Language And Verbal Communication Across Cultures Questions ...

Language And Verbal 

Communication Across Cultures 

Introduction 

Presented by: 

Doni Andri Cahyono 

Bioniko Tauhid 

Christoph Schwing 

Contents: 

Linguistic Relativism and Universalism 

Functional Relativity 

− Language and Context 

Differences in Language Use Across Cultures 

− Values on Speech 

− Language Styles and Code-Choice 

− Speech Acts 

− Validity of cross cultural Theorizing 

Literature References 

Introduction 

Translation tools do not consider the context 

Importance of the context is different from 

language to language and from culture to 

culture 

For a good translation a good understanding of 

both languages and both cultures is required 

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Questions... 

...can be posed after the presentation! 

Please make notes if necessary. 

Introduction 

„Different cultures have different systems of 

meaning(i.e., languages)[...]“ 

Difficulties to understand each other 

Possible Solution: Translation tools (software, 

etc.) 

Problem: Translated messages may be 

inaccurate 

Exact sense cannot be translated 

− Only words and grammatical structures 

Linguistic Relativism & Universalism 

It is commonly accepted “that language, thought 

and culture are closely tied together” 

Each language has its own worldview 

There exist two opposing theories on how 

thought and language are interfering 

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Linguistic Relativism 

Linguistic relativity principle: 

„which means, in informal terms that users of 

markedly different grammars are pointed by their 

grammars toward different types of observations 

and different evaluations of externally similar 

acts of observation, and hence are not 

equivalent as observes but must arrive at 

somewhat different views of the world“ 

(Whorf 1956) 

Linguistic Universalism 


− Is an opposing theory to the 'Linguistic relativity 

principle' 

− It states that thinking is not dependent on the 

spoken language 

Cognitive sciences: 

− “mind is inbuilt capacities that have universal 

properties” 

− Our 'inner language' is universal 

Functional Relativism 

Now we will have a look at the functional aspects 

of Linguistic Relativism 

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Linguistic Relativism 

The linguistic relativity principle states: 

− Language influences the way of thinking 

As an example: 

− Comparison of English and Hopi-language 

− English:time treated as an object, countable 

− Hopi: time treated as a recurring event 


Universal elements: 

− Basic terms as colours, etc. may be universal 

− Table is a table 

− Water is water 

Validity of Linguistic Universalism 

− Single lexical items 

− Connected items creating a grammar are no more 

universal 

Language and context 

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Bernstein(1971) while examining children's 

language, learned that different classes within a 

single-language community use different type of 

language. 

Children from middle-class family used what 

called elaborated code. 

Children from lower working-class family used 

the restricted code. 

Restricted code 


employs short simple grammar and often incomplete 

sentences of poor syntactic structure. 

is rigid and limited in the use of adjectives and adverbs 

manifests small vocabulary and context-bound 

requires many shared experiences. 

The speaker's intention is implicit and unelaborated. 

Speech shows high dependency on extraverbal 

channel. 


Positional oriented family 

Communication system is closed, what one 

allow to say or not allow to say depend on the 

position in the family hierarchy 

Members are seen as of the occupant of the 

position in the family hierarchy 

Use imperatives mode of control, ask the 

children to pursue the obligation that the 

occupant of the position must fulfill. 

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Elaborated code 


makes use of accurate and sophisticated 

grammatical structures. 

uses wide range of adjectives and adverbs 

manifests a relatively large vocabulary. 

The speaker's intention, therefore is explicit and 

verbally elaborated. 

Speech depends little on extraverbal channels. 


Bernstein (1971,1972) relates code not only to 

classes but also to family types. 


Person oriented family 



Children neither experience enough elaborated 

messages nor realize the necessity to elaborate 

their meanings. 

These children therefore acquire restricted 

code. 

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Members are seen as equal individuals and 

judge by their individual qualities 

Communication system is open, all family 

members are allowed to communicate freely. 

Use personal appeals that are rational and 

personalized and required sophisticated skill of 

persuasion. 


Restricted code is also known as high-context 

communication. 

Elaborated code is also know as low-context 

communication. 

Roughly speaking, 

Eastern societies manifest high-context culture 

and more positional 

Western societies manifest low-context culture 

and more personal 

Values on Speech 

Zen Buddhists refer language as people’s capability 

of thinking, limiting the imagination and imposing 

biases, and therefore, they try to meditate without 

language and communicate beyond language. 

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Children grow up hearing a variety of messages 

that are delivered in well-elaborated manners 

and realize that they also have to elaborate to 

get their meaning across 

These children therefore acquire elaborated 

code. 

Differences in Language Use 

Across Cultures 


Yum, 1988 : 

The belief of oneness, or a perfect harmony, 

became a tenet for all major East Asian religions 

including Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. 

This will reflect how little faith Eastern cultures place 

in words. On the contrary, the Western cultures 

have developed a rich tradition of speech, 

subscribing to the principle of the universality of 

meanings. 

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The Western culture of words and the Eastern 

culture of harmony are well illustrated in their 

respective explanations of the creation of the 

universe. 

e.g : 

Lao-Tze taught to stay away from words, saying, 

“To become the way the Nature intended you to be, 

you should speak rarely” 

(Tao De Jing, 23). 


As a matter of fact, prudent speech is always 

encouraged: “if a gentleman is frivolous, he will 

lose the respect of his inferiors” (Waley, 1938, 

p.85) and these religious teachings are deeply 

rooted in the mind of Asians (Gudykunst & Kim, 

1984). 

According to Western standard, those things are 

considered as typical of very reticent behaviour 

of Asians (Kang & Pearce, 1983). 


In Asian cultures, rhetoric has been too important 

to be severed from its religio-philosophical 

context. (Oliver, 1971, p.11). 

The Asian attitude toward speech and rhetoric is 

characteristically a holistic one; that is, the words 

are only part of, and are inseparable from, the 

total communication context, which includes the 

personal characters of the parties involved and 

the nature of the interpersonal relationship 

between them (Gudykunst & Kim, 1984). 

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Confusius demystifies Lao-Tze’s teachings and 

applies them to real-life communication. His 

teachings on verbal communication are no more 

liberal than those of Lao-Tze. 

He taught that “fancy words and embellished 

styles do not bear virtues and words more often 

than not cause troubles” 


Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle taught the importance 

of reasoning and logical persuasion on the other side 

of the world : 

This rhetorical tradition reflects in a profound way 

the Western cultural pattern of logical, rational, and 

analytical thinking. A primary function of speech in 

this tradition is to express one’s ideas and thoughts 

as clearly, logically, and persuasively as possible, so 

the speaker can be fully recognized for his or her 

individuality in influencing others. (Gudykunst & Kim, 

1984, p.140) 


Westerner value silence as a pause, empty 

space, absence of sound, or blank in 

communication (Hasegawa & Gudykunst, 1998) 

and it will make conversationalists become 

uneasy. 

European culture places a great premium not 

only on knowing but also on saying what one 

knows (Wierzbicka, 1991). 

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Silence is not always valued in Asia since it is 

preferred to verbalization only when the latter 

poses a threat to the face of self or the other 

such as in disagreement, challenge, talking back 

to superiors, interrupting the other’s speech, 

breaking peace by initiating a conversation, and 

speaking out one’s knowledge. Therefore, when 

a response or active participation is expected by 

the other person, keeping silent is rather 

considered impolite or uncooperative. 

Languages Styles and Code-Choice 

The cardinal devotion of the Asian mind to the 

related concepts of unity and harmony (Oliver, 

1971 p. 10) gave rise to two crucial linguistic 

characteristics: 

1. status-markedness 

2. group-orientedness. 

Goldstein and Tamura (1975), after a lengthy 

comparison between Japanese and American 

English, concluded that Japanese focuses much 

more sharply on two elements, status and group, 

than does American English. 


In Asia, status difference overrules social 

distance. Whenever one speaks to a superior or 

an elder, one has to employ honorifics no matter 

how close they may be. The informal one-down 

style in the Korean language is especially used 

toward intimate superiors. The formal one-up 

style is used toward inferiors who have already 

established respectable degrees of status. 

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Japanese viewed silence very negative in some 

situations. Particularly when communicating with 

a stranger, silence is considered more negative 

(Hasegawa and Gudykunst, 1998). 


Indo-European languages use some isolated 

linguistic devices, such as pronouns (Brown & 

Gilman, 1960), address terms (Ervin-Tripp, 1974) 

and more or less imposing speech acts (Brown 

and Levinson, 1987), to mark status differences. 

Korean and Japanese manifests the differences 

in the whole system of language. Koreans 

distinguish five different styles of language in 

terms of formality: formal one-down, informal 

one-down, one-across, formal one-up, and 

informal one-up, in order of the respect 

manifested. 


Asians tend to distinguish between the private 

code, language used when no third parties are 

present and the public code, language used in 

presence of others. 

In Japan, the parents or grandparents, when 

speaking to one another in the presence of 

children, mostly use the same kinship terms used 

by the children to respect the other’s status. 

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Age is one of the most important elements of status. 

In Korea, a difference of even one or two years in 

age creates a difference in status. Within the sibling 

group, age differences are well respected in 

Japanese and Korean families. 

Older siblings call the younger by name, younger 

siblings call the older by kinship terms such as 

“older brother” or “older sister” (Goldstein & Tamura, 

1975). 

These age differences outside family, nevertheless, 

are also well respected. 


In English, one cannot carry on a conversation 

without pronouns, and one feels uncomfortable 

speaking when the name of hearer has been 

forgotten (Goldstein & Tamura, 1975). English 

speakers need to confirm constantly the 

individual identity of the other person. 

Speech Acts 

Asians compared to Westerners are very low in 

self-assertiveness. 

Japanese is more regulated than white English, 

which, in turn, is more regulated than black 

English (Kochman, 1981). Particularly between 

ingroups, Asians tend to suppress confrontations 

or expression of negative verbal messages. 

Courtesy often takes precedence over 

truthfulness (Gudykunst & Kim, 1984, p. 142) 

which leads Asians to give an agreeable and 

pleasant answer to a question when a literal, 

factual answer might be unpleasant or 

embarrassing (Hall & Whyte, 1960). 

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Group identity in Japanese and Korean goes 

beyond identifying with ingroup members. Their 

languages manifest careful considerations not to 

separate the other from self. 

In Japanese and Korean, the confirmation of 

individual identities is avoided throughout the 

conversation by minimizing the use of you, I, and 

each other’s name. They can speak perfectly well 

with minimal reliance on pronouns (when the 

subject of a sentence is a pronoun, it is usually 

omitted) and are quite comfortable even if they 

cannot remember the other’s name (Goldstein & 

Tamura, 1975). 

Speech Acts 

Asians tend to be concerned more with the 

overall emotional quality of the interaction than 

with the meaning of particular words or 

sentences (Gudykunst & Kim, 1984, p. 142). 

They believe that in the long term their 

relationship –not their words- will help 

accomplish their communication goals. 

Speech Acts 

Asians tend to suppress expression of their emotion. 

Being emotional in Asian culture is believed to reflect 

a lack of self-control, which is a sign of a frivolous 

nature. Asians will say good instead of fantastic and 

not very good instead of terrible. 

Even when expressing strong personal affection, a 

style of hesitancy and indirectness is commonly 

preferred. Asians can even be suspicious of the 

genuineness of direct verbal expressions of love and 

respect. Excessive verbal praise or compliments 

sometimes are received with feelings of 

embarrassment (Gudykunst & Kim, 1984, p.142) 

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Speech Acts 

Italian culture, Slavic cultures, Jewish culture, 

and American black culture are also very 

expressive. These cultures value “uninhibited 

emotional expression” whether feelings are good 

or bad (Wierzbicka, 1991). 

Low assertiveness and expressiveness of Asians 

inevitably lead to high ambiguity of their 

messages. 

Speech Acts 

The ways in Asians generate implicatures fall 

outside the scope of Grice’s theory. As Yoshikawa 

(1978) observes, what is verbally expressed and 

what is actually intended are two different things. 

To understand the real intention, one should not 

know the knowledge of conversation and 

contextual information but pure intuition obtained 

through a lengthy history of contact with the 

speaker. 

Validity of Cross-Cultural 

Theorizing 

In 1994, Lim reported that the “wants” to be 

autonomous, respected, competent, and 

accepted which correspond to Brown and 

Levinson claimed, in 1987, that universal theory 

of politeness was based on a dozen languages 

from all quarters of the world. 

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Speech Acts 

Ambiguity of messages prompted cultures 

emphasizing high-context communication to 

develop strategies to decode the message 

accurately. Even in Western societies where 

meanings are relatively well elaborated, more 

can be meant than what is actually said. 

Particularly when the speaker attempts to trigger 

not a “standard” but a “generated implicature” by 

“exploiting the maxims of conversation” (Grice, 

1975). 


Theorizing 

There are certain constant efforts have been 

made to identify universal features: 

1. Universal natural logic (Gordon & Lakoff, 

1975). 

2. Universal logic of conversation (Grice, 1975). 

3. Universal rules of indirectness (Searle, 1975) 

4. Universal logic of politeness strategy selection 

(Brown & Levinson, 1987) 


Theorizing 

Being reachable of a valid generalization on a 

particular pragmatic feature, one has to compare 

the whole system of the pragmatic feature of one 

language with those of other languages. 

This does not mean that there are no universals 

in language use. Comparative studies always 

yield certain similarities among cultures and 

seem to exist at atomic, semantic, or general 

levels, not at molecular, episodic, or specific 

levels (Gumperz and Levinson, 1996). 

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Theorizing 

Universal of language use should be searched by 

focusing more on the basic semantic elements or 

semantic primitives, and the study on specific 

uses of language or pragmatics should be more 

sensitive to cultural diversity. 

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References 

Tae-Seop Lim, “Language and Verbal 

Communication Across Cultures”, in Handbook 

of International and Intercultural 

Communication, W.B. Gudykunst and B. 

Moody, Eds. Thousand Oaks: Sage 

Publications, 2002, pp. 69-87 

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