A contrastive Study of some English and Chinese Grammar items in the thinking fr
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1. Introduction
The relationship between language and culture is considered as one of the most important issues in linguistics， sociology， anthropology， etc.With the development of society，the world communication becomes more and more frequent， the growth in foreign travel for business， study and pleasure， the expansion of international trade and the migration of people seeking work in multinational companies have naturally led to a great increase in contacts across national borders. Due to cultural difference and dissimilar background knowledge， the same message may be interpreted differently by different individuals. To avoid miscommunications and gain a good insight， it is necessary for us to compare the native culture with the target culture， and that has become more and more imperative.The study on the relationship between language and culture is approached chiefly in two ways： （1）the macro-study， which includes the studies on language， thought and culture，etc.； （2） micro-study， which includes the studies on language and gender，relationship between language assimilation and national mentality， etc（Gu Jiazu， 2002： 236）. Compared with the micro-study， the macro-study on language and culture plays an even more critical role both in theoretical and practical perspectives. If we can get a precise understanding of the relationship between language and culture from the macroscopic point of view， we will get great inspiration and instructions in its micro-study， especially in the studies of language acquisition， foreign language teaching and intercultural communication， etc. Therefore， it is significant and necessary for us to discuss such a relationship from another new perspective. To learners，one of the most difficult aspects to master is English grammar， which found its certain status in the research field.And Chinese， as our native language，is more and more important in the world. To the two language systems，One of the most important elements in language difference is the grammar，because the grammar is understood as the body of rules describing the properties of the language and shows the language nationality's character， reflecting the native culture background， minding and expressing ways. Of course， at present， the contrastive study of English and Chinese language has a lot of achievements， need to clarify， most of the study only talk about the difference from the viewpoint of the linguistic， they have no study on the difference from the perspective of culture.
2. Analysis the reason of the difference between Chinese grammar and English grammar
Because Chinese and English belong to different language family， and the different national cultural environment when using the language， the modes of thinking and expressing habits of the Chinese and English nation are different. When Chinese and English will express the same concept， they will use different vocabularies and different grammar structure， and adopting the different expressing ways. English emphasizes on the structure， whiles Chinese focuses on the meaning. In English， many meanings can be expressed clearly with complicated structure in only one sentence. In Chinese， a sentence is usually short with few modifiers， or it will cause confusion in meaning.
Chinese belongs to analytical language， basically it has no morphological inflections， the structure of sentence uses Parataxis， that is， the grammar relationship of Chinese does not relay on the morphology but use the ways that picked up the meaning， and depending on the semantic collocation，and the pragmatic elements to reflect the words combination，so as to understand the sentence.（Lin ，2000：161） It depends on the word order to express the relationship and logical relation among the words， that is to say， according to the successive order that the incident happened to arrange the sentence， it rarely uses associated word and syntax ways. It stresses the Paratactic. But for English， it belongs to comprehensive language， that is because it remains the reflection of words. When there are some secondary components， such as attribute， adverbial， in the sentence， the word order can not become the unique evidence to judge the logical relation among the words. its sentence structure adopts to the hypotaxis， that is to say， it use the way of spacial putup， basing on the predicate structure， centering on the verbs， and using a large amount of prepositions， associated words， formal subject that reflected the relation to set up all kinds of constitutes and elements of sentence to show the spacial diagram form that extended from the center.（Jin ， 2003：13） english has grammatical forms， such as tense， voice and mood， that chinese has no.
Because of the different language family that Chinese and English belong to， and the cultural background is different. The people have different mind to think out something.Language is not only a tool of thought and communication but also a reflection of the social culture that restricts the thought. The profound link between the thinking and the language is confirmed by the linguists， the psychologists and the philosopher today. Thinking is a complex psychological activity， he is the systematic and materialized recognition process to all kinds of outside things and information analysis and comparison， the comprehensive and the abstract.
The grammar of understanding develops with the continuous language study. The traditional grammar consists of morphology and syntax. the morpheme becomes the basic unit of sentence. The generative grammar schools expand the grammar into the syntactic and semantic rules， speech rules. While modern Chinese grammar should include three aspects： syntax， semantics and pragmatics. The syntax means grammatical style， the semantics is grammatical meanings， the pragmatics is the relationship between the words and the users in the sentence， especially it means the pragmatic meaning that is related to the syntax structure. For example： topic and focus， functional transformation and order， affirm and negative. Seeing from it， the recognition to the grammar includes two aspects： one is the understanding of the "language"， the other is the expansive understanding of the "grammar". So we can say the grammar is the sum of all words rules， it should include a larger category， that is the generalized syntax rules， the generalized semantic rules and the generalized pragmatic rules. It is true that different language has different sentence-making rules. But how to look at the difference， it goes through different stages. Roughly speaking， firstly ， People only saw it as the particularity of the language itself， secondly， people paid attention to it， it became an important basis of linguistic typology， thirdly， the people not only treated it as the language problem itself， but also found it had a close relation with the thought and the culture.
Social scientists tell us that cultures differ from one another， that each culture is unique. As cultures are diverse， so languages are diverse. It is only natural then that with difference in cultures and differences in languages， difficulties often arise in communicating differences in communicating between cultures and across cultures. Understanding is not always easy.
Chinese philosophy on the whole is synthetic，which originates from the concept of“viewing things in their totality”or simply“the integralism”in Chinese classic philosophy.The ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zi proposed the famous notion of“the Unity of Man with Heaven”，according to which“Heaven and Man，Things and I”were integrated into an organic whole.
Compared with the Chinese，the westerners observe an analytical way of thinking that derived from the ancient Greek Atomic Theory， which holds that all things are composed of atoms and among atoms there exists the void.Moreover， the law of causing is atomic， external and mechanical in the West while it is integral， internal and organic in China. The Westerners metaphysically distinguish name from object and form from substance， and so they adhere to formal and logical deduction among different categories.The synthetic thinking starts from the overall situation， from the whole to the part， it emphasizes the overall balance and the whole program. While the analytic thinking starts from the part， from the part to the whole， it emphasizes the formal structure program. The difference of the thinking mode shows that Chinese sequence of time and place is from big to small， in contrast， English sequence of time and place is from small to big. For example：
Chinese： 2010 nián 5 yùe 21rì xīng qī wǔ zǎo chéng 6 diǎn 40 fēn
English： 6∶40 AM Friday ，21 May ，2010
Chinese： Hé běi shěng shí jiā zhuāng shì yù huá lù 256 hào hé běi shī fàn dà xué wài yǔ xì
Hebei province Shi Jiazhuang city Yuhua Road 256 Hebei teachers university foreign language department
English： Foreign Languages Department Hebei teachers' University ， 256 Yuhua Road Shi Jiazhuang City ，Hebei Province
So， in the sequence of time， Chinese expresses from the big unit to the small one， that is year， month， date， week， and time. But English shows from the small unit to the big unit， that is time， week， date， month and year. And in the place sequence， Chinese uses from the big scope to the small scope. But English is from the small unit to the big one.
When introducing the people， firstly， Chinese lists the ranks， secondly， call the roll，thirdly， lists the positions successively from big to small. While to English， they speak of the name， and then tell a series of positions from small to big. For instance：（Niu，1997：56）
Chinese： zhōng guó gòng chǎng dàng zhōng yāng weǐ yuán huì wěi yuán， zhōng guó gòng chǎng dǎng zhōng yāng zhèng zhì jú weí yuán， zhōng guó gòng chǎn dǎng zhōng yāng weǐ yuán huì zhèng zhì jú cháng wù weǐ yuán huì weǐ yuán， zhōng huá rén mín gòng hé guó guó wù yuàn zóng lǐ zhōu ēn laí tóng zhì 1976 nián 1 yuè 8 rì bú xìng shì shì.
English： January 8， 1976 saw the death of Zhou Enlai， premier of the State Council of P. R. C， member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of C. P. C， member of the Political Bureau of the Cent ral Committee of C. P. C， member of the Central Committee of C. P. C.
When we use the sentence， the adverbial clauses of time and adverbial clauses of place of Chinese sentences order are also form big to small， on the contrary， English order is from small to big. Looking at the following sentence：
Chinese ：Shàng zhōu xīng qīwǔ meǐ gé sān xiǎo shí wǒ yào zài nà ér dāi yí huì
English ： I was there for a while every three hours on Friday last week.
In addition， when there are two or more attributes that modify the same central words，Chinese basic word order is from the big scope to the small scope， from the important meaning to the secondary one.English is just the opposite. The case is：
Chinese ：Wǒ men yóu lǎn lē jiā ná dà dè sān gè měi lì dè chéng shì
English ：We toured three beautiful cities in Canada.
In addition to this，for name list order， English name order is last name， father's name， first name.while Chinese name is first name， ancestor， last name. For example：
English 1） Samuel（name） Langhorne（first name） Clemens（last name）
2） Benjamin （name）Silliman（last name）
Chinese 3） kǒng （xìng shì） fán（bèi fèn） qīng（běn míng）
In the title and address of the people， English shows their own status firstly， and then shows the common first name of many people. But Chinese usually shows their own first name， and then speak out their status. For example：
English 1） Professor Williams
2） Dr. Smith
Chinese 3） líu dài fu
4） wáng xiān sheng
The following is about the position of some adverbials in Chinese and English sentence structure. The adverbial has its own order. For Example：
English： She reads aloud in the open in the morning everyday.
Chinese： Tā měi tiān zǎo chén zài shì wài gāo shēng lǎng dú
Seeing from the above， we find that if there are many adverbials in English， the adverbials of manner usually are in front of the adverbials of place， and the adverbials of place are put in front of the adverbial of time. But for Chinese， the adverbial order is opposite to English. Such as "aloud" "in the open" "in the morning" "everyday" in English sentence have different order in Chinese.（Lin ，2008：193）
So the Chinese word order， which is from the big scope to the small one， from the big unit to the small one， from the important meaning to the secondary one，is the reflection of the synthetic thinking mode that is from the whole to the part in Chinese technique of expression.while English word order， which is from the small scope to the big one， from the small unit to the big one， from the secondary meaning to the important one，is the reflection of the analytic thinking mode that is from the part to the whole in English technique of expression.
3. summary
Language and culture combine with each other.Linguistic phenomena can often find their explanations in culture.Through our comparison between English and Chinese grammar，we find that people's thought， time tendency and conversational context are very important cultural elements in understanding the difference of the grammar. The word order of the sentence constituent， E.g. Chinese order is from big to small， English order is the opposite， and the time order are the difference of the thought reflected in the different language grammar.
The differences between languages are influenced by many kinds internal mechanism. So， a cultural analysis is made to explain some differences between Chinese grammar and English grammar. The difference reflects the different western and eastern modes of thinking. Western analytic thinking emphasis on logic reason， it needs clear markers to show grammatical relations， on the contrary， Chinese synthetic philosophy and thinking stress imagery and via the lexical means and word order to show logical relations. So， Chinese grammar has the characters of few explicit rules and many hidden rules. But for English grammar， it is very complicated， and has a whole rules. Therefore. when we study the difference in the hidden rules， we should use the cultural background.
4. Acknowledgement
I must thank the authors of papers and books， greatly or slightly enlightening the paper， which I have read and benefited and quoted from for this paper and whose names and works cannot be listed here but mostly available in the References.
References
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