【正确答案】It has become axiomatic to state that 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 Whorls 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 lille 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.
Ever since the early 1970s, along with the disclosure of the notorious political scandal dubbed as the Watergate event, a bunch of derived words have been rushing into the English language. "Billygate", "Debategate", "Cattlegate", "Ricegate" are some of these compounding forms. After a careful study of this phenomenon, we find that words derived from this source inevitably take on a culturally pejorative implication to refer to "the disclosures of misconduct in highplaces". This combining form has become so generalized in its form and meaning that some-gate words have gone out of the American society and been used to refer to political scandals in other cultures as well.
Therefore, a good understanding of structural things in some cases has much to do with a conscious understanding of the cultural background of the target language from language learners. In other words, a successful master of a given language has much to do with an understanding of that culture.

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