In The West On "faith" Cross-cultural Semantic Analysis

Language is closely bound up with culture. The vocabulary in a language is the most direct expression of a culture on the surface, because vocabulary is the essential unit to express the meaning. Besides, semantic analysis is one of the most convenient and accurate way to know a culture. While there are certain conceptual key words which could express the cultural connotation and features of the nation in every culture, such as loyalty, love, friendship, etc. The original and the varied meaning of these words, their connotation and the cultural features they contain are all the cultural transmission of their own nation. Focusing on the analysis of the cultural key word"belief", the research paper made a comparative analysis on the difference between the eastern and western belief based on the theory of the contrastive linguistics and the cultural semantics. Through the analysis on"belief"in different langue, we could learn the cultural features in eastern and western countries; we could learn to understand their outlooks on the world, life and values. Through the analysis of the key word"belief"in the form of different language units (words, idioms, etc.) in the Chinese and English contexts, the essay regarded the key word"belief"and all the words in its semantic field as an organic entirety. Based on the theory of contrastive linguistics, semiotics, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics and also the componential analysis and semantic field theory, the essay made a detailed semantic analysis of the key word"belief"and its semantic field on the word form, original meaning, the connotation and the cultural features it conveys, through which we could dig out the national spirit, material civilization, spiritual civilization, social development and so on.