SFL had the honor to have invited Prof. Zhao Jie, a PhD advisor of the School of Foreign Languages, Peking University (PKU), to introduce his newest achievements in linguistic anthropology on Mar. 30th. Prof. Zhao was the former vice president of Beifang University of Nationalities, and currently leads several national academic associations and research institutions.
Greatly indebted to a number of masters and professors in linguistics including Ji Xianlin, Ye Peisheng, Xu Tongqiang, Zhu Dexi, Ma Xueliang and Lin Tao, Prof. Zhao has fostered academic excellence in linguistics, anthropology, ethnonymics, etc. Having created his own knowledge system, Prof. Zhao had quite a few monographs on linguistics published, with the latest one coming out in June this year.
Prof. Zhao began his lecture with a quotation from Sapir (1884-1939, an American anthropologist), “There is something behind a language.” By illustrating that Indo-European culture originated in Europe with an interesting interpretation of the word “snow”, Prof. Zhao concluded that languages can, to some extent, reflect the early living conditions of a nation. According to him, linguistic anthropology is defined as an interdisciplinary study of how a language influences the social life as well as the social and cultural message manifested by a language. Then he further introduced some important theories and research methods of linguistic anthropology. Many interesting linguistic phenomena illuminated how a language or a dialect reflects the production activities and cultural activities of a nation or a group.
At the end of the lecture, Prof. Zhao made a point that young scholars should learn to be patient without pursuing a quick success. He said only those who can concentrate on learning will finally embrace the glory of their academic career.
The Dean Li Chengjian and the Executive Vice Dean Wang Weimin received Prof. Zhao right before the lecture, talking about Prof. Zhao’s further guidance to SFL on building both the teaching teams and the academic research teams.