On the afternoon of May 29, Professor Wang Wenbin gave a lecture entitled“English Words and ChineseCharactersand Their Linguistic Representations”.Professor Wang is a doctoral supervisor and assistant to the president of Beijing Foreign Studies University.He is also the director of the China Foreign Language Education Research Center and the director of the National Language Proficiency Development Research Center.The lecture was presided over by professor Niu Baoyi from the School of Foreign Languages.Also attending the lecture were teachers, doctoral students and postgraduate students.
Professor Wang first questioned the assertion that“Words are the tool of language, and language is the tool of thinking, so words are the tool of thinking”,and pointed out that because Chinese is different from English which is phonetic,its obvious ideographic features determine that Chinese characters are the direct tool of thinking.Then professor Wang illustrated the differences between English and Chinese by examples, and pointed out the spatial and temporal thinking differences between the two languages from the perspective of the differences between English words and Chinese characters and their linguistic representations.The study of the relationship between different words and languages should be based on the characteristics of each language.And the differences between English and Chinese characters and their linguistic representations should be understood from the perspective of language genes.The spatio-temporal thinking difference between Chinese and English determines that English has temporality,while Chinese has spatiality.
In addition,professor Wang believes that similarities and differences between languages are the essence of language.Language learners should not only learn the similarities between languages,but also study the differences between languages to deepen their understanding of their mother tongue.That is to say, while exploring the essence of Chinese through the characteristics of Chinese,they should make appropriate comparisons with other languages such as English from a macro perspective,so as to highlight other features of Chinese.
This lecture is of great significance.It provides new methods for teachers and students to conduct research on English and Chinese languages,and encourages them to make academic research with an open mind.(author:Wang Yige)
