Linguistic Reflection On The Concepts Of "Honesty And Integrity" Between Chinese And Westerners

Language and culture have been mutually dependent through their history. There are several theories of the relationship between language and culture. No matter what views linguists hold, they all admit that language reflects culture. The moral principle---honesty and integrity is one of the most significant categories of human's culture. It is the common moral principle abided by Chinese and Western great thinkers. The author takes a position that since language and culture are closely related and complementary to each other, a linguistic approach to the study of the concept of "honesty and integrity" can be adopted. The argument of the author's is proved by the following steps:First, she does a literary review of the relationship between language and culture. Next, the author devotes much of her discussion to phrases, proverbs and idioms which reflect the concept of "honesty and integrity" from lexical perspectives. Then, from the views of Chinese Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, the author points out the features of Chinese "honesty and integrity". It is followed by the overview of Western moral philosophy, law and Christianity on "honesty and integrity" from the discourse perspective. Then she makes an analysis of an empirical study on Chinese and Western concepts of "honesty and integrity". Finally, the author does comparative and contrastive studies on Chinese and Western "honesty and integrity" notions.This thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter one deals with literary review of the relationship between language and culture. Chapter two treats of the views as seen from Chinese and Western phrases, proverbs and idioms on "honesty and integrity". Chapter three discusses views from Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism about this concept from discourse perspective. Chapter four is devoted to the discussion of this notion together with its features in Western culture. Chapter five is an empirical study on Chinese and Western concepts of "honesty and integrity". Chapter six makes a conclusion of the whole thesis. In light of the comparative and contrastive studies on this notion, the author ventures to suggest that three measures should be taken to guard against dishonesty tendency in countries like China.