Читать книгу Essentials of Sociology - George Ritzer - Страница 104

Symbolic culture includes the nonmaterial, intangible aspects of culture. In fact, we have already discussed two key forms of symbolic culture—values and norms. However, there is no clear line between material and nonmaterial culture. Most, if not all, material phenomena have symbolic aspects, and various aspects of symbolic culture are manifest in material objects. Our symbolic culture is manifest when we buy American-made rather than Japanese or Korean automobiles in a show of patriotism, purchase the latest iPhone as soon as it is released to denote our technological sophistication, or choose cloth diapers over disposables as a symbol of our commitment to “green” parenting.

One important aspect of symbolic culture is language, a set of meaningful symbols that enables communication. Language, especially in its written form, allows for the storage and development of culture. Cultures with largely oral traditions do manage to accumulate culture and transmit it from one generation or group to another, but written language is a far more effective way of retaining and expanding on a culture.

Perhaps more important, language facilitates communication within a culture. Our words reflect the way in which we think about and see the world. They also shape and influence culture. Suppose a time traveler from the 1950s arrived at a modern-day supermarket to buy something to eat for breakfast. Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, with its sprinkling of sugar, was a noteworthy innovation in the 1950s. However, our time traveler would be bewildered by cereals with brand names such as Froot Loops, Fruity Pebbles, Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Lucky Charms, and so on. The exotic and varied cereals we have now would be considered a marvel by someone from the 1950s. The point, however, is that having names for many kinds of cereals allows consumers to make much finer distinctions about breakfast and to communicate more precisely what it is they wish to eat.

The contemporary world has given us a wealth of new words. For example, in the world of social networking, Twitter has given us the word hashtag to describe a label that helps us in searching tweets. The term trolls refers to those who seek to instigate arguments on social media forums. The consumption-oriented nature of our society has also led to the creation of many new words, a large number of them brand names. For example, the now nearly extinct iPod was the leading portable music device for some time; it led to the development of iTunes. The iPhone is the leading smartphone (another new word), and it has replaced the iPod as well as led to a booming industry in apps (applications) of all sorts. Similarly, globalization has led to new words, including globalization itself, which was virtually unused prior to 1990 (Ritzer and Dean 2019). The boom in sending work to be performed in another country or countries has given us the term outsourcing (Ritzer and Lair 2007).

Words like these are shared by people all over the world and allow them to communicate with one another. Communication among people of different cultures is also easier if they share a mother tongue. As you can see in the simplified map of world languages in Figure 3.2, African cultures use a variety of official and national languages. People in countries where French is the official language, such as Burkina Faso and Niger, can transact their business more easily with one another than they can with nations where Arabic or Portuguese is the primary language, such as Mauritania and Cape Verde.

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Figure 3.2 Distribution of Major Languages

Source: Data from Languages of the World, One World, Nations Online Project.

Communication between cultures is never as easy or as clear as is communication within a given culture. For example, in the 2017 movie The Big Sick, Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his American girlfriend experience numerous clashes over their culture differences. After she becomes seriously ill, Kumail faces cultural entanglements not only with her parents but also with his own parents, who wish to find him a spouse that conforms to their cultural expectations.

In a world dominated by consumption, communication between cultures also takes place through the viewing of common brands. However, brand names well known in some cultures may not translate well in other cultures. As a result, brands are often renamed to better reflect the cultures in which they are being sold. The following list shows the names of some well-known brands in the United States and elsewhere and the way in which they are translated into Chinese.

While such name changes are common, some Chinese brand names are simply phonetic translations of the brands’ names into Chinese. For example, Cadillac is translated “Ka di la ke.” Although this name means nothing to the Chinese, the fact that it is foreign gives it an aura of status and respectability. However, if Microsoft had used a phonetic Chinese translation of the name of its search engine Bing, it would have been in big trouble. In Chinese, the word bing translates into “disease” or “virus.” To avoid being seen as disease-ridden or a carrier of a virus, Microsoft changed the search engine’s Chinese name to Bi ying. This has the far more appealing meaning of “responding without fail” (Wines 2011).

Ask Yourself

Have you ever been in a situation, such as a trip abroad, in which understanding and communicating were difficult for you because you were unfamiliar with the language and symbols around you? How did you cope? Have you ever helped someone else who was in a similar situation? What did you do?