Language Communication And Cultural Differences

Language is quite an important part in culture. It has cultural features. First, from the content of culture, we know language consists of material wealth and spiritual wealth. However , Language belongs to spiritual wealth which is created in the development of mankind. Both culture and language are possessed only by humanbeings. Secondly, just like culture, language is not biologically hereditary. It bases on practice and learning. Third, culture and language are national wealth which belongs to the whole society. Language is also a mirror , reflecting the culture of a nation and revealing the content of it. Through the language of a nation, we can learn customs, life styles, ways of thinking and so on of this nation. Language is also a tool, which propels the development of a nation's culture and the communication between nations in the way of both speaking and writing. While language communication is always restricted and affected by culture.It will directly affect the use of language whether people use it actively or passively and how they understand the nature of it.Language is both a social phenomenon and a cultural carrier. Vocabularyis the basic element of all the essential factors. The cultural difference will be reflected among vocabularies. Therefore, the explanation to the vocabulary will reflect the differences between nations and cultures.There are many natural languages in the world. Sometimes there is a great disparity between them; sometimes they are almost the same. In my essay, I'll only compare the sentence structures of Chinese and English.When language being used the cultural difference is often ignored or even underestimated. Especially after Austin, Searle, Grice, Brown and Leech put forward the theory about language behaviour, language principles and polilteness principles, it seems that people all communicate with each other in a fixed style. Such a way of communication, which bases on the sacrifice of cultural difference and seeks universality, certainly has something to recommend it. But when we disuss the transcommunication, the research about the difference between cultures is still very important.