What kinds of problems can result when people from different cultures use words so differently?
Prejudiced Talk
Both the dominant culture (the culture in power, the mainstream culture composed of people who share the same values, beliefs, and ways of behaving and communicating and who pass them on from one generation to another) and co-cultures (groups of people such as African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, musicians, athletes, environmentalists, and drug users, who have a culture of their own outside the dominant culture) have different languages. Hence, usages vary between these cultures.
Linguistic Prejudice
Sometimes members of a dominant culture use derogatory terms or racist language to label members of a co-culture, disparage them as inferior or undesirable, and set them apart from the mainstream group. Linguistic prejudice, or the use of prejudiced language, reflects the dominant group’s desire to exert its power over less dominant groups. Such language stresses the differences between people of different groups, downplays any similarities, implies that the people who are different do not make an effort to adapt, and suggests that they are involved in negative acts and that they threaten the interest of the in-group members.39
Racial Code Words
The courts have ruled that managers who use racial code words (words that are discriminatory but not literally racist), such as “you people” and “one of them,” help create a racially hostile environment. As a result of such rulings, many businesses are banning the use of such phrases.40
Additionally, corporate advertisers and educational institutions have long used Native American names such as “redskins,” “braves,” and “Seminoles,” along with logos and images including severed heads and tomahawks to “play Indian” and sell products and events.41 The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has banned them as exploitative unless the named American Indian tribe explicitly approves the use. In your opinion, is the use of representations like these racist?
miker/Shutterstock.com
Globalization’s Effects on Language
Because of free trade, and the popularity of Hollywood and the Internet, the use of English around the world is growing. With globalization, more and more companies use English as their internal language.42 This side effect of globalization does not please everyone. The fear among non-English-speaking nations is that their native languages will disappear, threatening national identity. For example, so many young Germans mix their language with English so freely that their speech is called Denglish, a blend of Deutsch (meaning “German”) and English.43 Similarly, many Chinese speak what is known as “Chinglish”44 and the Hispanic community in New York has produced “Spanglish.”
Gender and Language
Too many of us persist in sex-role stereotyping. For example, if you refer to a surgeon as a “he” and a nurse as a “she” when you have no knowledge of the person’s sex, or if you highlight the sex of a professional by alluding to a “male nurse” or a “female lawyer” instead of keeping language gender-free, sexism is present.
Sexist Language
Sexist language perpetuates negative stereotypes and negatively affects communication. Past use of male generics, such as mankind, chairman, spokesman, manpower, and Man of the Year, share blame for causing men to be perceived as more important or significant than women. To counter this perception, many companies and individuals stopped using male generics and other kinds of sexist language and use gender-neutral language instead.
michaeljung/Shutterstock.com
Another way that language use may be sexist is the way words are used to address women. Women, much more than men, are addressed through terms of endearment such as honey, cutie, and sweetie, which function to devalue women by depriving them of their name while renaming them with trivial terms.45
Naming Practices
Psychologist Albert Mehrabian has studied reactions to unisex names. He notes that when a boy’s name catches on with girls, it usually loses favor as a name for boys. Historically, U.S. parents have felt free to choose androgynous names for girls. In contrast, some countries, like Finland, have official lists of boys’ names and girls’ names that parents must select from.46 Names often reflect fashion, taste, and culture. In Venezuela, for example, legislators introduced a bill that prohibited Venezuelan parents from giving their children names that exposed them to ridicule or were hard to pronounce in Spanish.47 In Thailand, children are given English nicknames like Pig, Money, Fat, and Seven because they are easier for foreigners to pronounce.48 In southern Africa, parents choose the names of children to convey a special meaning, rather than participate in the latest fad, as is common in the West. Names that translate as God Knows, Enough, Wind, and Rain are common in southern Africa.49 Alfred Mehrabian reports that people in the United States respond differently to different names, exhibiting more positive reactions to more common names.50
Ethics and Communication
The Words We Choose
Phrases we recall readily and words chosen to highlight reveal a lot about the words’ users. Consider the following:
The study “Sex Bias in the Newspaper Treatment of Male-Centered and Female-Centered News Stories” by K. G. Foreit and colleagues, published in 1980, revealed that a woman’s marital status was mentioned in 64% of the newspaper stories examined, whereas a man’s marital status was mentioned in only 12%. Have things changed today?
Pick up a copy of a current English-language newspaper or magazine or check online. Identify and count the number of male-centered and female-centered news stories in it. Also count the number of times the marital status of each person is referred to in each story. Have we made any progress?
Ethics and Communication
More Words We Choose
Phrases we recall readily and words chosen to highlight reveal a lot about the words’ users. Consider the following:
1 In Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear, author, pollster, and media commentator Frank Luntz observes that “Great movie quotes become part of our cultural vocabulary.” For example, although they are from films made years ago, many of us still use the phrases “I’ll be back,” from The Terminator; “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate,” from Cool Hand Luke; “You talking to me?” from Taxi Driver”; and “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore,” from Network. Interestingly, each of these lines was spoken by a male character.
Similarly, ad slogans such as “I’m lovin’ it” (McDonald’s) and “Just do it” (Nike) are equally remembered and stick in our brains to be recalled forever.
What quotes from recent films do you think we will still