语言的作用，如何看待英国人见面聊天气的问题。

Function of Language

Everyone knows that what is supposed to happen when two Englishmen who never met before come face to face in a railway compartment -- they start talking about the weather. In some cases this may simply be because they happen to find the subject interesting. Most people, though, are not particularly interested in analysis of climatic conditions, so there must be other reasons for conversations of this kind. One explanation is that it can often be quite embarrassing to be alone in the company of someone you are not acquainted with and not speak to them. If no conversation takes place the atmosphere can become rather strained. However by talking to the other person about some neutral topic like the weather, it is possible to strike up a relationship with him without actually having to say very much. Railway-compartment conversations of this kind — and they do happen, although not of course as often as the popular myth supposes — are a good example of the sort of important social function that is often fulfilled by language. Language is not simply a means of communicating information — about the weather or any other subject. It is also a very important means of establishing and maintaining relationships with other people. Probably the most important thing about the conversation between our two Englishmen is not the words they are using, but the fact that they are talking at all.

There is also a second explanation. It is quite possible that the first Englishman, probably subconsciously, would like to get to know certain things about the second -- for instance what sort of job he does and what social status he has. Without this kind of information he will not be sure exactly how he should behave towards him. He can, of course, make intelligent guesses about his companions from the sort of clothes he is wearing, and other visual clues, but he can hardly ask him direct questions about his social background, at least not as this stage of the relationship. What he can do -- and any reasoning along these lines on his part its again usually subconscious -- is to engage him in conversation. He is then likely to find out certain things about the other person quite easily. He will learn these things not so much from what the other man says as from how he says it, for whenever we speak, we cannot avoid giving our listeners clues about our origins and the sort of person we are. Our accent and our speech generally show what part of the country we come from, and what sort of background we have. We may even give some indication of certain of our ideas and attitudes, and all of this information can be used by the people we are speaking with to help them formulate an opinion about us.

These two aspects of language behavior are very important from a social point of view: first, the function of language in establishing social relationship; and, second, the role played by language in conveying information about the speaker. We shall concentrate for the moment on the second “clue-bearing” role, but it is clear that both these aspects of linguistic behavior are reflections of the fact that there is a close inter-relationship between language and society.