Linguistic Relativity and Cultural Communication

Autor/in	Zhifang, Zhu
Titel	Linguistic Relativity and Cultural Communication
Quelle	In: Educational Philosophy and Theory, 34 (2002) 2, S.161-170 (10 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0013-1857
DOI	10.1111/j.1469-5812.2002.tb00295.x
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Contrastive Linguistics; Postmodernism; World Views; Intercultural Communication; Cultural Differences; Foreign Countries; Christianity; Culture Conflict; Philosophy; Ethics; China + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Linguistics; Kontrastive Linguistik; Postmoderne; World view; Weltanschauung; Interkulturelle Kommunikation; Kultureller Unterschied; Ausland; Christentum; Kulturkonflikt; Philosophie; Ethik
Abstract	A culture is usually with the bias of universalization. Each culture has its ultimate concern, and its answers to the concern make up a worldview. And each culture is inclined to see its worldview as universal. The Christian thinks that Jehovah God is the creator and law-maker of the whole universe; Chinese think that the sage's teaching sheds light on every corner of the world like the Sun. The bias of universalization results in fierce conflicts between cultures. As is pointed out by Richard Rorty, the notion of philosophy as the ultimate foundation of cultural communication has been discarded by pragmatists and so-called postmodernists. Philosophers are no longer believed to be men who will discover a set of universal principles on the basis of which local views of all culture will be evaluated "objectively". From the point of view of traditional philosophy, the merits of a culture can be measured by its degree of approximation to the objective truth and ideal morality. The measurement presupposes that an individual can know objective truths, including truths of the natural word and truths of human beings, in advance, and then apply these truths to cultural appraisals. The contribution of a culture to a globalized culture, which comprises all local ones, lies in how many objective truths it has discovered. That kind of view has two further presuppositions. One is the metaphysical presupposition that all cultures share the same worldview. The other is the linguistic presupposition that all languages associated with different cultures represent the world in the same way. In this article, the author talks about the notions of linguistic relativity and cultural communication. (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10