语言反映心理英语.doc

Language Reflects Psychology

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中国·珠海
二○一一 年 二 月

北京理工大学珠海学院毕业论文
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Language Reflects Psychology

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how language reflects a person’s psychology. Language is a significant tool for communication by which people can think and transmit information. There are mainly two sorts of language, including spoken language and body language. Indeed, spoken language is often accompanied by body language. Psychology is human brain’s subjective response to the objectivity. This paper mainly deals with the oral language and body language’s reflection of human psychology.
As an integral part of the society, whoever we are, we are sure to and have to meet vary kinds of people everyday. However, there will be many problems and misunderstandings if we cannot totally make ourselves understood or realize others meaning and intention. As a result, we are unable to know a person well and handle different interpersonal relationships properly. Therefore, the main question we should pay attention to is that how to correctly read a person’s meaning through listening to his or her speaking and observing their body movement.
In this thesis, three core questions are elaborated. Firstly, probes into how spoken language reflects a person’s psychology from various aspects of oral language, stress, pause, mood, speed, rhetoric and pet phrase are included. Secondly, to investing ate body language’s reflection of a person’s psychology dividing into three parts, namely, facial expression, head action and movement of other parts of human body. At last, the paper discusses about two situations. One is that the reflection of psychology is different with the same spoken language but various body languages. The other is the reflection of psychology is also different with the same body language but various spoken language.

Keywords: language psychology spoken language body language reflection
语言反映心理
摘 要

本文探讨语言如何反映一个人的心理。语言是人类进行思维和传递信息的重要的交际工具。语言主要分为两种:口头语言和肢体语言。事实上，口头语言往往伴随着肢体语言。心理是人脑对客观现实的主观反应。本文主要关注口头语言和肢体语言对人类心理的反映。
我们作为社会有机组成的一部分，不管是谁，每天肯定也必须面对不同的人。然而，如果我们在实际交往中不同让对方明白自己或者自己无法了解别人的意思和目的，彼此间就会产生很多的问题和误解。结果，我们不能很好地了解一个人，以及不能恰当地处理好人际关系。因此，如何能通过听别人的讲话和观察别人讲话时的举动就能正确地理解一个人的内心想法和意图，是一个值得我们关注和思考的问题。
论文主要从三大主要问题进行阐述。首先，从口头语言的各方面，包括语气、停顿、重读、语速、修辞和口头禅来阐述口头语言是怎样反映一个人的心理的。然后研究了肢体语言对一个人的心理的反映，分别从面部表情、头部动作和躯体动作三部分进行阐述。最后，讨论了两种不同的情况。一种情况是相同的口头语言不同的肢体语言所反映的心理不同；另一种情况是相同的肢体语言不同的口头语言所反映的心理也不同。

摘要：语言 心理 口头语言 肢体语言 反映

IV

CONTENTS
Abstract············································Ⅰ
摘要···············································Ⅱ
1 Introduction·········································1
2 Spoken Language Reflects Psychology···················2
2.1 Different Intonation Reflects Different Psychology············2
2.1.1 Different Stress Reflects Different Psychology··············2
2.1.2 Different Pause Reflects Different Psychology··············4
2.1.3 Different Mood Reflects Different Psychology ·············4
2.1.3.1 Declarative Sentence·································5
2.1.3.2 General Question····································5
2.1.3.3 Rhetorical Question·································5
2.1.3.4 Exclamatory Sentence································6
2.2 Different Speed Reflects Different Psychology···············6
2.3 Different Rhetoric Reflects Different Psychology·············7
2.3.1 Irony··············································7
2.3.2 Repetition··········································7
2.3.3 Exaggeration········································8
2.4Different Pet Phrase Reflects Different Psychology············8
3 Body Language Reflects Psychology····················10
3.1 Facial Expression Reflects Psychology····················10
3.1.1 Eyebrows··········································10
3.1.2 Eyes·············································11
3.1.3 Nose·············································11
3.1.4 Mouth and Lip······································12
3.1.5 Chin··············································12
3.1.6 Smile·············································12
3.2 Head Movement Reflects Psychology·····················12
3.3 Action of Other Parts of Body Reflects Psychology··········13
3.3.1 Hands·············································13
3.3.2 Shoulders··········································14
3.3.3 Legs and Feet·······································14
4 Two Situations·····································15
4.1 The Same Spoken Language but Various Body Languages Reflects Different Psychology································15
4.2 The Same Body Language but Various Spoken Languages Reflects Different Psychology ·······························15
Conclusion··········································17
References··········································18
Acknowledgements···································19
1 Introduction
Man is a life group need to communicate with each other, while language is their first choice and important tool for communication. In daily life, people usually contact with others by using spoken language and body language. Indeed, spoken language is often accompanied by body language. Studies show that in the process of face to face communication, 7% information is transmitted by spoken language, 38% information is spread by the changes of voice and 55% information is conveyed by facial expression and actions of other parts of body. With the development of society and advancement of age, people are linking up with one another more and more frequently, information spreads increasingly convenient, pressure and competition no matter in study, work or life is on the rise. Taking all abovementioned into consideration, it is urgent for us to learn how to quickly and correctly know a person, make a judgment and read his mind.
A person’s inner heart is the most complicated and sophisticated thing in the world because it hides in the depth of one’s heart. Furthermore, people living in such a competitive society, have to be cautious of handling every thing and people. Even some people “wear a mask” in daily interpersonal communication, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty of understanding a person. Although it is not easy for us to understand a person, as the old saying goes: it is hard to judge a person’s personality only by his or her appearance, we still can learn to solve this problem step by step. Nowadays, many scholars at home and abroad study and read the art of spoken language and body language in depth, in order to know the inner thoughts behind the art of human language.
Language is indispensable to our actual life in communicating with each other. However, if we cannot understand the secret of spoken language and body language, the interpersonal communication would be heavily affected, let alone read other’s minds and have an insight into their inner heart. Hence, it is need for us to rethink about the spoken language and body language, to think about how to truly get people’s meaning and penetrate into their inner heart by listening their speech and observing their body movement so that we can judge people correctly and handle interpersonal relationship much better.
21

2 Spoken Language Reflects Psychology
Spoken language is the most common but crucial way to us in communicating with other people in our daily life. It is hard to imagine that human society devoid of spoken language. Man is not only living in objective world and social activity as general people understand, but also living in the given language to a greater extent, because language has become a medium of expression in human society. As Joseph Stalin said: Language is a medium, an instrument with the help of which people communicate with one another, exchange thoughts and understand each other. Joseph Vissarrionovich Stalin. Marxism and Problems of Linguistics[M], People’s Press, 1971, P16

Psychology is human brain’s subjective response to the objectivity. As we all know, it is difficult for us to know people’s real feeling since every one’s heart is deep inside. But we can try to understand other people’s meaning through listening and analyzing their spoken language from several different aspects, namely, intonation, mood, pause, stress, speed, rhetoric, syntax and pet phrase. This is because various intonation, mood, pause, stress, speed, rhetoric, syntax and pet phrase reflect various psychologies.
2.1 Different Intonation Reflects Different Psychology
Intonation involves the occurrence of recurring fall-rise patterns, each of which is used with a set of relatively consistent meanings, either on single words or on groups of words of varying length. Hu Zhuanglin .Linguistics: A Course Book[M], 3rd edition, Peking University Press, September, 2006.Chater2,5.3

In people’s speech, the whole sentence or paragraph has cadence. Intonation means the changes of speed, strength, length and height of sentence. There is no sentence without intonation, and the meaning of sentence is different if it with different intonation. Consequently, if a person speaks the same sentence with various intonations, we can learn different psychology of him or her from his or her speech.
As the abovementioned fact, different intonation reflects different psychology. At the same time, intonation includes three aspects: stress, pause and mood, which are used synthetically while talking. In other words, different stress, pause and mood reflect different psychology. Let’s look into these three aspects one by one.
2.1.1 Different Stress Reflects Different Psychology
Stress refers to the degree of force used in producing a syllable. In transcription, a raised vertical line is often used just before the syllable it relates to. A basic distinction is made between stressed and unstressed syllables, the former being more prominent than the latter, which means that stress is a relative notion. At the word level, it only applies to words with at least two syllables. At the sentence level, a monosyllabic word may be said to be stressed relative to other words in the sentence. Hu Zhuanglin. Linguistics: A Course Book[M], 3rd edition, Peking University Press, September, 2006. Chapter2,5.2

When people speak, they are impossible to say a word without stress. On the contrary, people would put more stress on some words, while put less stress on others words. Then we are able to know speakers’ real meaning by noting which word they put stress on. Different stress people use in a sentence has different meaning, that is to say, various stress reflects various psychology of people. Let’s take a person says “他说他要来” as an example,( “ ” means stress the person put on words )
他说他要来。The person stresses that it is not me who said he would come.

他说他要来。The person stresses that he just said he would come, but is not necessarily.

他说他要来。The person stresses that it is him who would come.

他说他要来。The person stresses that he does not come yet.

Secondly, let’s take a boy says“我真的很爱你”to his girlfriend as another example:
我真的很爱你。The boy puts stress on “我” reflecting that it is him who is the one loves the girl.

我真的很爱你。The boy puts stress on “真的” reflecting that his love for the girl is true.

我真的很爱你。The boy puts stress on“很” reflecting that he love the girl very much.

我真的很爱你。The boy put stress on “你” reflecting that it is the girl who he falls in love with.
2.1.2 Different Pause Reflects Different Psychology
Pause in speech means a temporary stop or break. Pause is not only one of phonetic features constituting intonation, but also plays a vital role in interpersonal intercourse. Every body has to stop for a while when he or she talks. This is not only for the physiological need and the need of sentence structure, but also for the need of perfectly conveying one’s feelings. Above all, we must note that different pause a person uses can reflect different psychology of him or her. Thus, we can read others’ real meaning by noting the pause he or she uses when they are speaking. Let’s take a girl says “我知道你会来看我” as an example,( “ / ” means pause )
我 / 知道你会来看我
The girl thinks that you cannot hide it from her that you would come to see her.
我知道 / 你会来看我
The girl thinks that she does not know whether other people would come to see her or not, but she does know you would come to see her.
我知道你 / 会来看我
The girl thinks that you will come to see her because of your close relationship.
我知道你会来看 / 我
The girl thinks that it is she who you would come to see.
Furthermore, it is easy to imagine that when a scholar is giving a lecture in a university, he suddenly stops because he sees many students ignore him and they are talking with each other. Then classroom becomes quiet. Obviously, the purpose of pause used by the scholar is in order to warn students to pay attention to his lecture.
What’s more, it is no hard to imagine as well that when a leader is giving a speech in opening ceremony, he stops naturally after saying several wonderful sentences. Clearly, he wants his audience to give him a big hand.
2.1.3 Different Mood Reflects Different Psychology
Mood is a particular quality, way of sounding, modulation, or intonation of the voice as expressive of some meaning, feeling, spirit, etc. Mood is also called the tone of sentence, and it represents the changes in pitch of a sentence.
Rising tone and falling tone are two basic types of tone of sentence. Generally, declarative sentence, imperative sentence, exclamatory sentence and special question use falling tone. While general question and incomplete sentence often use rising tone. Let’s analyze the following three varied kinds of sentences, from which we learn speaker’s psychology easily.
2.1.3.1 Declarative Sentence
Declarative sentence is a sentence in the form of a statement (in contrast to a command, a question, or an exclamation), and it includes the affirmative sentence and negative sentence. Actually, in daily life, most of sentence used is declarative sentence. When a speaker uses declarative sentence, he or she would like to describe a fact or express their standpoints and attitudes.
For example,
我爱你。 The speaker wants to express his or her love to someone.
我不爱你。The speaker wants to tell someone that he or she does not fall in love with him or her.
他走了。 The speaker wants to state that he has gone.
他还没走。The speaker wants to state that he still here or there.
2.1.3.2 General Question
General question is a question that can be answered with “Yes” or “No”. When people ask a general question, it means that they have doubts and ques