Cultural emphasis

Cultural emphasis is an important aspect of a culture which is often reflected though language and, more specifically, vocabulary.^[1] This means that the vocabulary people use in a culture indicates what is important to that group of people. If there are many words to describe a certain topic in a specific culture, then there is a good chance that that topic is considered important to that culture.

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There’s no question from public opinion polls that people care a lot about the honesty of the person they’re dealing with, whether that’s their doctor or their political leader. And yet it’s more complex than that. Often we don’t want to know the truth.  Do you want to find out that your spouse is cheating on you? Do you want to find out the person that you recommended for a job in your company is embezzling? Do you want to find out that your kids are using heroin? These of course are all things that you want to know but you certainly don’t want to know.  So it’s very complex as to whether or not we really want to catch a liar. We think we do. What if we find out that both of our presidential candidates are lying? Then what do we do? I’m not saying they are; I never comment on anyone in office or running for office. Only after they’re out that they’re fair game. . . . Clinton said, “I didn’t have sex with that woman” and then gave her name. "That woman" is putting her at a distance from himself.  Now there are many reasons why people lie and some are honorable. I study the lies that society cares about, cares about catching, generally disapproves of. The most common reason why people lie is to avoid punishment for breaking a rule. Usually some rules are broken accidentally. You walk down the hallway too fast and you knock over a $2,000 jar that’s on the stand. You didn’t mean to do that. “Did you knock over that jar?” Well, you’re not going to – “Yes, I did. . . .” “No, I don’t know who knocked over that jar. It wasn’t knocked over when I walked by.” You don’t want to get punished. But there are many times where we make the decision – I’m going to break a rule, I’m going to cheat, and I’m going to lie about it. I’m not going to admit that I cheated; I don’t want to get caught. So the decision to lie is made at the same time as the decision to cheat.  When we teach people, and we do in workshops teach people how to catch liars, it takes us 32 hours. . . . Spotting a micro expression is the single most useful thing. This is an expression that lasts about a 25th of a second. We’ve tested over 15,000 people in all walks of life and over 99 percent of them don’t see them, and yet with an hour’s training on the Internet they can learn to see them.   However, that may only tell you that the person’s concealing an emotion. That’s a lie -- they’re not telling you how they really feel. But it may not tell you that they’re the perpetrator of a crime. It’s a terrible example, but I have to use it – my wife is found dead. I will be the first suspect because, regrettably, the person most likely to kill their wife is the husband. . . . “But I love my wife! I didn’t kill her. The police are wasting their time and they’re insulting me! Time is going by and they’re not looking for the real person.” I could be furious at them and concealing my anger. And so if you spot my concealed anger, it doesn’t mean I killed my wife. It only means that I’m concealing my anger. Now if a lie is about how do you really feel, Paul, and you spot a micro expression, then you’ve got it.  Second, realize that only the gestures of your cultural group are you going to recognize. That’s body specific language, but you already know them. You can’t – if I asked you how many gestures are used in America today, you’d give me about 12, but there are actually 80. And if I showed you every one of those 80, you’d know what they mean.  Now the one that amazingly enough has had an enormous payoff is one of the most common ones we use, which is the headshake, yes and no. I just did this. This is actually “yes” and this is “no.” But it occurs in a micro fashion. So I worked on the case of an embezzler who had embezzled over $100 million. He was really big time until Bernie Madoff came along. This embezzler had accused people in a number of banks of being in on the deal, which meant those banks would be vulnerable to having to pay for the embezzlement. And when one of the people who he falsely accused, he is asked, “Did she help you steal the money?” He said, “Yes. Absolutely, she did.” Doing a slight headshake, no. Even tinier than mine.  So there’s a gesture one. There’s a face one.  

Background

The idea of cultural emphasis is rooted form the work of Franz Boas, who is considered to be one of the founders of American Anthropology.^[2] Franz Boas developed and taught concepts such as cultural relativism and the "cultural unconscious", which allowed anthropologists who studied under him, like Edward Sapir and Ruth Benedict, to further study and develop ideas on language and culture.^[3]

Application

One way in which cultural emphasis is exemplified is a populace talks about the weather. For example, in a place where it is cold and it snows a lot, a large collection of words to describe the snow would be expected.

For example: whiteout, blizzard, sleeting, snowdrift, powder snow, packed snow, fresh snow.

In a place where it is hot, a cornucopia of associated terms would be expected.

For example: dry heat, muggy, humid, sticky, monsoon season, sweltering.

A concentration of related terms for similar phenomena suggests the importance in distinguishing between them. Furthermore, if you are not from the area, or that culture, you might not have experienced or know the difference between, for example, a dry heat or a humid heat, when the difference may have huge implications for the outcome of a particular action.

References

Hart, W.B. (2005). "Franz Boas and the roots of intercultural communication research". International and Intercultural Communication Annual (28): 176–193.
Ottenheimer, H.J. (2006). The anthropology of language: An introduction to linguistic anthropology. Belmont: Thomson Higher Education.

^ Ottenheimer 2006, p. 266.
^ Ottenheimer 2006, p. 15.
^ Hart 2005, p. 179.

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This page was last edited on 19 February 2022, at 19:59

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Transcription

Background

Application

See also

References