【正确答案】There exists a close relationship between language and culture. More evidence can be gathered to indicate that a study of linguistic issues in a cultural setting can greatly promote our understanding of motivation and directionality in language change.
Based on Whorf's experience and his study of Hopi (an American Indian language), a very influential but also extremely controversial theory that has ever been made in the study of the relationship between language and culture is widely known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: What this hypothesis suggests is like this: our language helps mould our way of thinking and, consequently, different language may probably express our unique ways of understanding the world. Following this argument, two important points could be captured in this theory. On the one hand, language may determine our thinking patterns; on the other, similarity between languages is relative, the greater their structural differentiation is, the more diverse their conceptualization of the world will be. Therefore, the hypothesis has alternatively been referred to as linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity.
The notion that language determines thought may bepartially correct, in some extremely limited way, but it fails to take into account the fact that users of a language do not inherit a fixed set of patterns to use. They inherit the ability to manipulate and create with a language, in order to express their perceptions.
Therefore, we can say that in studying other cultures, we do so to some extent from the perspective of our own culture. For example, "cousin" in English culture includes "xiongdi" or "biaoxiongdi" (aunt's or uncle's male child), "biaojiemei" or "jiemei" (aunt's or uncle's female child) in Chinese culture. Therefore, Chinese students may tend to understand this kind of relationship from the Chinese perspective and misuse it. For another example, the words referring to "wife" are limited in English but rich in Chinese. There are "furen", "qizi", "laopo", "neiren" etc. for "wife". Those studying Chinese culture may understand it from the perspective of their cUlture. In their culture, it is hard to find the counterpart of "neiren". So it is difflcult for them to understand "neiren" which are closely related to Chinese culture. But they can easily understand "qizi" and "laopo" which are the direct counterparts of "wife" in Chinese culture.

【答案解析】[解析] 本题着重考查语言与文化的关系问题，考生同时也应了解语言与社会、心智等关系问题。