Linguistic categories and culture

VI. Read and study the following article and then say how it proves the words given above. Point out the main features of a scientific text. Translate the article from English into Russian.

Native American and Australian Aboriginal languages are often cited as examples which roundly refute popular misconceptions about primitive languages, e.g. ‘simple societies can’t have complex grammars’. Kwakiutl, a Native American language, for example, requires grammatical classification of nouns based on whether they are visible or not. And while French requires every noun to be assigned to one of two genders, Dyirbal, an Australian Aboriginal language, has four such categories.

Using Western criteria, the traditional nomadic lifestyle of the Aboriginal people of Australia seems very simple. Their culture, however, is thousands of years old and their languages are amongst the most interesting and grammatically complex that have been researched. Every noun in Dyirbal belongs to one of the four classes, illustrated in table 13.2 Consequently, whenever a Dyirbal speaker uses a noun in a sentence the noun must be preceded by one of the four classifiers: bayi, balan, balam or bala. Can you identify any semantic coherence between the items in the different classes?

While there is some basis in perceived shared semantic features for the allocation of Dyirbal nouns to different classes, the answer to this question is not at all obvious to those from other cultures. The general patterns Dyirbal speakers seem to use to learn the system can be summarized as follows:

I. Bayi: (human) males; some animals

II. Balan: (human) females, birds, water, fire, fighting

III. Balam: non-flesh food

IV. Bala: everything else

Particular types of experience establish associations which determine the class membership of some items. So, for instance, fish are in class I because they are animate, and fishing implements are also in class I because they associated with fish. This also explains why sun and stars are in the same class as fire. However, Dyirbal myths and cultural beliefs also make a contribution to class allocation. So, contrary to Western mythology, the moon is male and husband of the sun, which is female. Hence the moon is in class 1 with men, while the sun is in class 2 with women. Birds are believed to be spirits of dead human females, and hence they are also in class 2. The system is of course totally automatic for Dyirbal speakers, and one should not necessarily expect a speaker to be able to explain it to an outsider. Nor should we expect the relationship between categorization and cultural beliefs to be direct, transparent or available to reflection. After all, a German speaker would be hard pressed to explain the word Madchen meaning ‘girl’ is in the same category as inanimate objects such as books (Buch), while English speakers would have difficulty interpreting the significance of the fact that the English demonstratives this vs that code degrees of proximity to the speaker.

Even at the lexico-semanic level Aboriginal languages challenge Western preconceptions about primitive languages.

Clearly Kunwinjku has many more terms to label distinctions among kangaroos and wallabies than English does. The reasons are obvious: kangaroos are an important part of the Aboriginal people’s environment. In cultures which use rice as a staple of the diet, there are distinct terms not only for different types of rice, but also for many different ways of cooking rice. Bird-watchers, skiers, geologists and gardeners are similarly able to lexically identify distinctions of importance to them. This suggests an alternative to Whorf’s position, then: rather than language determining what is perceived, it is rather the physical and socio-cultural environment which determines the distinctions that the language develops.

From this perspective, language provides a means of encoding a community knowledge, beliefs, and values, i.e. its culture. Tahitians don’ make a distinction between ‘sadness’ and ‘sickness’, for instance, using the same word for both. This reflects their belief that ‘sadness / sickness’ can be attributed to an attack by evil spirits, a belief that may initially seem odd to someone from Western culture. However, Western medical practice now recognizes depression as an illness, and English uses many metaphorical terms for depression which no doubt appear just as strange to those from other cultures, e.g. feeling blue, in low spirits, feeling down, under the weather, and so on. The word mate covers a continuum from ‘sick’ to ‘dead’ in Maori, a continuum that Western culture perceives as a sharp distinction between the living and the dead. Dead kinsfolk are always explicitly referred to in any ritual, and treated as an extension of the living family.

(Janet Holmes “Introduction to Sociolinguistics”)

***

VII. You are offered a socio-cultural portrait of a Russian. Say: 1) whether you agree or disagree with it and how full it is; 2) what other traits of Russian national character could be added?

Point out words and expressions characterizing a typical Russian and sum them up. Pick out from the dictionary proverbs and sayings about Russian character.

Try to make up some other socio-cultural portraits of other nations.

The Russian character, like any other, was largely moulded by time and space. History and geography have left their mark on it. Actually, history explains and justifies many things but unfortunately few people know it properly. Centuries of permanent military threat have determined a special patriotism of Russians; the severe climate has led the necessity of living and working together, the vastness of the country has become a reason for the specific greatness of Russian scale. Even though all these generations are relative and conditional some regularities of the Russian national character can be formulated.

Folk tales are particularly significant for revealing the national character. The initial ideas about the world, good and evil, moral values are shaped by them. Generally, the heroes of folk tales of most “normal” (not “mysterious”) peoples are big, strong, handsome supermen, preferably with something magic – a sword, a horse, etc. endowing them with superpower. The supermen save their country and people from all kinds of evil: dragons, monsters, hostile armies, etc. Russia folklore has it share of this sort of heroes. However, the main and the most favourite “hero” of Russian folk tales is Ivan-durak, or Ivan the Fool who is deliberately unheroic. Indeed, he is the opposite to a big strong handsome superman because he is small, humble, and seems to be weak and stupid. All his actions and reactions confirm his reputation of a fool because they are not “normal”: he does not want to be rich or famous, does not try to marry a princess, declines all good offers and prospects. Unlike his clever, pragmatic and prosperous brothers, he is inactive shabbily dressed, very humble both in appearance and behaviour, and therefore neglected and mocked by the people who surround him. However, at the end of all tales it is he, the fool, who outwits all the clever ones, gets the princess, and half-kingdom.

Thus, Russian children learn from their early childhood that one should not judge people by the way they look, behave or by what they seem to be. They realize that the heart, the essence, the soul are more important than the appearance and manners, that it is not only supermen who rule the world, and many other useful things,

The real power of Ivan the Fool is not in a magic sword but in his being simple, sincere, un pragmatic, and unmercenary. He gives his last piece of bread to a hungry she-hare and later she, also being a humblest creature in her world, helps him to destroy a monster. His charity is rewarded in this way, and children learn to be kind and unselfish. He does not strive for anything and gets everything, and children learn that to be pushing and overdetermined is not always rewarding. Nobody takes him seriously and makes him strong. “Bad guys” discuss their bad plans, plots and intrigues in his presence neglecting him as a fool and he defeats them afterwards. He is native, compassionate, unpractical, non-talkative. As a result know-alls regard him as a fool and Russian people – as their hero.

The image of Ivan the Fool is a key to the riddle of the Russian soul, and the more foreign visitors know about it the better because it tells a lot about the Russian mentality, system of values, a way of life and behaviour.

(Павловская А.В. «Как делать бизнес в России. Путеводитель для деловых людей»)

VIII. Here are some English proverbs. Give their Russian equivalents (if possible) and say how they help to complete socio-cultural portraits of the two nations representatives. What universal truths and what national traits of character do the proverbs reveal? What other English and Russian proverbs could be added to the list given?

As you make your bed, so you must lie on it

All is well that ends well

A rolling stone gathers no moss

A watched pot never boils; a watched pot is long in boiling

Birds of a feather flock together

Don’t cross the bridges before you come to them; don’t cross the bridge till you get to it

Every cloud has a silver lining

Half a loaf is better than no bread

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good

Least said soonest mended

Look before you leap

Make hay while the sun shines

Misfortunes never come alone

No news is good news

Nothing venture, nothing have

Old birds are not to be caught with chaff

One good turn deserves another

There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip

Where there’s a will, there’s a way

While there is life there is hope