On Linguistic Aspects from a Cross-cultural Perspective

 

Mariana Neagu, Ph.D

Department of English, University of Galati, Romania

mneagu@ compro.ro

 

Abstract

This paper explores the issue of culture and its relationship to language and cognition by dealing with a number of lexical concepts, grammatical concepts and cultural scripts.

Taking a moderate view, I reconcile universalism and ethnocentrism and argue that the study

of culture-specific aspects of language has both a theoretical and practical importance. Theoretically, anyone trying to learn another language and to understand another culture has to separate within a culture its universal aspects from its idiosyncretic aspects. The practical aim of this study is to highlight and discuss linguistic aspects that can make translation and intercultural communication difficult and troublesome. The paper offers a survey of similarities and discrepancies in metaphor-based compounds, intensifiers, syntactic reduplication and the application of conversation maxims. To this last end I approach aspects of pragmatics which are culturally determined in the sense that they express cultural norms, values, ideals, attitudes.

1. Introduction

The idea that different languages are bearers of different cognitive perspectives, different worldviews, was emphasized by Wilhelm von Humboldt (1903).

The connection between language, culture and cognition concerned the 19th century American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf whom Lakoff [4] calls ‘a pioneer in linguistics and a pioneer as a human being’.

Like Whorf, Lakoff believes that differences in conceptual systems affect behaviour in a significant way and that it is vitally important to understand how our behavior is dependent on how we think.

Chomsky (1987) supports the opposite view that concepts are innate and have a culture-independent character.

In the last decade no contemporary linguist has published as profusely on the problem of variation and universals in language and thinking as Anna Wierzbicka. Unlike Whorf who had focussed more on grammar, Wierzbicka has done a lot of work on vocabulary, particularly on heavily-culture laden vocabulary such as terms for emotions, speech acts, cultural values. She maintains that culture-specific lexicalized concepts have a profound influence on habitual patterns of thinking.

The essential idea supported by Wierzbicka consists of the belief that is impossible for a human being to carry out any investigation from a completely extra-cultural perspective. As a basic hypothesis Wierzbicka [8] claims that each language is composed of a limited number of elementary concepts existing in all other languages and of an unequally greater amount of complex concepts that can be described as culture-specific combinations of the basic set. Elementary semantic universals are deemed to be the appropriate components of a culture-independent metalanguge by means of which comparative studies of meaning should be carried out. Semantic primes serve as a culture-free analytical framework for interpreting the similarities and differences between the meaning systems of different languages. The list of hypothetical semantic primitives includes the following:

  1. substantives: I, you, someone, people, something, body, word
  2. determining elements: this, the same, other, one, two, some, much, all
  3. experiencing verbs: know, think, want, feel, see, hear
  4. actions and processes: say, do, happen, move
  5. existence and possession: there is, have
  6. life and death: live, die
  7. evaluation and description: good, bad, big, small
  8. spatial concepts: where, here, above, below, near, far, inside, side
  9. temporal concepts: when, now, before, after, a long time, a short time, for some time
  10. relational elements: kind of, part of, very, more, like
  11. logical elements: if, because, not, maybe, can.

2. Different construals of the same concept

The notion of construal, i.e. the cognitive strategy by which a speaker decides on a particular linguistic alternative in portraying a given conceptualization, becomes evident if we compare the names for the same referent in various languages. For instance, what English construes as horse-shoe ‘shoe for horse’ is construed in French as fer a cheval ’iron for horse’ and as Hufeisen ‘hoof iron’ in German. All these signs are motivated. English and French see a relationship between the animal as a whole and the protecting device, while German relates the protecting device to the relevant bodypart of the horse. Moreover, French and German highlight the material the protecting device is made of, whereas English by using shoe takes an anthropocentric view of the scene [2].

The construal of a conceptualization often depends on what has been called ‘perspective’, i.e. the viewpoint adopted by the conceptualizer/speaker of a referent or a situation. Thus, the English grand piano perspectivizes the size, while the French piano a queue ‘tail piano’ and the German Flugel ‘wing (piano)’ suggest that the focus is on shape or position. The metaphorical similarity with an animal body-part, e.g. tail, also occurs in the English compound tailcoat but not in its French correspondent, habit (noir) where colour is perspectivized.

In some other examples the perspective used is on the material, as in the English pavement, unlike in French where its equivalent, trottoir, derived from trotter ‘to rush, to trot’, focuses on the function, whereas in German, Burgersteig ‘part of the road for the civilians’ points to the Agent, i.e., the people who use it.

3. Identical or similar construals of the same concept

Ethnobiological nomenclature, i.e. folk names of animals and plants, provides plenty of terms where people use metaphors when they name birds, insects, sea animals, plants, etc. What is interesting to note is that metaphor usually occurs in compounds that denote members of a subordinate category: peacock butterfly, tiger-moth, catfish, sea-horse, ox-eye daisy (ox-daisy), adder’s tongue. As can be noticed, the compound consists of a head (Determinatum) that denominates the higher category and a specifier (determiner) that denominates the different characteristic. The specifying part is actually the appearance property which is perspectivized: e.g. the coloured spots of a peacock in peacock butterfly, a cat’s whiskers in catfish, etc.

Similar or identical appearance attributes are sometimes highlighted in Romanian: paunul de zi ‘peacock butterfly’, calut de mare ’sea-horse’, stea de mare ‘starfish’/’sea star’, arici de mare ‘sea hedgehog’/sea urchin, ochiul-boului ’ox-eye-daisy’, barba-caprei ’goat’s beard, coada calului ‘ horsetail/horse pipe’.

Another category of concepts that have similar construals in English and Romanian concern descriptions of humans by means of compounds made up of an animal noun and a body-part noun:

E: bull-neck, wasp-waisted, eagle-nose, hare-lip, drake’s tail, pony-tail, goose flesh/skin

R: ceafa de taur, trup de viespe, nas acvilin, buza de iepure, coada de ratoi, coama de cal,

piele de gaina.

4. Culture-specific words and lexicalizations of cultural values

The conceptual differences between languages are evident if we compare the relatively small number of semantic primitives/primes mentioned in the first section with the number of culture–specific words, i.e. words that reflect and embody the distinctive historical and cultural experiences of a speech community. The semantic fields culture-specific words usually pertain to include the domains of food and drinks, articles of dress, customs, holidays, dances, games, sports, politics and economics. Some prosaic examples from the food domain include the Romanian cozonac ‘ceremonial cake, made of leavened dough, kneaded with eggs, milk, sugar and butter’, piftie ‘dish specific of winter festivals, consisting of jelly prepared of boiled pork or fowl meat, bones and cartilages, with pounded garlic’. The Polish have special words for cabbage stew (bigos) and beetroot soup (barszcz) while the Scots take pride in their toffee, haggis or scone.

Japanese has the word obi to denote a specific article of clothing worn round the belly while certain regiments of the British army wear busbies for special ceremonies. The domain of customs and holidays can be exemplified by the Romanian hram ’feast of a patron saint’, the Japanese chanoyu ‘ceremony of the tea’, the Scottish and Irish ceilidh ‘informal gathering with folk music, singing, dancing and story-telling’. From the domain of specific Romanian folk dances hora, calusari, perinita, ciuleadra are worth mentioning here.

Concerning the linguistic realization of certain cultural values it is interesting to note that American English expresses preferences for cultural values like independence and individualism in cut the (ombilical) cord, not to be tied to one’s mother apron strings, look out for number one, stand on one’s own feet, leave the nest. The pragmatic nature of the American society shows up at language level in structures that place a stronger emphasis on doing (including producing) rather than on being. Thus, questions like What do you DO ? or How do you DO seem to be more common than What ARE you and How ARE you?. Further evidence can be brought by mentioning some key words specific to English speaking culture, i.e. work, love and freedom. The first term has at least fourteen related meanings and occurs in fixed phrases as in the examples below:

  1. Can you work it so that we get free tickets? (work it = arrange matters)
  2. Be careful with the money and work to a budget (work to sth = follow a plan)

The above-mentioned terms are frequent in proverbs, sayings, popular songs, book tittles, aphorisms, etc.:

(3) ‘Nice Work’ in one of my favourite novels by David Lodge.

  1. ‘Work and love- these are the basics. Without them there is neurosis”

(Theodore Reik, Of Love and Lust)

A common, everyday word in modern English which needs some comment because its range of use differs from that of its equivalents in other languages is happy. If we look across other languages of Europe such as German, French, Italian, Romanian, we can see that essentially, happy conveys a weaker, less intense emotion than glucklich, heureux, felice and fericit. This can be explained by the semantic component ‘contentedness’ that in some contexts becomes the main feature of the English word:

  1. a. Are you thinking of applying for a transfer?

b. No, I’m quite happy where I am.

5. Culture-specific metaphors

One case in point is ‘worthless person’ denoted in English by lemon, rotten apple, small potatoes (colloquial American English) and in Romanian by muratura (lit.’pickle’), pleava (lit.’chaff’) and poama (dialectal form for the literal ‘fruit’). Obviously, the encoder’s attitude towards the referent is disdain and the Ground relates to impact or value:

rotten apple - Ground: similar degree of impact

small potatoes – Ground: similar degree of value

The examples we have mentioned in English and Romanian support the idea that fruits and vegetables are evaluated and assume different degrees of importance in our eyes, i.e. subjective judgements explain the different lexicalizations in the two languages analysed.

There are instances in which plant metaphors in one language are not paralleled by metaphors from the same domain in the other language. For example, gooseberry ‘unwanted third person present when two lovers want to be alone together’ has no such equivalent in Romanian. The figurative sense of gooseberry is encoded by the Romanian idiom a cincea roata la caruta (lit. ‘the fifth wheel of a cart’) which is based on a Ground made up of the features /unnecessary/ and /hindering/.

Aside from the apple of one’s eye, almost all terms imply negative connotations to a lesser or greater extent: wall flower, shrinking violet, couch potato, bean pole, apple polisher, grass widow.

The figurative use of clod ‘human being as non-spiritual and mortal’ is shared by many languages, Romanian included, as a result of the anthropogenic myth (specific to many agrarian cultures) according to which the human being is a kind of embryo which grows in the womb of Terra Mater.

The cult of Mater Telus, central to Romanian mythology, materialized in a wide range of traditions and habits which, in my opinion, could explain the extremely rich phraseology containing words from the semantic field of ‘earth’: a fugi mâncând pământul ‘run neck or nothing’, din pământ din iarbă verde ‘by hook and by crook’, a ieşi ca din pământ ‘appear from the middle of nowhere’, a băga pe cineva în pământ ‘be the death of somebody’, că doar n-a intrat în pământ ‘he cannot have melted away’, parcă l-a înghiţit pământul he seems to have vanished into the thin air’etc.

6. Grammatical aspects connected with culture

As far as aspects of grammar connected with culture are concerned, I compare expressive grammatical devices like intensifiers in English, Romanian and Italian. Relative to Romanian, I assume that the idea of intensity of a state or action is conveyed, in certain registers, by terms and expressions pertaining to basic element source domains such as fire and earth. The source domain of fire is manifest in colloquial Romanian in the following collocations conveying the idea of intensityof a state or condition: frumoasa foc (lit. fire-beautiful) ’very beautiful’, urata foc lit. fire-ugly) ’very ugly’, suparat foc(lit. fire-angry) ‘very angry’, gelos foc (lit. fire-gelous) ‘very jelous’. Syntactic patterns related to the latter source domain, i.e. earth are sarac lipit pamantului ’as poor as a church mouse’, frumusetea pamantului ‘beauty of the earth’ uratenia pamantului ’as ugly as sin’, bunatatea pamantului ‘extermely kind-hearted’ and rautatea pamantului ‘very malicious and wicked’. A third device used as an intensifier not only in Romanian but also in other languages is syntactic reduplication. For instance, the idea of extreme beauty is conveyed in Romanian by the pattern frumoasa-frumoaselor ‘beauty of the beauties’ and in Italian by bella-bella ‘very beautiful’. If we compare this reduplication construction with the absolute superlative bellissimo ‘most beautiful’ we see that both are expressive grammatical devices in the sense that they express the speaker’s emotional attitude. In the former case the emphasis is on a word that the speaker regards as being well-chosen and he/she uses it responsibly, strictly or accurately. The latter case is an instance of expressive overstatement characteristic of speakers of Italian and closely connected with what has been called ‘the theatrical quality of Italian life [1].

7. Pragmatic aspects connected with culture

Out of the conversation principles established by Grice [3] i.e. the maxim of quality, the maxim of quantity, the maxim of relevance and the maxim of manner, the fourth one is highly culture-specific and we should realize that each culture has different norms and interpretations for it. In cognitive literature, cultural norms for communication behaviour are called cultural scripts and described in terms of directness, formality and politeness. Concerning directness in verbal interaction, we believe that indirectness is the rule in parts of the Far-East, especially in the Japanese culture that is well-known for its verbal reticence, a fact linked with the Japanese ideal of enryo ’restraint, reserve’. In contrast with this, American English strongly emphasizes directness in verbal communication, an attitude which is in line with ideals of individual freedom and personal autonomy. This tendency can be exemplified by expressions like Don’t beat around the bush, Let’s get down to business, Get to the point, Out with it, Speak up, Go right ahead. Nevertheless, directives in English do not exclude the application of polite strategies and if we compare them with polite reguests in French and German we see that the latter have a more forthright linguistic realization:

  1. a. Could you do this?

b. Would you mind doing this?

  1. Faites ca, s’il vous plait
  2. a. Unterschreiben sie, bitte!

b. Sie mussen hier unterschreiben.

Relative to the use of the modal mussen we notice that it occurs in situations where it would not do so in English, French, Romanian. Thus, requests containing must, devoir/falloir, trebui are not so frequent as in German.

Acknowledgement illocutions such as acts of acceptance and acts of rejection are another area where cultures may differ in point of strategies. Consider, for instance, the following dialogue at a party:

  1. Hostess: Would you like some more dessert?

Guest: No, thank you. It’s delicious, but I’ve really had enough.

Hostess: OK, why don’t we leave the table and sit in the living room?

In this dialogue the hostess does not repeat the offer more than once, a ‘rule’ that is almost ritualized in Western countries and does not characterize parts of the Middle East, where the host is expected to offer food several times. In spite of the well-known Anglo-American directness in speech, there are instances where the maxim of manner is partially violated because of ambiguity, as in this dialogue:

  1. A: It was nice talking to you. I have to run to class.

B: OK, maybe we can meet sometime soon.

A: Yeah, love to. Why don’t you drop by my house sometime?

B: Great. Gotta go. See ya soon.

This dialogue may be interpreted as an invitation but actually it is not, as there is no specification of date, time or place. So, it is not a definite, genuine invitation, but a polite way of closing a conversation. The Politeness Principle may sometimes come in contradiction with the Cooperation Principle. The former is emphasized by the Japanese culture and is called the Modesty Maxim [5]. The greater value attached to the Modesty Maxim in Japanese culture is evident in at least two situations: complementing and gift-giving. For example, among Japanese women it is more polite to keep denying a complement than accept it graciously, by thanking the speaker for it. Similarly, when giving presents, the Japanese may use understatement and say ‘This is a gift which will be of no use to you but…’

In Romanian culture, gift-giving takes the form of hospitality which has been raised to the level of life principle, irrespective of the circumstances of the host [7]. The key words pointing to this custom are casa deschisa ‘open house’ and masa intinsa ’set table’. In support of this idea we can mention the Italian Niccolo Barsi who says: ‘I found here [in Romania] the most beautiful custom I have ever encountered in the regions of the world where I travelled. In this town [Husi] as well as the rest of the country, people are in the habit of feeding and accommodating all travellers free of charge.’

8. Conclusion

In this paper we acknowledged the role of semantic primes and also emphasized the idea that verbal communication remains culture-specific up to a point, for several reasons. Starting from the premise that language is a revealing and valuable guide to culture and social psychology, we stressed the differences across languages in the hope of a better understanding of the contrasts in the use of metaphors, intensifiers, syntactic reduplication, conversation principles.

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