Dr. Wenying (Wendy) Jiang
BA
(Qufu Normal University, China); MA (The University of Bedfordshire, UK); PhD (
The University of Queensland Australia)
Nanjing
China and lives in Madison Wisconsin
Lecturer in
Chinese
Website: academia.edu
Teaching:
- CHIN2110 and CHIN3010 Spoken Chinese 2A and 2B;
- CHIN2210 and CHIN3020 Written Chinese 2A and 2B;
- CHIN2111 and CHIN2211 Spoken and Written Chinese Accelerated 1B
CHIN2750
Fundamentals in English > Chinese Translation
- CHIN3760 Techniques in English > Chinese Translation
Research interests:
- Second language acquisition in Chinese
- Computer-assisted language learning (CALL)
- Intercultural communication
Current research projects:
- Comparing L1 and L2 Chinese Mental Lexicons
Selected recent publications:
- Jiang, Wenying (2009), Acquisition of Word Order in Chinese as a Foreign Language. MOUTON DE GRUYTER
- Jiang, Wenying (2008), book review: Yi, Zhou & M. Lynne Gerber, Working Mandarin for Beginners. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2007. The Modern Language Journal. Vol. 92, No. 4, pp. 650-651.
- Jiang, Wenying (2007). Why is /r/ rendered to /l/ in transliterating English personal names into Chinese? Translation Watch Quarterly, Vol 3, Issue 3.
- Jiang, Wenying & Zhang, Benshen (2007). Chinese Students’ Perception of EFL Teaching at a British University. In W. Hu & Q. Wen (eds.) ELT in China (4): Selected papers from the 4th International Conference on ELT in China (pp. 306-327). Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
- Jiang, Wenying (2006). Acquisition of word order in Chinese as a foreign language: An error taxonomy. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. The University of Queensland.
- Jiang, Wenying & Ramsay, Guy (2005). Rapport-building through CALL in teaching Chinese as a foreign language: An exploratory study. Language Learning & Technology, 9 (2), 47-63
- Jiang, Wenying (2004). Teaching Chinese word order principles: A linguistic review. In J. A. Vadeloncoeur & P. Jervis-Tracy (eds.) Crossing Boundaries in Educational Research: Perspectives Across Paradigms (pp.229-258). Brisbane: Australian Academic Press.
- Spencer-Oatey, Helen & Jiang, Wenying (2003) Explaining cross-cultural pragmatic findings: moving from politeness maxims to sociopragmatic interactional principles (SIPs), Journal of Pragmatics, 35 (10-11), pp.1633-1650
Other activities and service:
- Organise Written Chinese Competition for Primary and High Schools in Brisbane;
- Organise School's annual "A Taste of University Chinese" program - an activity for high school students of Queensland
The End
The Relationship between
Culture and Language
Dr. Wenying (Wendy) Jiang
Simplified by: Acharya Chandra
Wenying
Jiang …Lecturer
in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Luton in England
... Teaching
English as a foreign language for almost 14 years. Was ... Explore the
relationship between culture, language and identity … Studied Lee Soo Kim (2003) The relationship
between language, culture and identity ... The term culture refers to the
complex language, folklore, and the rules and customs, rituals and lifestyles,
attitudes, beliefs and customs of that … It focuses on the relationship between
religion and science on the issue of demarcation of the border … Can be
somewhat similar can be said that science and religion can lead …
Culture:
-
a
buzz word, by-word like postmodernism, globalization, localization and
glocalization
-
a
common word frequently used in our day to day life
-
first
began to take its current usage by Europeans in eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century
·
Gardner(2009,
p.5) defines culture as “a collection of values and assumptions that go
together to shape the way a group of people perceives and relates to the world
around them.”
·
Different
scholars have presented their views differently for the study of culture
Kubota in Beaven (2006,
p.213) presents a new framework for the
study of culture which she calls the four Ds approach:
-
Descriptive
understanding of culture
-
Diversity
within culture
-
Dynamic
nature of culture
-
Discursive
construction of culture
An Overview of
the article: The relationship between culture and language
-
Jiang,
in her article, talks of the intimate relationship between language and
culture.
-
Based
on her survey she confirms that language (Lg) and culture cannot exist without each other.
-
She
is strived to show the inseparable relationship between Lg and culture using
different metaphors.
The paper discusses:
·
Inseparability of culture and
language
·
Metaphors about language and
culture
·
Cultural content in specific Lg
items
·
Inseparability of culture and
language:
-
Lg
is a part of culture
-
Lg
plays a very important role in culture
-
No
language no culture
-
Lg
simultaneously reflects cultural background, approaches to life and their ways
of living and thinking
-
Brown
(1994: 165) describes the two as follows: ‘A language is a part of a culture
and a culture is a part of a language; the two are intricately interwoven so
that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language
or culture.’
·
In
a word, culture and language are inseparable.
·
Metaphors about language and
culture:
-
Lg is the mirror of culture
-
people
can see a culture through its Lg
-
Lg and culture is the iceberg
-
The
visible part is the language, with a small part of culture; the greater part,
lying hidden beneath the surface, is the invisible aspect of culture.
Jiang has viewed
the relationship predominantly from three perspectives:
·
a philosophical view:
language
+ culture = a living organism
flesh
blood
Language
and culture makes a living organism; language is flesh, and culture is blood.
Without culture, language would be dead; without language, culture would have
no shape.
·
a communicative view:
language
+ culture = swimming (communication)
swimming skill water
Communication
is swimming, language is the swimming skill, and culture is water. Without
language, communication would remain to a very limited degree (in very shallow
water); without culture, there would be no communication at all.
·
a pragmatic view:
language
+ culture = transportation (communication)
vehicle
traffic
light
Communication
is like transportation: language is the vehicle and culture is traffic light.
Language makes communication easier and faster; culture regulates, sometimes
promotes and sometimes hinders communication.
In
a word, language and culture, as different as they are, form a whole.
·
Cultural content in specific Lg
items:
·
Many
linguists explore the relationship between language and culture. Nida (1998: 29) holds the view that
‘Language and culture are two symbolic systems. Everything we say in language
has meanings, designative or sociative, denotative or connotative. Every
language form we use has meanings, carries meanings that are not in the same sense
because it is associated with culture and culture is more extensive than
language.’
·
People
of different cultures can refer to different things while using the same
language forms. For example, when one says lunch, an Englishman
may be referring to hamburger or pizza, but a Chinese man will most probably be
referring to steamed bread or rice.
·
The
word dog
in English, and the character gou in Chinese, refer to the same
kind of animal. However, most English people associate dog with man’s best friend,
a good companion, being kept as a pet, together with many commendatory idioms,
such as lucky dog. Most Chinese people, by contrast, associate gou
with watchdogs, defending the household from thieves, a noisy animal,
together with such derogatory idioms as gou tui zi (‘hired
thug’). Being culturally loaded, English words and their Chinese translations
(or vice versa) are seldom equivalents, and often give rise to different
associations or images. This can be shown in the following survey of word
associations.
Survey design:
·
A
survey of word associations was designed for native Chinese speakers (NCE) and
native English speakers (NES) (see Appendix).
·
The
survey for NCS is in Chinese, and that for NES in English.
·
In
the survey, ten words (food, clothes, family, friend, job, money, culture,
success, happiness, love), which are related most closely to people’s lives,
and cover both material and spiritual aspects of life, were chosen as prompts.
·
The
subjects were asked to write down six additional words or expressions that they
associated with each of the ten words.
·
That
is to say, the subjects were asked to add six words or expressions after each
of the ten chosen words, making 60 words in all.
Data collection
40
copies of the survey were distributed between 28 March and 8 June 1998, to NES
by Joni Strohm, an American expert in Qufu Normal University, Qufu, China, who was
also the personnel officer of the English Language Institute in China. All of
the NES subjects were EFL teachers working in China. In all, 28 valid surveys
were collected. A further 30 copies of the survey distributed to NCS were
collected between 12 November and 16 December 1998. Some of the NCS subjects
were Chinese English teachers, and others were postgraduates in English
Linguistics from Qufu Normal University. Once again, 28 of the surveys
collected were considered to be valid.
Population
Among
the 28 NCS subjects, 11 were male and 17 female; 12 were teachers, and 16 were
postgraduates of English linguistics; their ages ranged from 22 to 59. Among
the 28 NES subjects, 10 were male and 18 female; 26 were Americans, and 2 were
Canadians; their ages ranged from 20 to 64.
Data analysis:
Among the ten initiating words,
only one word - food - was chosen to show the associations. The Chinese words
and phrases associated by the NCS subjects were translated into English by the
author before categorization. Then all the items listed by the subjects were
classified into different categories. The number that followed each item (see
Table
1) indicates the times the word
or phrase appeared, or the number of people who listed that word or phrase. If
the item appeared only once, number (1) was omitted. Table 1 shows the
analysis:
Conclusion:
·
The
intimate relationship between language and culture is strikingly illustrated by
the survey of word associations.
·
The
items filled in by NCS convey Chinese culture, and the items written by NES
convey English culture.
·
The
referents of language are the entities, events, states, processes, characteristics,
and relations that exist in the culture, whether these are referred to by
single words or by phrases.
·
Between
language and culture there is always an interactive influence: the two cannot
exist without each other.
·
They
combine to form a living organism. If we compare the society to a swimming
pool, language is a swimming skill and culture is the water. When both are
present, people swim well (communicate successfully). They swim confidently and
rapidly when they are familiar with the water (i.e. within their native
culture), but cautiously and slowly when it is unfamiliar to them (within a
foreign culture).
The End
