Culture, Language, and Communication

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Culture, Language, and Communication
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• Language is a universal psychological ability
  possessed by all humans.
• Language forms the basis for creation and
  maintenance of human cultures.
• In many instances, language differences reflect
  important differences between cultures.

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The Structure of Language

• All languages have
• Lexicon
• Syntax and Grammar
• Phonology
• Semantics
• Pragmatics
• Two key linguistic concepts
• Phonemes smallest, most basic units of sound in
  a language
• Morphemes smallest, most basic units of meaning

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• CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON VERBAL LANGUAGE

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Cultural Influences on Language Acquisition

• Culture influences language acquisition from the
  very early stage through the entire developmental
  process.
• Culture influences all aspects of language.
• It is through use of language the an individual
  is transformed into agent of culture.

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• Culture has a powerful influence on verbal and
  nonverbal encoding and decoding processes.
• Culture affects not only language lexicons, but
  also the function and/or pragmatics.

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Language differences across cultures

• Culture and Lexicons
• Self-Other Referents
• In U.S., the use of I, we, is prevalent, but
  in Japan there are cultural rules governing how
  to refer self and other. It is dependent largely
  on the status relationship between you and the
  other person.
• This reflects importance of status and group
  differentiation in Japan.

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Language differences across cultures

• Counting Systems
• Different objects counted by different suffix in
  Japan.
• Basis for number
• In Japanese (and many languages, including
  Spanish), cultural meanings of numbers based on
  the words for one through ten.

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Language differences across cultures

• Culture and Pragmatics
• Drop of pronouns
• The dropping of pronouns occurs Less in
  individualistic than in collectivistic cultures.
• Language use and communication styles
• Collectivistic cultures use principle of equity
  involving greater social penetration when
  communicating with ingroups
• Cultural differences in apology, self-disclosure

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High vs. Low Context Cultures

• This has to do with the extend to which the
  specific contents of messages are spelled out.
• In Low Context Cultures, everything is made
  crystal clear no need to read between the lines.
  What part of NO dont you understand mode of
  communicating.
• The opposite is true for High context Cultures.
  If you dont read between the lines and
  understand the cultural context of the words
  used, you wont get the meaning of what was said.
  

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• In-group vs. outgroup communication,
• Use of apologies,
• Self-disclosure,
• Compliments, and
• Interpersonal criticism.

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Link Between Culture and Language

• At a more technical level, culture can affect the
  structure of thought processes ala Sapir-Whorf
  hypothesis.
• Despite legitimate criticism of the link between
  culture and thinking, research on bilingualism
  shows a close relationship between culture and
  language.

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Language and Thought The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis speakers of different
  language think differently because of differences
  in languages.
• In support of Sapir-Whorf Navajo children are
  more likely to categorize objects by shapes than
  European or African American children.
• Challenging Sapir-Whorf Dani speakers did not
  have lower ability to discriminate or remember
  colors than Americans even though they only have
  two color terms (dark and light).

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Comments on Bilingualism

• The unique circumstances surrounding
  communication by individuals who speak more than
  one language has generated much interest among
  experimental psychologists, psycholinguists.
  educators and politicians.
• I will address only a few of the more critical
  issues.

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Perceptions of Bilinguals

• People have negative impressions and stereotypes
  about people communicating in their second
  language.
• Foreign language processing difficulties
  cognitive difficulties while processing
  information due to lack of fluency in speaking a
  language.
• Foreign language effect temporary decline in
  thinking ability of people using foreign language.

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Language Development of Bilinguals

• The context in which the various languages are
  acquired is a good starting point for our
  discussion of bilingualism.
• Compound vs. coordinate development

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Subordinate Development

• Meaning
• Language A
• Language B

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Compound Development

• Meaning
• Language A
  Language B

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Coordinate Development

• Meaning
  Meaning
• Language A Language
  B

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Linguistic Interference

• those instances of deviation from the norms of
  either language which occur in the speech of
  bilinguals as a results of familiarity with more
  than one language.

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Types of linguistic interference

• 1. Semantic
• 2. Syntactic
• 3. Lexical
• 4. Phonological
• Linguistic Integration? The Tex-Mex phenomenon.

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Psychological Differences as a Function of
Bilingualism

• Its often the case that bilinguals have two
  mental representations of culture encoded in
  their minds.
• Some research even suggests language-related
  shifts in personality.
• Culture-affiliation hypothesis immigrant
  bilinguals tend to affiliated themselves with
  values and beliefs of culture associated with
  language currently speaking.

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Psychological Differences as a Function of
Language

• Minority group-affiliation hypothesis immigrant
  bilinguals adopt behavioral stereotypes of
  majority culture about their minority as their
  own.
• Code frame switching bilinguals switch back and
  forth from one cultural meaning system to the
  other when accessing one language or another.

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Cognitive independence vs. interdependence

• Primary DV Reaction Time
• Blue
• Green
• Red

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• Red
• Green
• Blue

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• Azul
• Verde
• Amarillo

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Overarching Conclusions

• Bilinguals access different cultural systems in
  their minds when speaking their respective
  languages.
• Culture also affects nonverbal behavior. Despite
  the well-documented universality of many facial
  expressions such as anger, contempt, disgust,
  fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, as noted
  in precious lectures, cultures differ in display
  rules for these pan cultural expressions.

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Overarching Conclusions

• In addition, there are well-established cultural
  differences in gestures, gaze and visual
  attention, interpersonal space, body posture, and
  voice and vocal characteristics.
• Basically then, both verbal and nonverbal
  encoding and decoding processes are influenced by
  culture.