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Language as a social phenomenon

Lv Shuxiang: After reading Chen Yuan's Language and Social Life.

Source: Reading 1980 Issue 4.

one

Recently, I read Language and Social Life by Comrade Chen Yuan, and gained a lot of new knowledge and reviewed a lot of old knowledge. I am very happy and want to take this opportunity to express my feelings.

Speech is the most common and frequent activity of people, but it is also a very mysterious activity. Why is it that one person can understand what he said and the other person only hears a burst of nonsense, which is puzzling? How can one sentence cause laughter and another sentence make people angry or worried? It is supposed that this should be everyone's interest. However, in order to understand the mystery, most people really don't know much about language. Even if you want to know, it's a bit like you can't get in the door. There are books that speak languages, but the reader's reaction is "boring!" "cumbersome!" Nobody wants to watch it except the exam. One day, a friend said to me, "The books written by your linguists are useful to me." I said, "How does it work?" He said, "I catch a book every night after going to bed and fall asleep after reading it." You see, the damage is enough! Now, I can say to him, "Take Comrade Chen Yuan's new book and read it. You can't sleep! " Well, I have to declare that Comrade Chen Yuan's book Language and Social Life is only available in Hong Kong, and the Beijing edition is still in print, but it will be available soon.

What is the language? Said it was a tool. What tools? It is said to be "a tool for people to exchange ideas." But when you open any book that speaks a language, you only see "tools" and "people" are gone. Phonetics, grammar, vocabulary and so on, but they all talk about the components and structure of this tool, not how people use it. When it comes to people, the situation is complicated. Speaking (and writing articles) is a social activity, and language is the product of social activities; Society is very complicated, and language can't be uncomplicated. People from different nationalities speak different languages, and people from different regions speak different dialects. People in this nationality and region often speak the words of that nationality and region. In a language, what is written is not exactly the same as what is said in the mouth; In some areas, in a certain era, it is even completely different. There are various styles of written language, and there is more than one style of spoken language. Every industry has its own jargon, and the phrase "interlacing is like a mountain" applies not only to business, but also to language. Even age and gender are more or less reflected in language. In the early years, there was a popular theory among foreign linguists that due to the internal inconsistency of language, the analysis of language could not be based on "language" or "dialect", but only on "idioms". In fact, personal language cannot guarantee complete internal consistency. As far as language is concerned, most people are "generalists", and they all have a set of "reserved tracks", big or small. On different occasions, with different people, say different things. Not only the words are different, but also the syntax is different, and even the pronunciation will change. It can be said that "take it as appropriate and don't stick to one pattern." A person is still like this, let alone a society. In a word, language is not a simple thing. The language in China's textbooks and linguistic works is an abstraction, although it is an essential and extremely useful abstraction. In the real society, people's language activities and the language as a tool of such activities are extremely complicated. Studying this complex and numerous knowledge is called sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics does not deny traditional linguistics-the "tradition" here refers to linguistics before sociolinguistics was officially listed, but it thinks that this kind of research is not comprehensive enough, and predicts that with the expansion of the research scope, its various theories, including phonetics, grammar and even semantics, will be reformed to some extent.

Looking back at the history of linguistics, it was originally for reading ancient books and learning composition. It was not until the middle of19th century that historical comparative linguistics appeared that it got rid of the narrow practical purpose and called for the law of language development, which can be said to be a great liberation. But linguistics is still considered as a branch of historical science. At the beginning of the 20th century, Saussure, as the representative, advocated the study of language for the sake of language itself, which was the second liberation of linguistics. For more than half a century, although many schools have been formed one after another, there is still only one purpose, that is, taking language itself as the research object and exploring the internal laws of language as the only task. Until 1950s, especially 1960s, some scholars were unwilling to study language as a social phenomenon, which was another liberation of linguistics. China's linguistics used to be called "primary school", which is a vassal of Confucian classics, and the situation is quite similar to that of the West. Western linguistics was introduced into China less than 100 years ago, and it is still being absorbed and digested, but it has not yet blossomed.

/kloc-linguistics before the 0/9th century aimed at practicality, but its achievements were not remarkable. For a century and a half, linguistics has not taken practicality as its direct purpose, but its achievements are very beneficial to practicality (such as in language teaching). There seems to be a little dialectics here. Now the research scope is wider, the researchers' field of vision is broader, the research methods are more detailed and diverse, and we can expect richer gains.

two

Comrade Chen Yuan talked about "Pidgin English" in his book. This is an old thing that disappears with the disappearance of the old times. Modern people probably only know such a name, but they don't know what it actually looks like. I haven't experienced this thing personally either. It's not that "the rest of my life is too late", but that I was lucky not to be born in that deformed social class, so there is no possibility of contact. The first meeting was accidental. I heard it indirectly from my friends in Kunming during the Anti-Japanese War. A family who fled from Shanghai to the mainland brought a nanny (called "Auntie" in Shanghai dialect). A year and a half later, the hostess dismissed her. She said "fashion comes, fashion goes", which translates as "how to get there", which means "you have to give me the way back to Shanghai". Of course, both the nanny and the hostess speak Shanghainese. Then suddenly came a pidgin, just like a scholar quoting ancient books in the middle of his speech. This is also an example in sociolinguistics. )

A few years ago, I was forced to be idle, and sometimes I went to a second-hand bookstore and came across a book "Swine-Sing-Song English", which was printed by a bookstore in London. 1876. Now copy down one of the shortest crooked poems to make up for the fragmentary examples cited in Comrade Chen Yuan's book.

mouse

After one tablet at a time

Pull the nail hard,

When he came, he said:

"Look, look at the big tail!

"But now I'm out.

That doesn't sound good-not so good!

A piece of iron

There are no delicious muffins. "

Suppose a man loses Tim.

About a long stupid story,

He took you away!

Everything is the same.

There was once a mouse.

Pull the nail hard,

The nail was pulled out, and the mouse said,

"You see, what a long tail!

But I took this thing out

It's useless!

It's just a piece of broken iron,

There is really nothing to eat, boss! "

If one wastes time,

Listening to other people's nonsense,

This is a big scam,

Like a mouse pulling a nail. )

Pidgin English was once popular in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai and other places. If we take "Pidgin" as the translation of Pidgin English, then there are (or have been) other kinds of "Pidgin English" in many places on the earth. The following is an example of Pidgin English in the Solomon Islands of the Pacific.

I walked a long way and watched the fish, and now I win. Now I want to leave Keno, now I want to win, now I want to lose my temper.

We were sailing and fishing at sea when the wind came. We were sitting in a canoe, and there was a strong wind. We were blown around and floated fast. )

It is not difficult to see that this pidgin English is different from pidgin English in Shanghai and other places.

Besides Pidgin English, there are Pidgin French and Pidgin Portuguese. All these "Pidgin" languages are scattered on the navigation channels frequented by colonial merchant ships.

In addition to pidgin, there is also the so-called Creole language, which is the further development of pidgin. The difference between them is that "Pidgin" is a mixed language whose mother tongue is not spoken, and "Creole" is a mixed language whose mother tongue is spoken. Most of the people who said this were descendants of colonists, especially hybrids, but there were also aborigines. This language is not only learned by them since childhood, but also often the only one they can speak. The following is an example of Slanan "Creole" English (with several words from Dutch) popular in the coastal areas of Suriname (Netherlands Guiana):

A man older than a man. I don't know where you are. One Pu Ru is there, one is there, one is there, and the other is there.

All the important people are waiting for him on the balcony. He came with a book under his arm. He took off his hat and bowed to them. Then he went to the garden with geese. )

three

Comrade Chen Yuan's book talks about language fetishism, from folk superstition to modern superstition, with inspiration in humor. I want to add some examples here. Comrade Chen Yuan quoted posters posted on roadside lampposts to make "night cries". I have seen them in my hometown, and besides making "night cries", others make "night urine". The words are basically the same:

Huangdi, Huangdi,

There is a woman who shoots (pricks) urine (Xu) in my family.

Mr. Passerby looked at it once,

Children will get better when they are sick.

It is not difficult for barbarians to understand that language has mysterious power. One man said, "Gather around!" A group of people stand in a row; The man said, "Attention!" "Turn right!" Move fast! Every time they say it, the group will make an action to let people in a "primitive" era see this scene for the first time. How can they not think that this string of voices has irresistible power? All blessings (such as "Long live! Hooray! Long live! " ), all cursing (such as "kill a thousand knives!" ), at the beginning, the root is to believe that language can cause some changes in the objective world, although it later became a form.

Among all the blessings and curses, the name is the key. A person's name is mysteriously associated with his person or soul, so it must be carefully protected. Huang said in the thirty-sixth chapter of the Romance of the Gods: A man like Zhang Guifang, "If you fight with someone, you must first report his name." . If he will be called Huang in the end, it will be called' when will Huang not dismount?' And he will naturally dismount at the end. "Back to the 37th, Jiang Ziya farewell Yuan Zun down the mountain. Yuan Zun said, "If someone calls you, don't answer. If you answer him, there are thirty-six ways to conquer you Jiang Ziya was about to leave when Shen called him. "。 At first he shouldn't, but later he should. Sure enough, as the Buddha said in the early Yuan Dynasty, it attracted 36 expeditions.

Therefore, names should be taboo, and the names of emperors, ancestors and elders should not be called. In later generations, it is considered to be polite; In ancient times, this was protective. "historical taboo" is a little knowledge in the collation of ancient books in China; The custom of "anonymity" also left many famous stories in historical records. The most famous is that "only state officials can set fires, and people are not allowed to light lamps". People who don't know this allusion always think that "setting fire" is a big metaphor and "lighting a lamp" is a small metaphor, as if it were a general privilege to oppose it. I didn't know there was a story here: there was a (modest leader) surnamed Tian in the Song Dynasty, so he didn't allow people to say "light a lamp" and told them to do so.

Because "name" is taboo, there is also "word" besides "name". "Name" is genuine, so it is not easy to use it casually. "Zi" is a secondary card, which is used to facilitate circulation (just like real antiques are not put out for exhibition, but are replaced by replicas).

In the same way, the opposite form is to give children a cheap name. There is a record in Notes of Song Dynasty that Ouyang Xiu's family had a child named Augus. A monk asked Ouyang Xiu, "You don't believe in Buddhism. Why do you choose such a name? " Ouyang Xiu said: "In order to facilitate his feeding, it's like some children are called' dogs' and' sheep'." I'm afraid what Ouyang Xiu said is only half right. Calling "dog" and "sheep" is to take advantage, and calling "Augus" is probably to pretend to be a monk and cheat the devil. In my hometown, there used to be people called monks and dogs. One of my elders was called grandpa dog, which was very funny to us children. How can "dog" be associated with grandpa?

Words are the embodiment of language, but they seem to "shine on you". Otherwise, how to create words and cry at night in a hurry? I have seen a wastebasket that says "respect paper". Draw a symbol and swallow it to cure the disease. I've seen it before.

Comrade Chen Yuan also talked about "taboos" and euphemisms. In modern people's consciousness, taboo is because of "indecent words", but historically, "taboo" and language fetishism are in the same strain, both of which stem from ignorance of nature. "Ignorance of nature leads to fear, and fear leads to superstition" (Chen Shu, p. 37). Supernatural divine power is manifested in external water, fire, wind and thunder, and in life, old age, illness and death. In particular, the intersection of the sexes and the birth of a new life have aroused great mystery, so the relationship between the sexes has become the object of fetishism and has always been a stubborn fortress of "taboo" at home and abroad. Sexual organs and sexual behavior cannot be called by their first names, and it is hard to say about menstruation and pregnancy related to them. It also extends to the adjacent parts of the body, such as buttocks and anus, and related actions, such as excreting waste, including gas, from internal organs.

Language phenomena caused by taboo include substitution (euphemism) and post-judgment, such as "fuck!" There is a wonderful example in Chapter 40 of Heroes of Children. An Ji was promoted to a bachelor's degree in cabinet by Counsellor Uriah Tai Su, and Jane went to Shandong University to thank her in the palace. Miss Zhen prepared clothes for him and said,' This coat is nailed with a lion patch. Isn't this Wu's second product? As soon as I heard it, my uncle said,' It's a golden pheasant, not a golden pheasant. . Good boy, you can't discuss it. "Don't want to uncle and wife just waiting to chat, after a long time, she finally discussed the next word. As she spoke, she let out a cry and her face turned purple. ..... At this point, thanks to Mrs. Zhang's in-laws asking ... and causing everyone to laugh, this just wrapped up and wiped out Miss Zhen's jokes about Jade Rabbit Gold and Jin Siha. "-there is a word hidden behind" Jade Rabbit Gold "and a word hidden behind" Jinsiha ". These two words together are "taboo". Jinsiba is a kind of dog. )

The twenty-eighth chapter of A Dream of Red Mansions has the opposite example. Jia Baoyu, Xue Pan, Yun Er and others are drinking at home. "If you want to say the words' sadness, sorrow, joy and joy', you have to say' daughter', and you have to indicate the reasons for these four words ..." It was Xue Pan's turn. The first three sentences he said were: "Daughter is sad, marrying a man is a turtle; My daughter is worried that a big horse monkey will be drilled in the embroidery room. When my daughter is happy, the bridal chamber is full of flowers and candles. At the end of the sentence, "my daughter is happy, and a XX stamp is inside", which led everyone to say "Shit! Damn it! " This Xue brother, he doesn't care what "taboo" is "taboo".

Let's look at the dictionary and the situation in the dictionary. Generally speaking, two nouns and a verb are the most taboo, and the words used in modern dialects are different. Generally speaking, male genitalia has a monosyllabic word and a disyllabic word, the latter is more popular; Female genitalia mainly has only one monosyllabic word; Verbs have two monosyllabic words, while Chinese characters have only one word. Now, a list of several commonly used dictionaries and their acceptance and rejection is as follows: