The formation and understanding of proverbs is deeply rooted in the national culture. Proverbs express the truth through the social life of the special circumstances and life more common, common, specific concepts linked to highlight. Proverbs have a number of common characteristics that go beyond the cultural differences of various cultures. The most important thing is that the use of proverbs is often based on its metaphorical meaning rather than the literal meaning. The use of proverbs reflects the universal role of conceptual metaphor in people 's understanding of the world. At the same time, specific national cultural backgrounds are one of the important factors that determine metaphor production, use and understanding. Different cultures …show more content…
Proverbs are a kind of ready-made words created by the masses of the people, reflecting and summing up the experiences and laws of history and modern life. Proverbs, as a form of language, have developed with the development of society, and have distinctive characteristics of the times. They cover all aspects of social life, customs and habits and reflect people’s voices in the real social life. Therefore, the comparative study of Chinese and English proverbs is helpful to the contrastive study of Chinese and English folklore.
3.2 Relationship between language and culture
There ason why the study of the relationship between language and culture is of great significance to translation is that “A language is a part of a culture and a culture is a part of language, the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture.” That is one cannot translate a language without translating the culture underlying the language. Culture is a fundamental concept in anthropology, The classical definition of which was first put forward by E.B. Tylor in his Primitive Culture
In abroad sense, culture is referred to as the totality of material and
As anthropologists seek to understand the culture that they are studying they must overcome the language barrier. Similar to the concept of culture, “people use language to encode their experiences, to structure their understanding of the world and themselves, and engage with on...
Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” is a short science fiction story that explores the principals of linguistic relativity through in interesting relationship between aliens and humans that develops when aliens, known as Heptapods, appear on Earth. In the story Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist hired by the government to learn the Heptapods language, tells her unborn daughter what she has learned from the Heptapods as a result of learning their language. M. NourbeSe Philip’s poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” also explores the topic of language and translations, as she refers to different languages as her “mother tongue” or “father tongue.” Although these two pieces of literature may not seem to have much in common both explore the topics of language and translation and connect those ideas to power and control.
Metaphors, then, are at the heart of understanding the way we view aspects of our culture while we simultaneously build that culture. Umberto Eco stresses that culture is a collective experience. In his view, "there is no such thing as a single mind, un connected to other minds or to their (collective) social cultural constructions" (Cunningham, "MOM" handout). If this is taken as fact, the "social, cultural, historical, and institutional contexts" humans find themselves in contribute to creating their metaphors and in turn, their artifactual worlds. Therefore, the situational context and the metaphors found there are intertwined and must be examined together.
Even nowadays, there still an issue that connected with language and related to cultures such as cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. Cultural relativism is a behavior in one culture that should not be judged by another’s value system which basically is a belief of own culture practice with respect and understand the different of other culture. While ethnocentrism is the opposite of cultural relativism. It is the ideal that one’s own culture is the main standard and better than other cultures such if other’s culture practice is contrary to your cultural norm, that practice would be immediately wrong. In Language Myths provide many examples of this issue in many chapters which I will be discussing below.
In the book Metaphors We Live By, authors George Lakoff and Mark Johnson address the traditional philosophic view denouncing metaphor's influence on our world and our selves (ix). Using linguistic and sociological evidence, Lakoff and Johnson claim that figurative language performs essential functions beyond those found in poetry, cliché, and elaborate turns of phrase. Metaphor permeates our daily experiences - not only through systems of language, but also in terms of the way we think and act. The key to understanding a metaphor's effect on behavior, relationships, and how we make sense of our environment, can be found in the way humans use metaphorical language. To appreciate the affects of figurative language over even the most mundane details of our daily activity, it is necessary to define the term, "metaphor" and explain its role in defining the thoughts and actions that structure our conceptual system.
Every person in that worldly population can relate to the use of metaphors in everyday speech, no matter what their language. It is not uncommon for someone to encounter metaphors multiple times in one day, though many times they go unnoticed even if they are “right under our nose.” These metaphorical phrases are not meant to be taken literally. For example, when someone tells you to “bite the bullet,” they are not requesting that you actually put a bullet in between your teeth. In fact, they are asking you to bravely face up to something unpleasant just as many soldiers were asked to clench a bullet in between their teeth (in lieu of anesthetics) to transfer the pain of the amputation or surgery (something very unpleasant indeed) that they were about to undergo (“Expressions and Sayings”).
Culture is the clothing each of us dawn every day that give people around us a general sense of who we are. The language around a culture is the code in which we communicate with one another in our own culture. When two of the same cultures are interacting, nothing is lost in translation, nothing is misunderstood, and above all they have had relatively the same personal experiences and see things in the same way. It is when you leave one culture and go to another culture that the code in which we use to communicate is misunderstood and things are lost in translation. Even the the cloths of our culture which identifies us in our identity wardrobe are called into question in the interaction of foreign cultures. It is important for us to know
Language is used to preserve and transfer culture and cultural ties. Diverse ideas branch from differing language use within one’s culture and the whole intertwining of these relationships start at one’s birth. I have to agree with Confucius when he said that we are all born exactly the same; it is only once a child is exposed to their surroundings that they become individuals in and of their cultural group. Every individual’s views are dependent on the culture which has influenced them, as well as the language which has been shaped by that culture. The understanding of a culture and its people can be enhanced by the knowledge of their language. And learning a new language involves the learning of a new culture (Allwright & Bailey
...xpressing her Chinese culture. Mastering a second language allows her to articulate her and her mother’s thoughts; it is a foundation for her pride and a foundation to express herself. For Gloria Anzaldua, instead of choosing one language over the other, she chose a mix of the two and fights for it. She realized the value of her language when she lost it and now treasures it. The kind of Spanish she speaks is neither English nor Spanish, but both. It is overflowing with culture from Medieval Spain, France, Germany, etc., just from the origins of the words. It is her pride and a representation of herself, fighting and living. In conclusion, in addition to Lera Boroditsky’s article proving that the structure of language affects how we think, the articles by Eric Liu, Amy Tan, and Gloria Anzaldua show how language is a foundation for a person’s culture, pride, and self.
Hebrew wisdom literature taught people not only how to make good choices in life but to also make godly choices. The book of proverbs in the Old Testament is the perfect example of the practical side of godly living and success. In life everybody are presented with choices daily. Based on your worldview and beliefs, your choices can lead to bad consequences at the time, or later in your life. If you are a Christian you know that bad choices, can not only lead to bad consequences, but also, punishment by God. “Jewish ages infused their literature with an understanding that all wisdom, even things related to everyday practical matters, begins with the fear of the Lord” (Hindson). Proverbs are based on experience and observation, while producing reflection within the mind. Proverbs covers multiple topics that can apply to any ones daily lives like marriage, self-control, money and relationships. Throughout proverbs written by Solomon, he addresses situations of wisdom and folly, also diligence and laziness and his own experiences. There is no better example of the practical side of godly living and success than what is found in the Book of Proverbs, if interpreted correctly and actually applied to daily living (Hindson).
In human society, translation plays a significant role, which helps realize effective communication among people. Benjamin (as cited in Venuti, 2000) indicates translation is the mode, which plays a function of transmitting information; hence translatability determines whether the information could be effectively and appropriately delivered and is regarded as the “essential quality of certain works”. Throughout history, many scholars have developed translation theories, which provide various effective translation strategies and methods, to explore the translatability. Equivalence theory points out that all languages always share some similarities; hence the languages could be exchanged (Nida, as cited in Venuti, 2000). The skopos theory emphasizes
What is a word? How the translator deals with this gap? What influences his choices? These are few of the question we will try to explain in this paper. We will pay a particular attention to the cultural differences and the translational gaps raised from it. In my opinion the non-equivalence in translation is due above all by the cultural barriers that influence our lifes.
Translation has always played a key role in shaping cultures, societies, languages, and literatures throughout the history of mankind. On the other hand, in contrast to all its potentials, the discipline has been underestimated within academia and it had not been studied in any systematic way as a planning activity until the last century (Toury, 2002). Having been overshadowed by linguistics and comparative literature, the discipline of translation studies was conceived as a subordinate academic field. This is mainly because translation was merely seen as a code-switching activity and firmly stuck in the paradigms of fidelity and equivalence.
Culture and its worldview reflects and impacts language in so many ways. The foundation is not necessarily the language a culture speaks, but how a culture thinks. How a particular culture thinks, acts, and its perception greatly influences and affects communication. A culture helps describes a particular situation or experience, in its own unique way it perceives the world, by this language is the means of communication.
Culture is an important concept in anthropology. Culture is defined as, "sets of learned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society. Human beings use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which they live." (LS:512). Culture has been used in anthropology to understand human difference, but within this understanding there have been benefits and drawbacks to the ideas of culture. Finally, the study of language and humans as symbol using creatures helps us have perspectives on different parts of the world. All anthropologists share a certain reliance on culture to have a starting point in understanding human experience as a whole.