example, "the weeks ahead of us/the following weeks" means“以后/未來的幾個星期’’in Chinese . In a word, on temporal matters, "back" in English is equivalent to“前”and "forward" to“后”in Chinese, the negligence of which fact would lead to mistranslation.
Due to different forms of expression for the same content, different nations might adopt completely different perspectives in observation or, in other words, the different thinking styles. For example“九五折”in Chinese becomes "5% off’ in English, for the Chinese focus on the actual rate of payment after discounting, whereas the English people have their eyes on the rate of discount.
It won’t be too difficult to find more examples.“自學(learn all by oneself or with no instructions from teachers)" in Chinese turns into "self-taught" in English, “太平門(Exit to safety)" into "emergency exit",“油漆未干 (the paint is not dry up yet)" into "wet paint",“聽電話(listen to the speaker on the phone; engage in a telephone conversation)" into "answer the telephone",“紅眼("red-eyed" in jealousy)" into "green-eyed", and“顧客止步(off limits/out of bounds for customers)" into "crew/staff/employees only", and so on.
4 .Language Influences Thought and some Evidence
4.1 Language Influences Thought in some Aspects
Xu Jun (許均)once said that “That the different thinking angles determines the various expression of language is explained as the result of thought determining the language.” [21] But the various expressions of foreigner language provides a channel for the second language learners to think in another modes and in different angles. Further more it also can be adopted by language learners. The idioms of English like:
(3) Spend money like water (花錢如流水)
(4) Kill two birds with one stone (一石二鳥)
Chinese people is familiar with the above two idioms, when told that they are the English expressions many Chinese would feel unthinkable for they have adopt them unconscious. Viewed in this aspect, the language can influence the thought.
“In Eskimos’ language the vocabulary for counting number only three words: one, two and many. They are hard to identify the quantity more than three, when asked to imitate the action which scientists put some kinds of sundries on the ground they can’t finish the task. They are failed in counting or calculating it.” [22]
Lacking of the number words influences the Eskimos to judge the material quantity. In their minds the number of the thing is simple and they could not think exactly how much or how many things around them. Another example which is similar with the former also can be proved this view: language determines the thought. There is less vocabulary in English for the English-speaking people to explain the relationship among a big family, in Chinese“伯伯”、“叔叔”、“舅舅”、“姑丈”and“姨夫”in English are all called “uncle” and “伯母”、“嬸嬸”、“阿姨”、“姑姑”、“舅母”are all called “aunt” “奶奶”、“外婆”called “grandmother”, the “祖父”、“外公” are “grandfather” and the “great grandfather” and “great grandmother” are referred to “曾祖父”、“太外公”and “曾祖母”、“外太婆”. So in the big family party they don’t know who is who. They don’t have the accuracy words to help them understand it and think in an exact way. Both of the two examples show us that without the correct language (vocabulary) to express the precise meaning they could not have the exactly thought about something and also do not have the conception of it.
“Only in a complicated and close grammar structure can complicated and meticulous thinking develop. Helping he students to master the grammar rules, especially the highly tightly grammar structure, is the effective method leading the students think complicated and close. ” [23] Chinese grammar structure is very different from the English. In ancient Chinese, there is not grammar or logic in human’s conception. After learning the English, Chinese people developed their own grammar and further developed their logic, which is a part of thought. Chinese people have studied the foreign language for a long time, so Chinese logic and thinking，in very great degree, influenced by the different language and expressions. Once in contact with the very different language and want to understand or comprehend it, people inevitably must change their original thinking ways and try to think in the new pattern, gradually, in their minds they have two different thinking ways, maybe one is stronger than the other. It depends on the learners.
The structures of Chinese and English discourses are also different:
Structures of Chinese and English Discourse: [24] P48
"Kaplan drew attention to the indirect approach of some Chinese and Korean writing, saying：
In this kind of writing, the development of the paragraph may be said to be turning and turning in a widening gyre..., such a development in a modern English paragraph would strike the English reader as awkward and unnecessarily indirect(1966)". [25]
When speaking or writing, Chinese people would like to diverge their thoughts and then bring them back to the very starting point. They are accustomed to beating about the bush when they are talking, and hide the key point until the last moment, which is called a pattern of climaxing. The repetition of a certain discourse structure of some words is widespread in the cyclical discourse structure as a Chinese rhetorical device. In ancient Chinese language, the application of repetition is very common can be seen. The repetition of a certain word, a sentence, a syllable, a rhyme scheme, or even a structure all corresponds with Chinese circular pattern of thought. In the parallel structure of Chinese discourse, several clauses with the same number of words, similar structures, identical interjections, and similar rhyme schemes are used and similar meanings are expressed. In this way, the mood is increasingly enforced.
The Chinese discourse structure is fairly perplexing for Western people, for they are used to presenting the topic at a foremost place so as to arouse the attention of the listeners or readers, which is kind of anticlimactic discourse organization. The structure of Western discourse is: the topic sentence is the staring point of the article followed by the specification of facts, and a conclusion in the end. This is a typical structure mirroring pattern of thought.
The English language learner must notice the great different between the two discourse structures when they reading the English originals they must be led by the train of thought of the text. Once more the different discourse structures poured into their minds where the strange thought comes into being. This process is that: language determines the thought.
4.2 Some Evidences for Language Influencing Thought
4.2.1 The Chinese Language Influences the Language Begin-learners’ English Expressions
Chinese and English are very different in many ways, when Chinese students study the foreign language (the English) , or in another word, come into contact with the different language which is the carrier of thought and ideas they must change their usual thinking ways or try to accept the different expressions in order to understand the content what the English is said. But we may often notice that some students, especially the beginners, failed to say or write the right English. Some examples:
(5) 怎么做：How doing ?
(6) 好好學習，天天向上。Good good study，day day up !
(7) 他說謊，我不相信他。(Because) He lies, I don’t believe he .
(8) 那年春天他們家里發生了一件不幸的事：That year Spring their home happened an unfortunate thing.
There are so much Chinese thinking modes in the above English sentences. The students use Chinese everyday and once asked to speak or write some English they inevitably influenced by Chinese thought. Language determines the person speaking, writing, thinking ways, those affectedness are hard to be discarded. So the Chinese language influence Chinese-speaking person who thought in the way what their mother language style has formed.
4.2.2 The English Expressions Influence Chinese Language
By studying the foreign language--the English for a long time, students gradually guided by the English thinking ways, they attempt to adopt the expressions very different from Chinese, during the understanding and receiving process they led by the train of thought of the material ,in other words，they were thinking in the English way before they knew it.
What is more, even when Chinese people write some thing in Chinese they also use the thinking modes of the foreigners (the English).As the Chinese’s English learning develops, the use of passive condition sentences and the passive mark can be seem more:
(9)使用時間如此之長的宮殿，在《史記》、《漢書》等文獻中卻從未被記載過。
(報紙)
(10)吳萍個性極強，但女人的弱點就是經不住被愛，尤其是被瀟灑的人愛。(雜志)
(11)這架木制的鋼琴本月17日在利物浦的披頭士樂隊博物館被公開展示。(報刊)
(12)如果被以前那幾條河都目錄了兩岸文明的衰落，那么，恒河則讓自身發生了質變，也是這是比較發達的結果，但這種結果比衰落更難于療救。
《秋雨日記·千年巡拜》
(13)他在游泳時被淹死了。 (報刊)
(14)這天，他照例又被服用了藥。 (報刊)
(15)我被定制了手機上網服務。 (口語)
(16)但是，雖然它是正常的，但是這個情況是可以被改善的。 (海歸口語)
It is very strange for Chinese people to say and write these above sentences which are incorrect in Chinese grammar and will not be accepted as the traditional Chinese language. In the above, it is unnecessary to use the passive to express even it is false to use them. Using the passive in nowadays widely can prove that the English language has influenced the Chinese people’s thought in a large extent through many channels both from the hearing things and the seeing things.
The above examples is only one aspect to prove that after a long time to study foreign language (the English), Chinese people are more or less receptive to the English thought. With the developing of our country’s English learning, our mother language must absorb the more English thought through many channels.
(17)因為我這次回國之前，在美國幫助一個公司，國內的公司去美東地區的十一所最TOP的學校去招聘。 (李新玉，全國工商聯女企業家協會常務理事)
(18)總是想向國家或者單位或者某個用人的地方要東西，我覺得我特別信奉一句話,Don’t ask…… well，我又說英語了。 (李新玉)
(19)但是這句是英語的一個，OK，一個 saying。就是Don’t ask for it , work for it，就是說你去努力工作去得到你的東西，不是說你能要來的。 (李新玉)
(20)其實首先要我們自己先心態平點。我們別一去給人家interview的時候，就表現出好像我們是從哪兒來的。 (李新玉)
(21)但是關鍵是自己要show it , ok? (徐小平，新東方文化發展研究院院長)
(22)我想補充一句。其實我覺得呢,那個女孩本身就有價值，你們沒有去pay她enough，我覺得是你之前的問題，所以說是你們管理上出了問題。 (李新玉)
(23)我的觀點是劉洋不應該選擇去接受這份工作，他的第一份offer。 (觀眾)
(24)領導也不重用我，真faint ，水土不服呀! (劉洋，海歸)
(25)所以我真的需要一個就像徐老師說的，給我一個show的機會。 (培培)(26)其實我們每一個人在市場經濟環境里面都面臨一個，我又不想，要用英文詞這個sale的問題。你要賣，首先你在沒有工作之前要把自己賣給一個公司，首先你要把自己這個能力賣出去。你進了一個公司，要把你主意也要賣出去。所以我們經常，這是在包括美國公司里面經常用的一個詞，叫sale idea，這個詞用得很有道理。sale是一個要花勞動的，不是說它對，自然而然這個公司里就都接受了 (丁健，亞信科技(中國)有限公司董事長，1995年回國的海歸)
(27)第二要經營，剛才咱們講了很多“術”方面的問題，怎么樣送resume，怎么樣去讓大家了解自己。 (白剛，光輝國際咨詢(北京)有限公司客戶總監)
(28)2004年，我跟investor講，你不能只看現在百度的股票有多么expensive，要看它的foreground，但是還有很多investor miss了一個重要的opportunity。
(李彥宏，百度總裁兼CEO，1999回國創業的海歸)
From example 17 to example 27 are the dialogue in the CCTV Program Dialogue in January, 27, 2004. Some of the speakers have studied abroad for years and their over-sea experiences and in other words, they have embodied the English language unconsciously. When they were talking in Chinese they would find it is difficult to speak all with their mother language even they could not express the exactly meaning in Chinese and in English they could express freely. The reason why they speak in a strange way is that during the talking is that they failed to find the correct Chinese characters to communicate the meaning in the first senses. Example 28 is the typical one, which include more English words in the speaking. This kind of speaking can be seen more and more in our life. It is easy to find in these examples that the English influence Chinese’s thought. In the following examples we can see the deeply influence upon Chinese.
(29)但是就是，因為我發了兩百多份，得到企業的答復或者面試的機會就相當得少，所以我心里就有一種沉重的感覺。 (劉釗，海歸)
(30)留學生已經從賣方市場變成了人才市場的買方市場。 (徐小平)
(31)具體地說，到現在為止，是有一個深圳的單位拒絕了我。 (劉釗)
(32)后來新東方出了十萬人民幣讓她到英國去讀教育管理，結果才讀了半年，現在需要人才，就特別打電話回來了。 (徐小平)
(33)我覺得跟人際關系沒有，你放心，我覺得很多“海歸”回來的這些在西方受到了足夠時間長的教育，他不大會任人唯親的。 (丁健)
(34)那么一個月以后，他現在在美國很大的一個顧問公司，找到一個很好的工作。(觀眾)
In example 29 and 30, there are some mistakes in Chinese grammar and expression. The former is incorrect neither in English nor in Chinese logic, which can be due to the speaker’s habituation of speaking in English who adopted some English logic thinking ways no the corrects but speak it out in Chinese words. In example 31, we can see the speaker’s thinking way is deeply influenced by English, the order is very correct in English and it is strange Chinese expression. We could view the “特別” in example 32 as the mark of English language, Chinese people seldom speaking in that ways. The example 33 is the most typical one to support the evidence that English language influences Chinese thought, the correct Chinese expression is “時間足夠長”, as we know, in English the expression is “time enough”, the speaker is more familiar with the English than Chinese for he had studied abroad many years and when he speaking this sentence he thought in an English way. The mistake in example 34’s is time- logic, in Chinese the “一個月以后”and “現在”is wrong to expression the same time point“now”, but it is correct in English.
5. Conclusion
This thesis, through a comparative study of the relationship between language and thought, explores the difference thinking between Chinese and English, as well as the inference that the Chinese thought is influenced by the English language through the language learning and adopting. Language as the carrier of the thought can make its learners receive all its contents, no matter what. This is a hypothesis that English studying could influence Chinese people’s thought in some aspects.
It is certain that my study makes no claim to completeness and further detailed research is left for future work. I hope this subject on how does the English influence Chinese people will be dig deeply by later comers.
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