Interrelation of culture and language (on the basis of English proverbs and sayings)
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Introduction
1. Why should we be
aware of the culture during learning its language?
2. How was English
language changing by the time?
3. Why can we call
proverbs and sayings as one of the brightest representatives of the culture?
4. What are one of the
most popular proverbs and sayings; their meanings and origins?
5. What is students’
opinion about this matter?
Introduction
“The person principally lives with things like his tongue presents them to
him. Each language describes the nation to which it belongs; the circle, which
a person is able to leave only because he becomes a member of a circle of
another language”.modern society approximately 750 million people speak English
as their foreign language, according to the British Council, and more than
billion people are learning this language, which consists of more than 600
thousand words, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Meanwhile, approximately
20 million people know German and 110 million are learning this language, which
consists of 400,000 words., just being aware of lexis, grammar, phonetics,
spelling, morphology, syntax, punctuation of the language, you learn, is not
enough. You also should know the culture of the nation, which created that
language, as qualified successful linguist knows both how speech is being made and
why speech is being made in such way.knowledge provides us with an opportunity
to totally understand foreign language, which we learn, as sometimes it is very
complicated for us to do that.have already mentioned that English language
officially has 600 thousand words and German 400 thousand, and almost all of
them have more than one meaning, therefore, for its learners it is like “no one
means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery
and thought is viscous”.happens in such way due to the fact, that culture and,
consequently, language is constantly developing. During this process the word
may get or even loose one of its meanings. It makes education procedure extremely complicated;
that’s why, unfortunately, we deprived of opportunities to become qualified
linguists.my point of view, to solve this issue we should study culture. In
this case, we will be on familiar terms with developing of language;
consequently, we will easily get used to innovations and will start using them
earlier than other learners. I am sure, that it will help us to become
multilingual people.relevance of my work consists in insufficient knowledge of
the matter as a whole, since culture of nation, which language people learn,
does not receive a proper attention in the science of our country.
Consequently, there is a strong necessity in comprehensive of the issue.aim of
this work is to prove on the basis of proverbs and sayings, as one of the
brightest representative of philosophy, of English and German languages, that
it is very important to be aware of this aspect; to find out what amount of
attention is paid to this matter.of the study
reveal the significance of knowledge about civilization,
which created the language you gain knowledge of, in education process;
study the history of English language;
set up the importance of proverbs and sayings in
civilization;
on the basis of the most popular proverbs conduct the
research, which will reveal the level of students’ awareness of this matter;
make conclusion, based on the theoretical and practical parts
of the work, about the significance/poor significance of the knowledge about
culture in learning its language.practical significance of this research consists
in the fact that the materials and the results of a study can be useful for
further deepening and expanding for the topic. Moreover, the proposed theme is
perspective in terms of working out the educational strategies.theoretical
value of my work is connected with the definition of proverbs and sayings as
cultural representatives as a whole.
1.
Why should we be aware of the culture during learning its language?
“The mental individuality of a people and the shape of its
language are so intimately fused with one another, that if one were given, the
other would have to be completely derivable from it”.are no doubts that the
humanity appeared earlier than the language itself and that the language was
created by the humanity. Meanwhile, the humanity “principally lives with things
like his tongue presents them to him”. It is like a circle, the circle which
will never end. It means that the language always was developing as well as the
society did, consequently, the worldview of its native speaker also changed.
Nevertheless, the language was being developed by changing of the worldview of
its speakers. It is very tangled, is not it?for us it goes not matter what
appeared earlier: egg or hen. The main point is that they are inseparably
connected. In other words, for qualified linguist it is necessary to know the
language and the culture, traditions and customs of the nation, which created
it.
“We must look upon language, not as a dead product, but far
more as a producing.” “In itself it is no product, but an activity”.have
already proved that the language is inseparably connected with the culture and
that the language was always developing by it., who said that now it is not
expanding? Of course, it is.for us the most interesting is the fact that it is
also building up by the same nation, by its culture!to be on the top you have
to constantly update your knowledge, but, unfortunately, it will be difficult
unless you know how and why it is changing in such way, in other words, again
and again you should be aware of its civilization.
“For in the scattered chaos of words and rules that we are,
indeed, accustomed to call a language, there is present only the particular
brought forth by this speaking and this never completely, and first calling for
new work, so as to detect from it the nature of the living speech and to
provide a true image of the living language”.I am going to integrate previous
two statements. The language is created by the nation and is constantly being
developed by it; consequently, they are intimately fused with one another, therefore, for
multilingual person it is very important to be aware of not only the language
itself, but also its culture.suppose that that statement totally prove the
significance of the knowledge about the culture.exemplify my hypothesis I will
turn to an English idiom. “Turn a blind eye”.us this expression makes no sense,
as it will probably be translated into Russian as “повернуться слепым
глазом”. If I personally hear in
a casual situation, I will be confused, indeed., now I will tell you about the
history of this idiom. “Interestingly, this expression is said to have arisen
as a result of the famous English naval hero Admiral Horatio Nelson, who,
during the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, is alleged to have deliberately raised
his telescope to his blind eye, thus ensuring that he would not see any signal
from his superior giving him discretion to withdraw from the battle” and it
means that “to pretend not to have noticed it”.
. How was English language changing by the time?
it has already been proved that language depends on culture
of its nation, I will try to tell you about the history of English language and
similarities between its old variants and a modern one.of all, there were three
stages of language’s development: Old English (from the mid-5th century to the
mid-11th century); Middle English (from the late 11th to the late 15th
century); Modern English (from the late 17th century to the present).Old
English started with the arrival of West Germanic settlers (Angles, Saxons and
Jutes) in southern Britain. They brought with them dialects closely related to
the continental language varieties which would produce modern German, Dutch and
Frisian.Germanic basis for English can be seen in much of our everyday
vocabulary, for instance, heart (in Old English “heorte”), come (in Old English
“cuman”) and old (in Old English “eald’).grammatical features also date back to
this time: irregular verbs such as drink → drank → drunk (in Old
English drincan → dranc → (ge)druncen). Similarly, many Old English
pronunciations are preserved in modern spellings, for example, knight (in Old
English “cniht”), in which “k” would have been pronounced and “gh” sounded like
“ch” in Scots loch.English, also called Anglo-Saxon, was not heavily influenced
by the Celtic languages spoken by the native inhabitants of the British Isles,
borrowing only a few words (e.g. “brock”, “tor”) associated with local wildlife
and geography (but many place and river names e.g. Dover, Avon). However,
Latin, introduced to Britain by the Romans, and reinforced in its influence by
the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity during the 7th century, had
a significant impact, providing both vocabulary (e.g. “master”, “mass”,
“school”) and the basis for the writing system.English was mostly written using
the Latin alphabet, supplemented by a few Germanic runic letters to represent
sounds not found in Latin, e.g. “þ”, which represented the
“th” sounds in “thin” or “this”.later Viking settlements in many parts of the
British Isles also resulted in substantial borrowing of basic vocabulary:
“sky”, “get”.influence may also have contributed to an important grammatical
change, which mainly occurred in English between the 11th and 14th centuries,
and which marked the transition to Middle English (conventionally dated
c.1100-1500). Old English had indicated many grammatical categories and
relationships by attaching inflections (endings) to word roots, in a similar
way to Latin or German., in the Old English clause “wolde guman findan” →
“he wanted to find the man”, the “-e” on “wolde” indicates a 3rd person
singular subject: “he wanted”; the “-n” on “guman” indicates that “the man” is
the object, not the subject of the verb; and the “-an” on “findan” indicates an
infinitive: “to find”.end of Anglo-Saxon rule did not of course change the
language immediately. Although the most senior offices in the church were
filled by Normans, Old English continued in use in chronicles such as the
Peterborough Chronicle until the middle of the 12th century. The non-literate
would have spoken the same dialects as before the Conquest; though these
changed slowly until written records of them became available for study, which
varies in different regions. Once the writing of Old English comes to an end,
Middle English has no standard language, only dialects that derives from the
dialects of the same regions in the Anglo-Saxon period.Middle English, changes
in the pronunciation of unstressed syllables, mainly occurring at the ends of
words, caused most inflections to merge indistinguishably, or be dropped
altogether. This inflectional breakdown could have created ambiguity (e.g.
“wanted man find”), but speakers compensated by using more rigid word order
(subject - verb - object, usually), among other strategies.important feature of
the early Middle English period was the influence of Norman (and later,
central) French, following the Norman conquest of 1066. French dominance and
prestige in such contexts as the royal court, law, the church and education
encouraged extensive borrowing of vocabulary, for instance, French words for
farmed animals “pork”, “beef” and “mutton” were adopted alongside native words
swine, cow and sheep.borrowed words came to signify only the meat of these
animals, mainly eaten by wealthier French speakers, whereas the words inherited
from Old English came to refer only to the living animals. Norman scribes also
influenced the way English was written, respelling words using conventions from
French; thus Old English “îs” became “ice”,
“cwçn” became “queen”. However, by the 14th and 15th centuries, French
influence in Britain had begun to wane, being replaced for many purposes by
English.
Modern English can be regarded externally as starting with
the introduction of printing. Caxton’s selection of an East Midlands/London
variety of English for the first printed books at the end of the 15th century
contributed to the development of a standardized variety of the language, with
fixed spelling and punctuation conventions and accepted vocabulary and
grammatical forms.perception of this standard variety as correct, ‘good’
English was also supported by attempts at codification, notably Johnson’s
dictionary and many prescriptive grammars of the 18th century. The vocabulary
of English was consciously elaborated as it came to be used for an increasing
variety of purposes, including translations of classical works rediscovered in
the Renaissance, a burgeoning creative literature, and the description of new
scientific activities. Thousands of words were borrowed from Latin and Greek in
this period, for example, “education”, “metamorphosis”, “critic”,
“conscious”.internal feature which characterized the movement towards Modern
English was the Great Vowel Shift - an important series of linked pronunciation
changes which mainly took place between the 15th and 17th centuries. In Middle
English, the sound system had contained broadly corresponding series of long
and short vowels, represented in writing by the same letters.instance, the
vowel in “caas” → “case” was simply a longer version of the vowel in
“blak” → “black”; similarly “mete” → “meat” (long vowel) and hell
(short vowel), or fine (long) and pit (short). In early Modern English, people
began to pronounce the long vowels differently from the corresponding short
vowels: long “e” ended up sounding like long “I”, leaving a gap in the sound
system; this was filled by shifting the pronunciation of long “a” to sound like
long “e”, and so on.changes were not reflected in Modern English spelling,
already largely fixed by standardization, adding to the disparity between
pronunciation and writing which differentiates English today from most other
European languages.the present day, English is used in many parts of the world,
as a first, second or foreign language, having been carried from its country of
origin by former colonial and imperial activity, the slave trade, and recently,
economic, cultural and educational prestige.continues to change at all
linguistic levels, in both standard and non-standard varieties, in response to
external influences (for example, modern communications technologies; contact
with other world languages) and pressures internal to the language system (for
example, the continuing impulse towards an efficient, symmetrical sound-system;
the avoidance of grammatical ambiguity).need not fear or resist such change,
though many people do, since the processes operating now are comparable to
those which have operated throughout the observable and reconstructable history
of English, and indeed of all other languages.
proverb is a simple and concrete saying, popularly known and
repeated, that expresses a truth based on common sense or the practical
experience of humanity. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a
basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim.saying is any concisely
written or spoken linguistic expression that is especially memorable because of
its meaning or structure., both of them were created during the process of
society development. They express nation’s ideas, feelings or dreams of that
historic period of time.word “culture” came to refer more frequently to the
common reference points of whole peoples, and discussion of the term was often
connected to national aspirations or ideals.to these three definitions we can
definitely claim that proverbs and sayings are the representatives of the
culture.
. What are one of the most popular proverbs and sayings;
their meanings and origins?
I will conduct my research I should prepare it. As it will be
on the basis of the most popular proverbs and sayings initially we should look
through them to be sure that the research will be made correctly and we are
aware of its subjects. Jack of all trades: A man who can turn his hand to many
things.: With any phrase that includes a name, it's natural to consider whether
its the name of a real person. In this case, as was the case with many other
literary Jacks - Jack the Lad, Jack Robinson, Jack Sprat, Jack Horner, Jack
Frost, etc. Jack of all trades was a generic term rather than a living and
breathing individual. In fact, the very long list of terms that include 'Jack'
exceeds that of any other name in English and this reflects the fact that, as a
derivative of the common name 'John', 'Jack' has been used just to mean 'the
common man'. This usage dates back to the 14th century and an example is found
in John Gower's Middle English poem Confessio Amantis, 1390:he hath his fulle
packe,seie, 'A good felawe is Jacke'.now use 'Jack of all trades, master of
none' in a derogatory way. Originally, this wasn't the case and the label 'Jack
of all trades' carried no negative connotation, the 'master of none' part being
added later. Nevertheless, mediaeval Jacks were pretty much at the bottom of
the social tree.16th century commentators wanted to imply that a person was
stretching their talents too thinly they resorted to the disparaging Latin term
Johannes factotum ('Johnny do-it-all'). In 1592, the English writer and member
of the literary establishment Robert Greene wrote a pamphlet titled
Groats-worth of Witte.can't have been any trades in the Middle Ages that didn't
make use of a jack of some sort. 'Jack of all trades' entered the language in
1612 when Geffray Minshull wrote of his experiences in prison in Essayes and
characters of a prison and prisoners:broken Cittizen, who hath plaid Jack of
all trades.'master of none' addition began to be added in the late 18th century.'t
look a gift horse in the mouth.: don't be ungrateful when you receive a gift.:
don't look a gift horse in the mouth, as horses develop they grow more teeth
and their existing teeth begin to change shape and project further forward.
Determining a horse's age from its teeth is a specialist task, but it can be
done. This incidentally is also the source of another teeth/age related phrase
- long in the tooth.with most proverbs the origin is ancient and unknown. We
have some clues with this one however. The phrase appears in print in English
in 1546, as "don't look a given horse in the mouth", in John
Heywood's A dialogue containing the number in effect of all the proverbs in the
English tongue, where he gives it as:
"No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the
mouth."is probable that Heywood obtained the phrase from a Latin text of
St. Jerome, The Letter to the Ephesians, circa AD 400, which contains the text
'Noli equi dentes inspicere donati' (Never inspect the teeth of a given horse).
Where St Jerome got it from we aren't eve likely to know.were expressed in the
literary language of the day, as in "would yee both eat your cake, and
have your cake?", but the modern versions are their obvious
descendents.can't attribute these to Heywood himself; he collected them from
the literary works of the day and from common parlance. He can certainly be
given the credit for introducing many proverbs to a wide and continuing
audience, including one that Shakespeare later borrowed - All's well that ends
well.does bread always fall buttered side down?: An expression of a pessimistic
view of life.: The BBC broadcast a short programme based on this question in
2007. Instead of what might have been an interesting investigation into why
some people are pessimistic glass-half-empty people and others take an
optimistic glass-half-full approach, we were presented with a rather silly
pseudo-science attempt to explain the hydro-dynamics of bread and toast, as if
the question were a real one. Of course, bread and toast don't always land
butter or jam side down - they sometimes do and they sometimes don't, depending
on circumstances.question is rhetorical, adding a long-suffering pessimistic
weariness to similar unanswerable queries, like 'why did the chicken cross the
road?' and 'why are the cameras always on this side of the
pitch?'.'buttered-side down' scenario is often cited as an example of Murphy's
Law, or Sod's Law, that is, 'if anything can go wrong, it will'. In fact, it is
a 19th century phrase/notion and long pre-dates Murphy, who was (probably) an
American aerospace engineer and is credited with coining his 'law' in the late
1940s.Knickerbocker; or, New York Monthly Magazine published this little ditty
in 1835:never had a slice of bread,large and wide,did not fall upon the floor,always
on the buttered side!idea that bad luck in some way causes bread to fall
buttered side down was preceded by the converse, and no less perverse,
superstition that bread falling buttered side down causes bad luck. This was
recorded in John Timbs' popular science journal Knowledge for the People,
published in Boston, USA, in 1832:may here notice a remarkable Latin
superstition, that if a child's slice of bread and butter be let fall with the
buttered side downwards, it is an unlucky omen; if with the other side,
lucky.in Rome, do as the Romans do.: It is polite, and possibly also
advantageous, to abide by the customs of a society when one is a visitor.: Why
should an English proverb single out Rome and Roman values as especially to be
emulated? Couldn't we have had a 'when in Ipswich, do as the Ipswichians do’
for example? As it turns out, it's all to do with the travel arrangements of a
couple of early Christian saints.Augustine: Letters Volume I was translated
from the Latin by Sister W. Parsons and published in 1951. Letter 54 to
Januarius contains this original text, which date from circa 390AD:I go to
Rome, I fast on Saturday, but here [Milan] I do not. Do you also follow the
custom of whatever church you attend, if you do not want to give or receive
scandal?use of the proverb in English isn't recorded until much later - well
into the Middle Ages. Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy was first
published in 1621. Burton makes oblique reference to the phrase, without using
it explicitly:
...like Mercury, the planet, are good with good, bad with
bad. When they are at Rome, they do there as they see done, puritans with
puritans, papists with papists…
. What is students’ opinion about this matter?
have already proved main statements of my issue. However, I
cannot make any conclusions until I will conduct a research, which will show us
what is students’ level of linguistics, do we need to pay attention to it and
how can we improve our education system., before starting the research I looked
through my students’ books in English, I found out very interesting thing. In
the student’s book for eleventh form every eleventh exercise is written about
English culture or by English writers. Meanwhile in my student’s book for
Advanced level every twelfth exercise is written also about English culture or
by English writer.to make certain that Russian students also comprehend this
importance I created a questionnaire, which consists of next questions:
Do you think that to be successful at learning foreign
languages you should be aware of its culture?
Meanings of which proverbs do you exactly know:
. Jack of all trades;
2. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth;
. Why does bread always fall buttered side down;
. When in Rome, do as Romans do?
- Do you think that you should pay more attention to this
matter?were unpredictable. It appeared to be that students, who are studying at
college now, do not want to be aware of the culture of England and they do not
think that they should pay attention to this matter. It probably happened so,
as they already know everything, unfortunately, they do not., students from my
school want to be aware of the culture and want to pay more attention to this
matter. Moreover, most of them know all provided proverbs and sayings.suppose
that there are several reasons for such difference:
. various motivations;
2. excess of information at college makes them refuse
from any other new knowledge;
. there are different educational programs in
different towns.
Conclusion
my
work I have proved that lack of cultural awareness makes an educational process
very complicated. Qualified linguists know this peculiarity, however, they do
not mention it so often, therefore, modern students are tend to avoid this
information.prove it I have studied the history of England and its impact on
English, learned meaning and origins of many proverbs and sayings, conducted
the research between students of the college of the Foreign Office (1st grade)
and in gymnasia №4 (10th and 11th grades).
Bibliography
1. John
Simpson. Jennifer Speake. The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (5 ed.).- Oxford
University Press. New York. 2009.
. Scott
Shay. The history of English. - 2008.
. The
article from Oxford Royal Academy. “20 English idioms with their meanings and
origins”.
. Wilhelm
von Humboldt. On Language, On the Diversity of Human Language Construction and
its Influence on the Mental Development of the Human Species. Edited by Michael
Losonsky.- CUP 1999.
. Wolfgang
Mieder. A Dictionary of American Proverbs. -Oxford University Press. New York.
1996.
. Wordsworth
Dictionary of Proverbs.- Ware, Hertfordshire. 2006.
Application
Do
you think that to be successful at learning foreign languages you should be
aware of its culture?
Do you think that you should pay more attention to
this matter?
culture
language civilization