LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

There are material and spiritual culture. To material culture include technology, material values. The spiritual culture includes science, art and literature, philosophy, enlightenment as well as traditions, customs, everyday culture, everyday communication, people's habits, norms of communication, mimic and gesture codes, national pictures of the world, reflecting the specific perception of the surrounding reality, national peculiarities of representatives one or another culture.

National features of thinking and behavior are manifested in the language. Language, in turn, affects the understanding of the world. Here is what Sapir wrote: “People live not only in the objective world of things and not only in the world of social activity, as is commonly believed; they are largely influenced by that particular language, which is a means of communication for a given society. Real World largely unconsciously built on the basis of the language norms of this group. We see, hear and perceive one way or another or other phenomena mainly due to the fact that the language norms of our society suggest this form of expression. "

HYPOTHESIS OF LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY

The essence of the hypothesis of linguistic relativity (advanced by L. Uorf in the 30s of the twentieth century based on the ideas of E. Sapir) is that the structure of the language determines the structure of thinking and the way of knowing the external world. The nature of the knowledge of reality, according to the hypothesis of Sapir-Whorf, depends on the language in which the knowing subject thinks. People divide the world, organize it into concepts and distribute meanings in a way, and not otherwise, because they are participants in some agreement that is valid only for a given language. The knowledge has no objective, generally significant character.

Wharf attributes to the language the function of ordering in relation to the chaos of the phenomena of objective reality, the ability to create a harmonious, for each language, a different picture of the world, and therefore limit human cognition: "We dismember nature in the direction suggested by our native language."

A strong version of this hypothesis suggests that the language influences people's thinking, their world view, and their behavior. For example, in Russian, to designate an action to take a rope and take a ball one verb is used to take . And in the language of the Navajo Indians are used completely different verbs.

The presence of such cases allows researchers to conclude that it is absolutely impossible to translate from one language to another, since "there are no words identical in different languages ​​according to semantic features".

Proponents of the weak version of the hypothesis believe that differences in language do exist, but they are overcome in speech by description, synonymy, and various clarifications. For example, in Russian there are verbs of motion to go and go , which in English are represented by one verb to go . But in speech it is possible to clarify to go by foot ( to move on foot ), to go by bus ( to move by bus ), which will remove the existing contradiction and facilitate mutual understanding.

LACONS

The basic elements of a national specificity of a linguocultural community that make it difficult for foreign cultural recipients to understand certain fragments of texts are called lacunae (gap, random holes in patterns).

Among the lacunae of language are lexical (the Russian word pogorelets can be translated only descriptively); grammatical (in English, the definite article in combination with a noun in the plural may denote the name of a tribe of Indians); stylistic (passive voice in English is stylistically neutral, unlike passive voice in Russian).

Among the national-specific (lacunized) features of speech in domestic psycholinguistics include the method of filling pauses, and the way the word decomposes, if necessary, to accurately translate the interlocutor, and etiquette characteristics of acts of communication, and role features of communication, and even the nomenclature of textual stereotypes.

The main signs of the lacuna are the following: incomprehensibility, unusual (exotic), alien (unfamiliar).

Lacunas, reflecting the specifics of a particular linguocultural community, as a rule, impede the mutual understanding of carriers of different cultures.

The process of disclosing the meaning of a national-specific word is called lacunae filling. These include the following: interpretation, translation by morphological, literal translation, detailed commenting (in particular, in post-text footnotes). The following methods of lacuna compensation are highlighted: comparison, replacement with a more general name (the name of the American novel " The Gin Game " is translated not as " Game of Gin ", but as " Game of cards" ), etc.

INTERCULTURAL CONTACTS

With regard to intercultural contacts in pedagogy, there is a methodological principle put forward by Robert Lado and he called "Attitude to the culture of the country of the studied language." It sounds like this: "With the exception of those cases when cultures of two nations are incompatible (for example, in wartime), students need to educate the desire to identify themselves with people for whom this language is native, and a friendly understanding of the people who speak the language studied, and not to encourage consumer attitude to the language or indifferent, or negative attitude towards the people. " However, in life there are frequent conflicts based on people’s belonging to different languages ​​and cultures.

CULTURE SHOCK

Cultural shock (cultural shock) is a state of a student's astonishment or even rejection of the cultural facts of the language being studied. It is the result of incomplete acculturation of a student, his ignorance or misunderstanding of the norms of a new culture for him; disappears as you explore a foreign culture. The state of cultural shock is experienced by every foreigner, but the severity of frustration is different at different stages of the adaptation process to a foreign culture.

ACCULTURE

The following stages of acculturation are distinguished.

1. Zero phase - before going abroad, when a person experiences either excitement and joy, or fear and anxiety. There is a process of collecting information about the country, language learning.

2. Upon arrival in a new country begins to live in culture. During this period, a foreigner may not accept at all the cultural features of a foreign country. And this leads him to a hostile and even aggressive attitude; a further consequence of this may be a disease associated with the "cultural adaptation syndrome".

3. Adaptive (adoptive) - some reconciliation with the culture in which it turned out to be a foreigner.

4. Stage of equilibrium (coming to terms) - can sometimes occur only after two years in the country of a foreigner. He has a more or less objective opinion about the country; reduced aggressiveness and the degree of criticism of a foreign culture.

5. The adaptation phase precedes the departure home (pre-departure phase). At this stage, develop stress symptoms associated with the problem of identity.

6. The last stage is the state of a person who has returned home from another country. He feels like a foreigner in his country, constantly turning to memories, comparing what he sees with what he saw in another country. Psychological restructuring, “post-return adjustment” is needed.

Knowledge of a foreign language eases the burden of acculturation only by half.

BILINGUALISM

Bilingualism is defined as the ability to own two or more languages. A bilingual is a person who can communicate in at least two languages. Multilingualism (or multilingualism, multilingualism) is also encountered, which is national and individual. Bilingualism is based on the same speech mechanisms with which the native language is spoken. Only in bilingualism, they allow a person to use two language systems. There are several types of bilingualism.

By the time mastering a second language, there is an early bilingualism, conditioned by life in a bilingual culture from childhood, and a late one, in which the learning of a second language occurred at an older age.

Bilingualism is also distinguished by the number of actions taken. A receptive (perceiving) bilingualism exists when a person is satisfied with an approximate understanding of foreign language speech. Reproductive bilingualism allows bilingual to perceive foreign language texts, and reproduce what is read or heard. Productive (producing) bilingualism allows bilingual to produce texts. Productive bilingualism is a goal that is set when learning and teaching a foreign language.

LANGUAGE INTERFERENCE IN SPEECH Bilingual

In the transition to another language, by inertia, a person applies the syntactic structures and methods of categorization he is accustomed to, his speech is not free from the movements of the articulation apparatus characteristic of the native language. The following division of errors is accepted:

Phonetic - a distortion of the phonetic pattern of the word or intonation structure. Graphic and spelling errors that occur in the following cases: a) graphic skill is not formed; b) there is no skill of transcoding sounds into corresponding letters; c) there is no proper spelling skill, i.e. possession of the system of using written characters in specific cases (eg, happiness is written instead of happiness ); d) there is no skill in using the "non-alphabetical elements" of the language (quotes, punctuation marks). Morphological errors. These include irregularities in the harmonization of units of language (such as a large table ). Lexical errors are incorrect usage of a) in the language norm and b) in the us. Syntax errors - deviations in the use of the form of words in phrases and violations in the design of sentences.

When communicative approach to errors distinguish such errors that interfere with the understanding of the meaning of speech and those that do not interfere.

LINGUISTIC SHOCK

Linguistic shock is a state of surprise, laughter or embarrassment that a person has when he hears language elements in a foreign language that sound strange, funny or indecent in his own language. This kind of interlanguage homonymy is described in linguistics as a problem of “false translator friends”. For example, Persian kefir corresponds to Russian infidel ); the name " Zhiguli ", in tune with gigolo - in Russian a pimp ). Often it seems inconsistent new abbreviation (like Moslesbank ). With regard to the native language, such phenomena are also possible: It is better for me to be drowned in a river (heard as a drowned mother ) than in the world to live unloved (heard like do not love mother ).

Two kinds of lists can be made: a) lists of combinations of sounds, words, expressions that are not recommended for speaking in the native language when communicating with foreigners; b) lists of words that are like receptive discord, or receptive taboos. The same thing - only in a smaller volume - can be done in relation to the spelling of words.