LANGUAGE, THOUGHT
AND CULTURE
How words shape our views

Advertisements – „weasel words”
 „unsurpassed”, „ultimate
 „enriched” and „fortified” food
 „medium”, „large”,
„extra large”,
„jumbo eggs”
Language and memory
Sentence structuring (Loftus, 1976)
Did you see the broken headlight? Vs.
Did you see a broken headlight?
Shape recognition
Political correctness

Rest rooms, unmentionables

Sanitary engineer, bogármérnök

Manager assistant, gazdasági
levelező

Negro – Black – Afro-American
vs. Gipsy – Roma

Mentally (horizontally/vertically??)
challenged vs. Szellemi fogyatékos

Receiving waters and assimilative
capacity

Substandard dwellings vs. Slums
Does language reflect or
shape our world view?

Four main views
Universalism
Relativism
Language
thought
Linguistic
universalism
Linguistic
relativism
Thought
language
Cognitive
universalism
Cognitive
relativism
Linguistic universalism

Inborn linguistic universals

Expressions of time and place
I
hunt and my child sees me.
 I will hunt.
Lingusitic universals
Example: SVO components in sentences
- 75% of the world's languages:
SVO (English, French, Vietnamese) or
SOV (Japanese, Tibetan, Korean)
- 10 - 15% VSO ( Welsh) or VOS (Malagasy)
- 10 - 15% free word order (Latin, Hungarian),
but SOV common: Márta tortát evett.

NP and VP as main organising sentence
components
Cognitive universalism
Universal principles of thinking reflect


the conditions and limitations of mental
operations
the similar physical and natural
environment
influence linguistic representation as
well.
Structuring old and new
information in sentences
(theme – rheme)
There is a chair in the corner.
A chair is in the corner.
The chair is in the corner.
Lexis
„a fellegekben járt”
„over the moon”, „on top of the world”
Colours
Linguistic relativism
The Whorfian hypothesis
„We dissect nature along lines laid down by our
native languages. The categories and types that
we isolate from the world of phenomena we do
not find there because they stare every observer
in the face; on the contrary, the world is
presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions
which has to be organised by our minds - and
this means largely the linguistic system in our
minds.” (Whorf, 1956:212)
Determinism vs. Relativism
Organising reality: Time
Hungarian, Russian, Romanian, German
Jó reggelt
Jó napot
Bună dimineaţa
Bună ziua
Guten Morgen
Guten Tag

English
Good morning
Jó estét
Bună seara
Guten Abend

French
Bonjour
Good afternoon
Good evening

Bonsoir
Organising reality: Social relations
English


„You” + address forms:
John
Aunt Polly
could you sign this?
Mr. Jones
No syntactic marking of verbs

Russian and French: 2 distinctions


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German: 2 distinctions

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BЫ + 2nd person plural (no distinction betw.
Sg./Pl.)
Vu+2nd person plural (no distinction betw. Sg./Pl.)
Sie + verb in 3rd. Person pl. (no distinction betw.
Sg./Pl.)
Romanian: 2 distinctions

Dumneavoastră + 2nd pers./pl.
Dumneata +2nd pers./sing.
Social relations: Hungarian
Formal/distant:





Between strangers
From younger adult to older adult
Address forms: „Ön”, „Maga”
+ 3rd. Person sing./pl.
Ön is a buszra vár?
Formal/familiar:





From child to adult, young to old
Family, acquaintances, strangers
Address forms: „Anna néni”, „Pista bácsi” +
(tetszik, tessék) + infinitive
El tetszik tudni jönni?
Informal:

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

Between friends and intimates
Often not reciprocal
Increasingly between strangers of the same age
in public places
Address forms:
„Te”, „Ti” + 2nd. Pers./ sing. and pl.
Láttad már az új fiút?
Differences



Distancing or bringing closer?
English: democratic or „keeping everyone at arm’s
length”? (Wierzbicka, 1985)
Russian, French, Romanian:


German, Hungarian:


2nd pers./pl. formal reference: someone present,
accessible, less distant.
3rd pers./sing./pl. indicate someone distant, not accessible.
Hungarian formal/familiar „tetszik”:

indicates respect and choice (do you like it?)
Resulted in ethnocentric evaluations
of cultures

"whether the Japanese are capable of using
logical arguments to the degree that other
people are" ( Hazen, 1986, p.232)

Arab rhetoric is characterised by "ideational
vagueness and formalistic rigidity" (Koch,
1987 as cited in Hatim, 1997, p. 52)
Grounds for criticism

Translation

Circumlocution (e.g. Hungarian
„szalonnasütés”, „pogácsa”)

Possibility of acquiring the logical and
conceptual system of another language.
Cognitive relativism
Different cultural experiences and ways of life
result in different conceptualisations of reality
 Lexis reflecting different physical, natural and
cultural objects
 Lexis reflecting values, attitudes



Másfél szobás lakás/ Two-room flat
Go white
The other half of my orange
Attitude to money






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American English:
MAKE money
British English:
EARN money
Russian:
3APAƂATЫBATЪ EARN money
German:
VERDIENEN
EARN money
Hungarian:
KERES
SEARCH for money
Francia:
GAGNER
WIN/EARN money
Romanian:
CÂSTIGA
WIN money
Attitude to life and death
Hungarian
 „sírva vígad”
 „majd meghal a
nevetéstől/örömtől”
 „halálosan jó/vicces”
 „boldogan éltek, amíg
meg nem haltak”
German
 „und wenn sie nicht
gestorben sind, dann
leben sie noch heute”



English
„tickled to death”
„and they lived happily
ever after”
Culture-based intellectual
traditions influencing rhetoric

Culture-based rhetoric (Kaplan, 1966, 1997)
Weak version of the Whorfian
Hypothesis:
Language does not determine thought, but
probably influences the way we capture and
remember distinctions.
Second language –
second culture
„No man is an island …”
(Donne, 1924)
Culture



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„collective mental programming of the mind”
(Hofstede, 1994:5)
„the know-how a person has to own to be able to
cope with the tasks of everyday life” (Wardhaugh,
1995:192)
„the way a group of people solve their problems”
Trompenaars, 1995:6)
„varieties of common knowledge” Holden, 2002:99
Layers of culture

1st layer: material culture


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Literature, architecture, music, etc.
Food, drinks, clothes, hair stlye, etc.
2nd layer: mental culture

Symbols, values,
expectations, etc.
(Hofstede, 1994)
Types of culture

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Uncertainty avoidance
Power distance
Social collectivism
In-group collectivism
Gender equality
Assertivity
Future-orientation
Achievement orientation
Human orientation (GLOBE 1993-2002)
Power distance



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IKEA Hungary
IKEA Germany
„the boss will tell”
Carl Gustav’s Christmas
Gender

Gillette Férfiasan tökéletes
Uncertainty avoidance


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Low: lack of religious and ethnic tolerance
High: Mobility
Valued knowledge in education

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Knowledge-demonstration
Knowledge-transformation
Universalism/particularism

Driving with a friend (Trompenaars, 1995)
Attitudes

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German language – history
Russian language – ideology
Italian language – climate, life style
American English- economic and cultural
dominance
Second culture acquisition

Culture shock

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Excitement and euphoria
Culture shock
Recovery (anomie)
Assimilation or adaptation
Social distance

Schumann (1976)
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Dominance
Integration
Cohesiveness
Congruence
Permanence
Acton (1979) Perceived social distance
Conclusion

Language and culture influence our interpretation
and representation of reality through



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Lexis (objects, attitudes)
Discourse patterns
Pragmatics
Rhetoric
Wardhaugh (1976): “it is possible to talk about anything
in any language.”

New language – new culture –second language ego