A language pattern co-occurring with violence-permissiveness

• Published in: Behavioral Science Vol. 16; no. 6; pp. 531 - 537
• Main Author: Witucki, Jeannette
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: California John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.11.1971; University of Michigan, Mental Health Research Institute
• Subjects: Anxiety; Attitude; Cross-Cultural Comparison; Culture; Grammar/Grammatical; Homicide; Humans; Language/Languages; Legislation as Topic; Linguistics; Pattern/Patterns/Patterning; Permissiveness; Self Concept; Social Conditions; Social structure/Social structures; Structure/Structures/ Structuring/ Structured; Violence/Violent
• ISSN: 0005-7940; 1099-1743; 1932-300X
• DOI: 10.1002/bs.3830160603

This paper describes a cross‐cultural study comparing features of grammatical structure and features of social structure. The linguistic variable is the degree to which subject pronouns are pre‐posed to predicating elements. The cultural variable is the relative amount of legal control of homicide. It was hypothesized that in a society providing a greater degree of personal protection to its members, individuals will have a relatively greater sense of personal security, and this attitude may be expressed in the associated language by a greater emphasis on self (i.e., pre‐posing subject pronouns more than post‐posing them). Arguments from anthropology, linguistics, and information theory are given to support the possibility of a correlation between these variables. To test the hypothesis, data was collected on 60 world cultures and the associated languages. The two variables were separately rated on scales of one to ten. These ratings were subjected to a correlation coefficient test.