The Relationship between Language and CultureI IntroductionLanguage emerges and develops with the emergence and development of society. Firstly and simply, it is used as a tool for human communication. Besides, it is a mirror of people’s thoughts. That is to say, individually, a person can express his ideas to others by the way of speaking or writing down the words.Furthermore, language is also related to culture. The thing is: how are “language” and “culture” related to each other and does language determine cognition? .This paper is going to discuss the relationship between language and culture and answer the second question.II BodyLanguage and culture are inseparable pair of social phenomenon which is unique to human society. Language cannot be cut out from the culture as a whole for language itself is part of the culture. Language and culture co-exist, they interact each other, influence each other. The more knowledge a person knows about language, the more he can know the world around him, especially his abstract thinking. Language determines cognition in a certain sense.1 Language is a social and cultural phenomenon and the carrier of culture Language is a guide to social reality. The formation and development of culture are impossible without language. All the previous work and life experience are stored in language. National culture is inherited from generation to generation through various forms, especially and importantly through using language. It is language that reflects and preserves culture. We can get to know people’s awareness of and attitudes toward the objective world by virtue of the language they speak. For example, “bat”is,by western people, seen as the evil and dark forces associated with devil. We can usually see in some foreign fictions or movies swarms of bats fly out with strange and ghastful noises when evil-doers and ghosts occur. While in China, it is auspicious, this is because “bat” and “Fu” in Chinese are homophone. “Fu” in Chinese means “lucky”“happiness”“beauty”. From this example we can see that the same thing can convey different meanings culturally. Thus, when later generation are learning national language ,they, actually,are learning national culture and traditions.2 language itself is part of culturePhonetic sound, vocabulary and grammar, parts of language system, are related to national culture. Different groups of people have different understanding of the objective world, so the meanings of concepts elements of their language systemrepresent are confined to historical and cultural conditions. We ,usually, cannot find the equivalence in two language systems. Take “yellow” as an example. In different nations, “yellow”possesses different meanings. As in many western countries, “yellow”cannot refer to noble, rich and respectable. So, it is hard to translate one language into another one.3 language determines thought in some degree.The notion that language determines thought may be correct in some degree, but it doesn't include the fact that users of a language do not inherit a fixed set of patterns to use. If thinking and perception were totally determined by language, then the concept of language change would be impossible. Because the human beings have the same body form and perceptional apparatus, they have the same perceptive and cognitive ability when they face the same material world. Thus they can get the similar conceptual structure. The generality of the language doesn't lie in the linguistic form,but in the cognitive psychology of human being. According to the same physical device of the sense organ, the human beings have the same sense experience and psychological reflection. And these determine that they have the same thought tendency. Thus in a certain linguistic and social culture, the basic category and stereotype, the category structure is relative stable. And the successful communication indicates that the human beings have the similar cognitive context.4 Language and cognitionlanguage is related to cognition, and cognition in turn is related to the cultural setting. The language reflects the development of the cognitive ability, the development of the linguistic competence can not exist before the development of the cognitive ability. The knowledge came from the experience of the world,.Linguistic structure and functions is the product of the experiences of the human beings. There is no direct relationship between the language and the objective world. The medium between them is the concept based on the human experiences, so linguistic ability is not an independent form that exists beyond the human experiences. It is one part of the cognitive device. As for the same material, the cognition exists before the language. Language couldn't include all the cognitive ability., nor can it determine the development of the cognitive ability. The language can promote the development the cognition. The development of the language depends on the cognition. And thought can not exist beyond the natural language of human being.III ConclusionGenerally speaking, language and culture are interdependent, they interact each other, they influence each other. Language determines thought in a certain sense. Language and cognition are related to each other. It’s very important for us to know its culture when we want to master a national language.。