It won’t be too difficult to find more examples.“自学(learn all by oneself or with no instructions from teachers)" in Chinese turns into "self-taught" in English, “太平门(Exit to safety)" into "emergency exit",“油漆未干 (the paint is not dry up yet)" into "wet paint",“听电话(listen to the speaker on the phone; engage in a telephone conversation)" into "answer the telephone",“红眼("red-eyed" in jealousy)" into "green-eyed", and“顾客止步(off limits/out of bounds for customers)" into "crew/staff/employees only", and so on.
4 .Language Influences Thought and some Evidence
4.1 Language Influences Thought in some Aspects
Xu Jun (许均)once said that “That the different thinking angles determines the various expression of language is explained as the result of thought determining the language.” [21] But the various expressions of foreigner language provides a channel for the second language learners to think in another modes and in different angles. Further more it also can be adopted by language learners. The idioms of English like:
(3) Spend money like water (花钱如流水)
(4) Kill two birds with one stone (一石二鸟)
Chinese people is familiar with the above two idioms, when told that they are the English expressions many Chinese would feel unthinkable for they have adopt them unconscious. Viewed in this aspect, the language can influence the thought.
“In Eskimos’ language the vocabulary for counting number only three words: one, two and many. They are hard to identify the quantity more than three, when asked to imitate the action which scientists put some kinds of sundries on the ground they can’t finish the task. They are failed in counting or calculating it.” [22]
Lacking of the number words influences the Eskimos to judge the material quantity. In their minds the number of the thing is simple and they could not think exactly how much or how many things around them. Another example which is similar with the former also can be proved this view: language determines the thought. There is less vocabulary in English for the English-speaking people to explain the relationship among a big family, in Chinese“伯伯”、“叔叔”、“舅舅”、“姑丈”and“姨夫”in English are all called “uncle” and “伯母”、“婶婶”、“阿姨”、“姑姑”、“舅母”are all called “aunt” “奶奶”、“外婆”called “grandmother”, the “祖父”、“外公” are “grandfather” and the “great grandfather” and “great grandmother” are referred to “曾祖父”、“太外公”and “曾祖母”、“外太婆”. So in the big family party they don’t know who is who. They don’t have the accuracy words to help them understand it and think in an exact way. Both of the two examples show us that without the correct language (vocabulary) to express the precise meaning they could not have the exactly thought about something and also do not have the conception of it.
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