Language and Culture

In America there seems to be a notion that language actually shapes values and culture, rather than the other way around… It should seem fairly obvious to most people by now, that indeed values are at the core of culture and they determine the outer layers of culture such as overt behaviour, rituals, symbols and language.
The pioneer scientific research studies of Prof. Geert Hofstede, which revealed the role that values play in this process, are almost on their 40th anniversary of publication, yet the general public, and most of the press, remain quite ignorant of this, plus the fact that extensive research has been carried out throughout these last four decades, by many independent behavioural scientists, basically confirming Hofstede’s initial findings.
Guy Dechter has recently published an essay on the NY Times concluding that, indeed, language does NOT shape perceived reality, yet he fails to go beyond the general notion that “cultures are different”. Dechter expands on the notion that language limits the expression of certain concepts and feelings, mentioning a couple of examples illustrating how each culture develops certain terms which are difficult to translate to other languages and cultures. Perhaps the main difficulty he would need to address is the fact that he is trying to express himself in English, a language which imposes many limitations.
English has become the most widely dispersed business language in the world, the “lingua franca” used by business people to do business across borders. Yet it compares unfavourably to other languages such as Portuguese, which enjoys a wider range of vocabulary and expressions to convey nuances much more precisely.
There are some obvious limitations of English which are frequently mentioned, such as the lack of a proper term to translate “saudade” from Portuguese (meaning the feeling you have when you “miss” someone, some place or some time), or the lack of a term to translate “gezelig” from Dutch (meaning a psychological atmosphere of togetherness, coziness and warmth when you are with friends and/or family). A couple of examples refer to the lack of proper translations from German, like “Weltanschauung” (a way of perceiving and approaching the world around you) or “Schadenfreude” (relishing someone else’s misfortune).
Yet the limitations of English are more basic, such as the fact that there is only one verb (“to be”) to translate from the Portuguese “ser” and “estar”, which make important differentiations in Portuguese. “Ser” means “to be in an abstract sense, in an absolute, timeless and placeless sense, such as in Shakespeare’s “to be or not to be, that is the question”. By the way, this has been accurately translated into Portuguese as “ser ou não ser, eis a questão”.
What about “estar”? It means “to be” in a concrete, time bound, place bound sense. When I say “eu estou feliz”, it means “I am happy” here and now; I may not be happy somewhere else, and I Iwas not happy yesterday and may not be happy tomorrow. When I say “eu sou feliz”, it means I am a happy person, existentially, regardless of place or time.
This was once brilliantly illustrated by a Brazillian professor who had been appointed Minister of Education and was leading a wide reform of public education in Brazil. He was challenged by a TV reporter on certain aspects of this reform and whether those aspects were not contradicting some of his stances as a professor. His reply was: “eu estou ministro, eu não sou ministro!” Meaning, I am a Minister (in the time-bound, place-bound sense) now, I am not a Minister (in the absolute, timeless and placeless sense) forever, and I was not a Minister before. Such a statement can never be made in English without an elaborate explanation.
The distinction is made more important by the fact that “ser” and “estar” are both auxiliary verbs, just as “to be” is an auxiliary verb.
Similarly, Portuguese has two verbs “ter” and “haver” which are both translated as “to have” in English. “Ter” refers to possessing something, as in “I have a purse” or “I have an idea”, while “haver” is more used as an auxiliary verb, as in “it has been a while since we have seen each other”, (“há tempos não nos vemos”). This has been brilliantly simplified by the Americans as “long time, no see”!
This simplification of the language is a major factor in explaining the dissemination of English all over the world as a business language. It is much easier to learn simplified expressions in English than to learn the many complex nuances of Portuguese.
The economic factor, of course, is the other factor, perhaps most important: English was the language used by the British as they spread their culture across a global Empire, and English (or something quite close to English) has been the language spread through American economic domination during the second half of the past Century.
The question now, of course, regards the future: as China increases its role in world trade, will that be accompanied by a substitution of English by Chinese (Mandarin) as the international “lingua franca”? Probably not. It seems much easier for the Chinese to learn English (and they are already doing it by the millions) than for most people in the so-called “West” to learn Chinese.
The real issues which need to be addressed are the core values which lie beneath the surface in culture. It is the different values which determine behaviour, practices and policies, not language. The Americans avoided the core issues of culture in the 70’s and 80’s, just as Hofstede’s research was beginning to make an impact in other parts of the world. Meanwhile, in the US, people were finding that “language shapes our way of thinking”, so there was undue emphasis on avoiding certain terms relating to diversity issues.
That’s when it became “politically correct” to use certain terms and “politically incorrect” to use others. It became “incorrect” to refer to people as “black”; rather, the “hyphenated Americans” were introduced in the language: “African-Americans”, and later “Native-Americans”, “Italian-Americans” and so on.
Also, it became derogatory to address adults as “girls” or “boys”… To most cultures around the world this politicization of the American language seemed a bit ridiculous. You don’t find these aspects in other cultures.
The core problem of basic values was being skirted by focusing attention on a superficial aspect of culture (language).
It’s like the old joke about the husband who comes home to find his wife cheating on him having sex on the living-room sofa with the next-door neighbour. So the husband decides to replace the sofa with a new one…
Rather than addressing the core issue (the wife and their relationship), the husband focuses on an accessory (the furniture).
Culture can only be understood (and eventually changed, which is a very difficult and long-term process) by looking at the underlying values supporting the behaviour observed on the surface.
These values were defined by Hofstede as “broad preferences around one state of affairs over another, to which strong emotions are attached”. His research has identified initially four dimensions of culture values, then a fifth was discovered in the early 90’s, and now a sixth dimension has been identified in 2010.
These value dimensions reflect the way different cultures have unconsciously resolved six basic dilemmas of people living together:
1. Power Distance – The degree to which the less powerful people in society accept the fact that power is distributed unevenly in that society.
2. Individualism – Whether people should feel responsible only for themselves and their immediate family or whether people should feel taken care of by groups, in exchange for loyalty.
3. Performance (Hofstede called this “Masculinity”, but such a label opens a totally different can of worms) – Whether a society values performance and awarding status to high performers, rather than valuing quality of life and caring for others.
4. Uncertainty Avoidance – The degree to which people feel threatened by ambiguity and develop mechanisms to avoid it.
5. Long-Term Orientation – Whether a society takes a pragmatic, long-term approach or instead takes a normative, short-term oriented approach.
6. Indulgence – Whether a society allows indulgence in the natural pleasures of life, or whether it restrains that in general and to certain places and times.
The issues in American culture are linked to its core values: the belief that power should be distributed equally among people; the incentive for people to feel responsible for themselves and immediate family, rather than being loyal to a group; the emphasis on performance rather than caring; the relatively low concern over ambiguity; the normative and short-term orientation; and the preference towards indulgence versus restraint.
It’s important to realize that these characteristics have been researched with tens of thousands of Americans, many times, in many samples, compared with samples taken from other cultures. They are not the product of someone’s opinion: they are the product of many research studies.
Most important is the combination of these characteristics, not the individual analysis of each dimension in separate. For instance: the combination of Individualism and performance orientation says more about America than looking at these dimensions in isolation. By examining the research diligently, one can better understand America and have an intelligent discussion about where it is and where it wants to go in terms of national culture. Ignoring the research is just another way of avoiding the real issues that need to be addressed.