1. westerners tend to think in a linear way, they like to see and say things directly. in their conversations, the most important contents usually appear first. in the expression of their languages, westerners always like to state their points of view first and make them the topic sentences. the examples and explanations of these points will be given and elaborated later on. unlike the westerners, the Chinese way of thinking is much more complex, we can actually use the word 'spiral' to describe it. Chinese like to beat around the bush. when they speak, they tend to express it in a way that the main subjects and key words are usually avoided or hided in the beginning, they will hint you and eventually tell you what they wanted to say at the end of the conversation. Chinese language is actually derived from the shapes of the objects, with the initial intentions of using symbolic words to express some complex, objective but natural matters in such a way that absolute abstraction does not seem to be the main consideration. apparently, chinese tends to depict abstractive matters in a concrete and symbolic way.
2. analytical and integrated thinking skills can mainly be represented in two ways--hypotaxis and parataxis. the differences between the two are also the main differences between the english and chinese languages. hypotaxis require deep and accurate logics, both forms and structures of the representation must be fully connected, exactly the reason why linguists would use 'bamboo syntax' to describe english language. as every sentence of it is closely connected with various words and phrases just like the structure of bamboo. english require each components of the sentences to form a relation that will reflect itself as a whole or complete sentence. whereas, parataxis focuses more on the entire expression of the meaning, conjunctions or any other similar phrases
would only be used on impulse by the speakers, meaning these words may not be so critical or even necessary and can be removed so long as the coherences of the sentences are not affected, this is also the reason why linguists would describe it as 'water syntax' , that is without using any connecting words or phrases still can make the coherence of the meaning of the entire sentence to flow like water.
.绝对纯人脑原创. 我是从整体翻译的...heihei.