HOW LANGUAGe SHAPES CULTURE
An extract from our Orange Paper, Upwards, Not Northwards.
Over the centuries there’s been plenty of debate about the origin of language. Where did it come from, when and, easily the most argued, why? Oh yes, we’re up to our Aristotles in philosophy now, friends.
Whether you believe our kind came from monkey, garden or spaceship, it’s generally accepted that language evolved (or existed) to facilitate cooperation.
The most common scientific theory is that early human-beasts expanded their primate communication systems to form theory of mind and a shared intentionality. For those who believe in a more spiritual and civilised origin than evolution from apes, the biblical tale of the Tower of Babel describes how God scattered people with different languages to prevent them from working together.
Language allows us to share knowledge, ideas and stories within our group, but almost as importantly, it allows us to protect this knowledge from outsiders. In this way, language identifies us as belonging to a particular culture, while excluding everyone else. Oh yes, no matter how cosmopolitan our outlook, our tribal tendencies run deep.
Even within a particular language, our accents, dialects and vernacular reveal our affiliation to subcultures — nationality, religion, social class, club, gang, team, culture, pastime, political persuasion, profession or employer. We often adopt different dialects for each of these different cultural affiliations.
Let’s pause a moment here, and look at the word ‘culture’. It’s a term that’s banged on about plenty in the business world. A vague-ish word used to encompass a fuzzy set of shared attitudes, beliefs, rituals, conventions, norms, assumptions and values. These influence our behaviour and how we interpret other people’s behaviour—and as a result, the way in which we interact.
Language is essential in expressing these elements. It also encodes schemas, categories, and metaphors that help us make sense. In this way, language is shaped by and plays a role in shaping culture.
Group identity and social hierarchy
Within any culture, language plays a social role in displaying and constructing personal and group identity. I’m a husband, a brother, a son, a writer, a surfer, a snowboarder, a videographer, a company director, a curious sceptic, and a really bad human before I’ve had my first coffee. I can tell you firsthand that each of these identities exhibits distinct cultural and language differences.
Don’t feel bad for me, though—you have multiple identities too. Studies have documented people talking about unique responsibilities in their life in two-minute blocks. The footage reveals distinct differences in eye contact and frequency of blinking; language speed, intonation and undulation; gestural frequency and amplitude; and posture, for each of these identities. It’s no wonder life is so exhausting.
In addition to identifying us as belonging to a particular culture, language plays a role in how we’re positioned within that group. Deixis refers to the way certain words indicate objects, people and places in relation to their position in time and space. This concept is also used in signalling social distance and hierarchy between people.
Every culture has a system of social deixis. In English, we use first names when we’re on familiar terms, and titles like ‘sir’, ‘Mrs’, ‘Doctor’ or ‘Your Honour’, to show respect.
Other languages use more complex conventions. There may be grammatical variations depending on the gender, age or social class of the speaker and the person they’re talking to.
In East Asia, different words are used depending on whether the speaker is talking to someone of a higher or lower social status. In Australia, the Indigenous language Dyirbal requires that a married man use a special set of words when speaking in the presence of his mother-in-law.
Within our work culture, how do we address each other? Do we use formal titles or informal first names? Does our language amplify hierarchy or flatten it? What subcultures exist, and are the divisions magnified through the use of different language or vernacular?
A focus on what fascinates
Language can indicate cultural values by revealing more, or more nuanced, words for areas of importance. French is an excellent language for describing and appreciating food in inexhaustible, lip-smacking detail. A solid chunk of the Mongolian language is dedicated to discussing animals, which makes sense given their long herding and livestock breeding tradition. Japanese reveals a fascination for the seasons inherited from their agricultural past. It also reflects the cultural importance of politeness. Learning Japanese involves learning how to say please and thank you in several hundred ways, depending on the situation and who you’re addressing.
In our organisations, is there a proliferation of words to describe sales or safety or job satisfaction? Are we emphasising what’s important to us by representing it in our business language?
I was going to finish up with a tongue-in-cheek reference to the soundly flogged old saw about snow and ‘Eskimos’, but thankfully I fact-checked first. Turns out there are several languages in the Inuit and Yupik families, and in none of them is there much evidence of more words than in English for snow. Which robs my conclusion of a little thunder, sadly.
Cultural codes and context
Perhaps the greatest challenge for leaders of large organisations is to faithfully translate the brand, vision and values, and communications to a global workforce. It means forging a cohesive organisational culture that is still flexible enough to dovetail with unique regional cultures. Fostering collaboration between teams composed of very different backgrounds. Creating messaging that’s not only understood — but connects.
Translating words literally into different languages doesn’t guarantee the original meaning is conveyed. Cultural context plays a massive role in the way language is interpreted.
Using another language entails more than simply translating words; communicating like a native speaker means we must also learn the unique cultural codes, behaviours and customs.
I’ve always wondered how much is lost when fiction is translated. Beyond the style and lyricism of the words, how much of the story’s meaning and the subtleties of expression are lost when it’s translated into another language?
I really want to like Murakami, but I confess that I’ve always found his writing ... odd.
Strange even by Japanese standards of strangeness, which certainly speaks volumes. I’ve ploughed stubbornly through three of his books, each time feeling like I was missing something, or misunderstanding what he was trying to say.
So I was intrigued to read an interview with Murakami and one of his regular translators, Jay Rubin, in The New Yorker. Asked about the most untranslatable element of Murakami’s work, Rubin responded: ‘Everything’. It turns out that English speakers aren’t actually reading Murakami; we’re reading Rubin at least 95 per cent of the time. The plot, names, and locations are Murakami’s, but the English words and interpretation are Rubin’s.
The greatest challenge is in the cultural differences encoded into the language.
Take the problem of trying to translate into English, with its single, undifferentiated, all-encompassing ‘I’, the various forms of ‘I’ (‘watashi’/‘boku’) used in Japanese, with their different shadings of meaning around identity, etiquette and formality.
English speakers value specificity, whereas the Japanese language derives beauty from indirectness. To us, a literal translation would seem vague and ambiguous, the meaning obscure. Yet to a Japanese speaker, it’s what’s implied but unmentioned that often matters most. Subjects are left out of sentences, vernacular and onomatopoeia are used to suggest meaning. It’s a perspective close to impossible to replicate in English. It simply doesn’t translate.
Humour is also difficult to translate effectively. This isn’t only because jokes like puns that rely on language are often lost, but because different cultures find different things funny. Even within the anglophone world, American and British humour are quite distinct. Consider the respective versions of the TV series The Office or the movie Death at a Funeral. The same storylines are delivered very differently in each culture.
Ironically, the most amusing cross-cultural humour derives from mistranslations. Ever sniggered inappropriately at the subtitles on a foreign- language film? No? You’re probably a much better person than me.
For poet Charles Simic, ‘It’s that pigheaded effort to convey in words of another language not only the literal meaning of a poem but an alien way of seeing things...To translate is not only to experience what makes each language distinct, but to draw close to the mystery of the relationship between word and thing, letter and spirit, self and world.’
Writer and linguist Umberto Eco proposed that every culture can be studied as communication using semiotics, the study of signs and symbols, and their meaning in different cultures. He pointed out that our messages can be interpreted differently from what was intended when we don’t share the same language, belief system or culture. This is a notion known as aberrant decoding.
When we look at European prehistoric cave paintings, most of us see a herd of bison, the ground trembling under their hooves in their triumphant escape
from the hunters. However, psychologist Margaret Abercrombie argues that our cultural value towards living animals has resulted in an aberrant decoding of the pictograms.
The people who used this language had a very different set of values. Pre- vegan, pre-farming, pre-abattoir, pre-supermarket, their lives depended on the hunt and...the kill. If we look closer at the bison in the paintings, Abercrombie says, we see they’re actually lying on their sides. I hate to break this to you, guys, but she’s saying those bison are actually...dead.*
Looking at this idea in a business context, the Disney brand is synonymous with American culture, but works well in Japan with very little adaptation. Japanese culture values cuteness and gift-giving, so it’s not surprising that Tokyo Disney has been successful, with the highest sales of souvenirs worldwide. The Disneyland Paris venture, on the other hand, failed gloriously because Disney didn’t succeed in translating the brand to align with French culture codes.
In contrast, Nike works to understand the unique cultural codes that define their consumers in each market, and adapts their language to suit. When marketing to men, Nike uses a tool called The Ideal Man to frame the messaging. Each culture has a different idea of what ‘being a man’ means. Nike identifies these qualities through a series of questions based on sociology and social anthropology.
This tool allows Nike to translate a focused message across extremely diverse cultures. Very different words may be used in each region, but the message aligns far more accurately with the respective cultural codes than a literal word-for-word translation of western marketing slogans would.
* Or tired. Yeah. They were just very, very tired. Probably just sleeping, guys.
