【正文】 culture and cultural semantics Comparative study of cultures There have been over four hundred definitions made for culture according to the Course of Culturology. Here are two typical ones in the field. 淮陰師范學(xué)院 本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)） 2 They take that of the British anthropologist Edward Burt Tylor as the first definition of culture. He said: “Culture ... is that plex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” And defined it as “Culture is made up of exterior and interior behavior patterns. These behavior patterns are obtained and transferred through symbolic signals. The culture represents the remarkable achievements of the group of human, including the embodiment in manmade things。 it is the parison on two languages to reveal the categories of culturefunctional semantics and ethnocultural semantics(. culturesynonymy and cultureantonym) and so on(Wu Guohua 17). Language is the product of the culture in the civil society. It shows people’s attitudes towards the world and their standards for activities. Language is a remarkable achievement of the civil human society and the sign of distinguished from the animals. Language depends on culture and is the reflection of culture. Words e out of the life style, living conventions, surroundings, social conditions of a nation. And this conducts the national characteristic of the word and the language. Architecture is the cultural product that most closely related with people’s living activities and also affects the national language and the semantics. 3. Architecture and culture Architecture is of the cultural product created in the human society. Its shapes, functions 淮陰師范學(xué)院 本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)） 4 and appearances are all catering for the certain culture pattern of the society. And residence takes the lead position in all kinds of buildings. Architecture as the culture product Architectures appear as a result of residence, one of the basic material needs of human beings for sheltering from wind and rain. Thus, architectures are considered to be one of the most important material needs for human living. “Material needs for living are the basic needs of great importance for man kind’s existence, and they are the base on which people carry out their activities. Judging from the quality of the materials, they are natural. While they are made use of in the society of human civilization, the materials are shaped as a result of catering for people’s tastes of different cultures. Thus, the substances from the natural world had been affected by various cultures and became containers full of cultural information ” (Liu 104). Said Liu in his book and he took the building as one of the examples for his parative study between Chinese and western cultures. Descriptions on how architectures received the cultural meanings were made that: “Houses in the ancient times were very simple without any decoration. With the development of the social technology, people began to add their designing thoughts and decorative things to the simple houses they built as their abilities of building and modeling were strengthened. As time went by, the houses gradually got on cultural information and became the embodiment of different cultures” (Liu 117). Resulted in the variation of people’s intention and activities, various kinds of architectures with different functions came into being, such as palaces, churches, temples, gardens and so on. And it is said that: “The ability of building a house demands for a prehensive capability from a variety of aspects of fields. Architectures can most directly disclose the different cultures and people’s living styles in various areas and historical periods” (Fan 25). From this, it is obvious that architecture is the most important one among the cultural products. And it is the culture pattern that leads to the different features. Residence House built for living in is the kind of architectures for the basic practical use in the daily life. And it takes a leading position among all the buildings. There is a saying of behavioral scientists that: “The clothes are the expansion of one’s skin, while the residence is the limbs.” 淮陰師范學(xué)院 本科生畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)） 5 Such a saying explains to the full that what one thinking in his mind would certainly affect his environmental conditions (Meng 2). “Residence is one of the basic living materials of mankind. It is the place where people carry out most of their activities, such as having meals, sleeps, holding marriage, sacrifices and so on. The appearance of the so called houses is the mark of the human civilizations” (Tang 5). Wang Wei also said in his book that: “House is certainly a kind of receptacle of concepts besides its basic practical functions for residing, and it keeps a relation to the creation of beauty” (Wang 137). From all the words above, the residence maintains most close relationship with people’s life and it is the house people spend most thoughts on. Hence, a conclusion can be reached that architecture is able to mirror the culture of the society and the residence, to some extent, reflects the character and concepts of the residents’ characters towards the society and the world. Therefore, we can say that the residence is the expansion not only of one’s limbs but also of the ideas and concepts. Residence is the form of architecture that can be to some extent a representative of the character and the thoughts of the resident. Then, the main features of residences in a country may surely be the reflection of the traditional culture of the nation. 4. Residences and the features China, one of the birthplaces of the oldest civilizations in the world, has a culture of extensive influence on the world history. The Great Britain is like other countries on the con