The world of reality, the real world, so many times referred to, is given to people by both their physical experience and the sociocultural experience. That is how the culture life of the society comes in. Sociocultural structures underlie linguistic structures. Language reflects sociocultural structures and relations, because it refers to objects through concepts.
That is why the cultural background of a language is so important and a language cannot be presented or studied, or taught, as the case may be just as a list of meanings of separate words and the rules of grammar. "...languages are not mere collections of labels or nomenclatures attached to preexisting bits and pieces of the human world, but that each speech community lives in a somewhat different world from that of others, and that these differences are both realized in parts of their cultures and revealed and maintained in parts of their languages" (J.B.Carroll, The Study of Language, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, Chapter 4). Language is part of culture (and culture is part of language) and it is impossible to use it as a means of communication (i.e. for the now so popular communicative purposes) without solid cultural background knowledge.
The sociocultural component of language is far from being confined to kilts and balalaikas, that is to words denoting exclusively some national things that have no equivalents in other languages. In Russian this kind of lexis is about 6-7% of the words which are widely and actively used.
Let us investigate the situation with words which do have equivalents in other languages and refer to the same - universal - objects of reality. They are often seen differently by different speech communities.
Indeed, we look at the same things but, as we do it through the prism of the language we happen to have been born into, they are represented by every language in a way peculiar to this particular language. For instance, where Russians see two colours (голубой и синий) English-speaking people see one: blue. Russians look at a certain object of reality and see it as one thing called "рука" while English-speaking people looking at the same object perceive it as two quite different things: arm and hand. The same with "нога", on the one hand, and leg and foot on the other. The Russian word "пальцы" covers such different (from the English point of view) objects as fingers, thumbs and toes. There are very many examples of this kind, when you compare two or more languages, and many problems of translation arc caused by this. Language imposes the vision of the world on the user. Words are like pieces of a mosaic. When you learn a language you take a piece from your mosaic and try to adjust it to a different mosaic. But your piece may be bigger or smaller or it may have a different shape. If language were a photograph, it would be possible to divide it into squares and the squares would be interchangeable. The life of foreign language teachers, interpreters, translators would be much easier. But we have pictures, not photographs, as every, nation's vision of the world is determined by so many factors peculiar to this particular nation: its history, geography, culture, mode of life, mentality, etc. Even every family has its own language, its own phrases which are understood only by the members of the family. Two lovers may have their own language idiolect reflecting their own world. And to understand them one needs comments, explanations, etc.
A concept is not a simple, direct reflection of the object and the line connecting them is not straight, it is rather a zigzag. In the same way a word is not a simple reflection of a concept: between these two there is another zigzag. That means that there is quite a distance, (that of two zigzags) between the word and the object.
A word, originally coined to denote a concrete object, being used by members of the speech community lives its own life and develops together with it acquiring all kinds of stylistic (which also means sociocultural) connotations, as well as purely national, sociocultural ones that are immediately connected with customs, beliefs, the way of life.
The following example illustrates the situation when the knowledge of meanings of words does not help to understand the language.
An emigrant from Poland to the USA wanted to open a bank account. In the bank he was asked: "Do you want a checking account or a savings account?". He knew all the words but the social concepts were unknown to him. He did not know the social structures underlying the words though he knew their meanings very well. It is evident that the knowledge of "meanings" of words, i.e. the knowledge of mother-tongue "equivalents" of foreign words is definitely not enough either for speech production or sometimes even for speech recognition.
Let us now discuss such common everyday words like parts of the day which have "equivalents" in every language but we mean to compare English and Russian: утро - morning, день - day, вечер - evening, night. At the level of concepts the difference is quite striking. The English "morning" is much longer than the Russian "утро": it takes 12 hours and lasts from midnight till noon covering the whole of the Russian ночь (from midnight to 4 a.m.), утро (from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m.) and part of the Russian день (from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.).
The difference between the Russian word день and the English day is even more striking. First of all, there are two English words - day and afternoon covering the piece of the Russian mosaic language picture of the world occupied by the word "day". Then, they vary in usage: Good day! - may be used as a dismissing phrase showing displeasure, irritation, etc. Strangely for Russian students of English the translation of a most common Russian greeting Добрый день! is rather good afternoon than good day. The following English contexts with the word ''day " have no correspondence with the word день: I'll go there one day – когда-нибудь, he began his days in a small town - жизнь, in my day - время, it made my day - осчастливить.
Thus, objects live their lives at the level of reality, concepts - at the level of thinking, and words - at the level of speech. At this level the word immediately develops its range of collocability. In other words, it begins to like some words, to collocate with them and to dislike some others. This statement is of great importance because it explains why words must be taught and learnt in their most natural, habitual contexts, in set word-combinations. This principle is essential because the problem is hidden from native speakers and cannot be seen at the level of one language: it becomes evident at the bilingual level. The English word "book" and the Russian word "книга" refer through more or less the same concept to the same object but their speech lives are different.
For instance, a very common English word-combination, actually a compound word: a “cheque-book” can not be translated into Russian as “чековая книжка” though all dictionaries will give you “книга” as the translation of the “book. A similar situation is characteristic of the following conventional English word-combinations with the word book. All of them are given by dictionaries of English as illustrations of the use of the word, but are not translated into Russian with the word "книга" and have other - quite different - equivalents: a reference book - справочник, a ration book -карточки, to do the books – вести счет, to be in smb's good/bad books –быть на хорошем/плохом счету. At the same time most common phrases with the Russian word "книга" are untranslatable because either the concept does not exist in the English-speaking world (книга жалоб) - (book of complaints),- книга почета - (book of Honour)) or the idea itself is alien to the English mentality ("любите книгу – источник знаний" - love the book - a source of knowledge), "книга – лучший подарок" - (a book is the best present). It is untranslatable because grammatical categories are different (articles - a book? the book?) and social backgrounds are different too. "Книга – лучший подарок", "любите книгу" - all this was meant to teach people to believe that spiritual values are superior to material ones.
The pairs of words: “head” - "голова" and “hair” - "волосы" refer to the same objects through the same concepts. The difference between the two languages becomes obvious at the level of word combinations: “to wash one's hair” is translated into Russian as “мыть голову (to wash head). The word-combination "green eyes" is not equivalent to зеленые глаза though they both seem to refer to the same object. However, зеленые глаза sound beautiful, romantic, attractive while green eyes have negative connotations and imply envy, ill feelings, etc., which comes from Shakespeare who called jealousy - "a green-eyed monster".
Another example - political terms. They are just empty shells which are filled with different content by different parties and different regimes.
Thus, those words which seem to be equivalent in different languages can hardly be regarded as such, if the full volume of their semantics including the sociocultural component is taken into consideration. This statement is of utmost importance for solving problems of translation.
The skill of translating does not consist in finding word equivalents because these, as has been shown above, are quite rare.
In both target and source languages functional equivalents of a thing meant must be found and taught. These functional equivalents may be linguistically expressed by various language units: monolexemic words, polylexemic word-combinations (collocations, sequences) and even sentences.
Vocabulary – запас слов (the store of words);
push – от себя (from yourself);
pull –к себе (to yourself);
wet paint – осторожно окрашено (careful - painted);
happy birthday – поздравляю с днем рождения (I congratulate you on your birthday);
moth – ночная бабочка (night butterfly);
tin – консервная банка (a jar for preserves);
to imprison – заключать в тюрьму (to put into gaol);
back of the head – затылок;
conforming to the laws of nature – закономерный.
The difference between words of different languages which seem to denote the same objects and/or concept is most obvious and vivid at the level of word combinations. The best illustrations of this may be found in bilingual dictionaries. Very often a Russian (or English) head word is translated by an English (or Russian) "equivalent" which is hardly ever used in the illustrations of the use of the word, that is, in word combinations.
For example, записка - note; деловая записка - memorandum; докладная записка - report; любовная записка - love letter;
These statements, no matter how obvious they may seem, are very important for foreign language teaching practice. When foreign learners combine words - orally and in writing- to produce speech (to communicate) they usually follow their mother tongue's collocational patterns which often results in all sorts of errors. That is why foreign language learners must keep in mind that they should learn words not through translations of their meanings (that is, references to bits of reality and concepts) but in their most natural, habitual, typical of the target language contexts.
Thus, the language reflects the world which is its "passive" function but it shapes the user of the language which may be regarded as its "active" function. Many language facts pass unknown, unnoticed, we take them for granted without realizing that they form us, our relations with other people, our attitude to life, etc.
A very important sphere of the influence of language on its user comes from the informative-instructive layer of vocabulary, from all those signs of different kinds which surround people in a so-called civilized society, regulating every step, giving instructions, warnings, requests - and at the same time creating a certain world-view of the user and shaping him/her into a representative of this society.
The same ideas, the same content may be expressed differently by the two languages and these different ways of linguistic expression both reflect the difference in social thinking and the difference in upbringing of the members of the respective speech community.
For example, wet paint and осторожно - окрашено (be careful - it is painted) are functional equivalents but the English variant merely states the fact while the Russian language shows more concern appealing to the public: осторожно - be careful, mind...
Beware of the dog is the English version of Осторожно – злая собака (Be careful - a fierce dog, mind a fierce dog) but, again, the difference lies in the attitude to the reader of the notice. The English visitor is warned about the presence of a dog. The Russian visitor is frightened by a fierce dog. This is a cliché and it is used even if the dog is not fierce, and sometimes even when there is no dog at all but bad people must be frightened away.
There exist many various ways in which language shapes its users socioculturally at different levels of language study. Let us begin with most obvious cases. Thus, in the sphere of grammar the difference in the forms of pronouns inevitably influences the national characters of speakers of English and Russian differently. Indeed the well-known fact that in Russian, as well as in many other European language there are two pronouns: one for the 2-nd person singular - "ty", and one for the 2-nd person both singular and plural - "vy" while in English the same form "you" is used for both, cannot help influencing relations between language-users. Russians can express a wide variety of emotions by using "ty" or "vy" as well as subtle nuances in relations between people. The use of "ty" may be an insult or a compliment, "vy" may express deep respect and admiration or derision and hatred. "You" as the only form of address in English is devoid of all these connotations, it reflects the same kind of relations among users of the language irrespective of their age, social position, personal feelings, etc. Thus, Russians, having "ty" and "vy" have a chance to be more emotional, while the English, having only "you", have to be more formal, indifferent and polite. The situation is even more delicate and complicated with those languages which, like Russian, have the same pair of personal pronouns but their connotations, the peculiarities of their use in speech arc 'quite different. For example in a story which was used to teach Swedish a girl got to a police court because she had some problems with her passport. A policeman there, who interrogated her, called her du (ty) which in Swedish was a good sign because it showed that the policeman was not keeping his distance, he was talking on equal basis. The Russian students were surprised because in this sort of situation in Russia the use of ty would have caused an opposite reaction. If a militiaman calls one "ty" it is a bad sign showing humiliation and even an insult.
Here is another well-known example from the field of morphology: the Russian language abounds in diminutive and affectionate suffixes to such an extent that English-speaking people simply cannot imagine it. This possibility of expressing an almost infinite variety of shades of love, affection, sympathy cannot but result in shaping the personality of a Russian speaker. Thus, the popular stereotyped image of a Russian as a big burly and coarse "bear" is challenged by the variety of affectionate suffixes in "the Russian bear's" mother-tongue (я тут попал в госпиталек). In the sphere of syntax the difference between the two languages is very clear as English has a very rigid word order while Russian allows of many liberties and variations. I would not go so far as to draw a conclusion that because of that users of English are orderly and disciplined while Russians are undisciplined but versatile though, probably, this fact adds to the respective national characters. However, as this problem requires special investigation which, I have not undertaken, I would like to draw attention to another significant language fact. In collocations even the rigid word order may influence the user's attitude to people.
For instance, "ladies and gentlemen" is a set phrase, and the word order emphasizes respect to women. However, it is only correct at a certain social level - at the level of "ladies" and "gentlemen". One step down the stair of social relations, and the same "thing-meant" is linguistically expressed in the reverse order: "men and women". In other words, at the social level where males are men, they come first, at the social level where males are gentlemen they come last.