Rules and regulations: is culture-learning like language -acquisition?
Abstract
The article attempts to tease apart Regulative, Constitutive, Prescriptive and Descriptive Rules, and pinpoints their respective role in First and Second Language Acquisition as well as in Culture Learning.
It is proposed that the proportion of Regulative Rules is generally under-estimated, while the incidence of Constitutive Rules tends to be over-estimated.
The paper puts forward the Rule Category Substitution Fallacy, a hypothesis suggested to be of use in exploring what fuels other-culture intolerance.
The Fallacy is demonstrated to be a practical manifestation of the Terror Management Theory (e.g. Greenberg et al 1997) and a compensation-strategy doomed to failure.
Finally, alternative terror-management strategies are proposed.
Full text article
References
Collin, F 1992. Hannah Arendt and Modernitiy. Paris, Vrin.
Crystal, D 1987. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambrige University Press.
Furnham, A & Bochner, S 1986. Culture Shock. London, Methuen.
Greenberg, J& Solomon, S& Pyszczynski, T 1997. Terror management theory of self-esteem and cultural worldviews: Empirical assessments and conceptual refinements. Zanna, M (ed.) Advances in experimental social psychology. San Diego, Academic Press, 61-139.
Longman Dictionary of the English Language. 1984. Harlow, Longman.
Norenzayan, A& Heine, S 2005. Psychological universals: what are they and how can we know? Psychological Bulletin (131), 763-784.
Rosenblatt, A& Greenberg,J& Solomon, S& Pszyczynski, T& Lyon, D1989. Evidence for terror management theory I: the effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (4), 681-690.
Authors
Copyright (c) 2007 Kinga Williams
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This journal provides immediate and free open access to all its content and is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This means readers are permitted to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as proper attribution is given. This policy is consistent with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access.
Article Details
How to Cite
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Kinga Williams, Rose Aghdami, Managing migration: The applied psychology of international transitions , Journal of Intercultural Communication: Vol. 5 No. 1 (2005)