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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif"">Hello Maïa – If the generalization about the distribution of referential practices across cultures is to be meaningful – let alone explainable in cultural terms – then the relevant cultural properties
must be defined independently of those referential practices. – Best – Juergen<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black">Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)<br>
Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>
University at Buffalo <br>
<br>
Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus<br>
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 <br>
Phone: (716) 645 0127 <br>
Fax: (716) 645 3825<br>
Email: </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><a href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" title="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:#0078D4">jb77@buffalo.edu</span></a></span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"><br>
Web: </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/" title="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:#0563C1">http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/</span></a></span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"> <br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh) </span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"><br>
<br>
There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In <br>
(Leonard Cohen) </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<b><span style="color:black">From: </span></b><span style="color:black">Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of PONSONNET Maia via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Date: </b>Monday, June 2, 2025 at 01:25<br>
<b>To: </b>Lingtyp Linguistics Typology <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Lingtyp] Two terminological quandaries for the price of one: 'traditional' and 'non-Western' cultures<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">Hello, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">If the criterial observation is about space, perhaps this could be the source for the label ? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">Allocentric-frame cultures and intrisic-frame cultures ? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">I understand one may want to generalize about clusters of properties or "profiles" matching these observations, but can we? Doesn't a lot of the work
on space also points out to the importance of individual experience etc. ? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">I am not super familiar with the Causlity across Cultures work (will take a look), but this reminds me a bit of the dividual/individual contrast, which
are highly influenced by the posture of the observer in my opinion? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">Tongue in cheek: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">What about low-symbolism colors? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">E.g. pink vs yellow cultures? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">This would also convey the notion that this is not a sharp divide ? (eg orangé cultures)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">Cheers and best wishes for a nice week, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">Maïa<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">Maïa Ponsonnet</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">Chargée de Recherche HDR @ CNRS Dynamique Du Langage</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">14, avenue Berthelot, 69007 Lyon, FRANCE -- +33 4 72 72 65 46</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">Adjunct @ University of Western Australia</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">+ + + + +</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:8.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">Membre du Comité d'Ethique de la Recherche, Université de Lyon</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">De :</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"> Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org>
de la part de Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Envoyé :</b> lundi 2 juin 2025 06:19<br>
<b>À :</b> Jocelyn Aznar; lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org<br>
<b>Objet :</b> Re: [Lingtyp] Two terminological quandaries for the price of one: 'traditional' and 'non-Western' cultures</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri Light",sans-serif;color:black">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">Dear Jocelyn – Yes, I can see that. (I received the same question off-list from Dan Slobin.)
</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">The two concepts are relevant to distinct projects, so I’ll discuss them again separately.
</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">A central finding of the MesoSpace project is that preferences for relative reference frames (in both language and nonverbal cognition) have only been attested in large-scale post-industrial
societies.* The question is, how do I refer to the complement set of populations, the one for which existing quantitative studies have found a prevalence of allocentric frames?</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">(* – Recently, an interesting partial exception to this generalization has surfaced: Ogelo & Bylund 2024 report that Dholuo speakers prefer intrinsic frames for featured grounds (grounds
with distinctive parts that permit the assignment intrinsic ‘front’/‘back’/‘side’ terms), but relative frames for unfeatured grounds. This is to my knowledge the first such study that has systematically compared frame use with featured and unfeatured grounds.
We do know from previous work (Levinson 1994; Levy 1994) that even populations with a clear geocentric bias rely on relative frames for meronym assignment to unfeatured grounds (conversely, no communities have ever been attested in which meronym assignment
is done geocentrically). </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">Meanwhile, the
<a href="https://causalityacrosslanguages.wordpress.com/">Causality Across Languages</a> project has interfaced with a research tradition in Social Psychology that contrasts ‘sociocentric’ and ‘egocentric’ concepts of personhood. (The claim of interest is that
the nexus b/w causal attribution and intentionality is culture-specific, and at the very least weaker in sociocentric communities than in egocentric ones.) The problem for me is that in this tradition, it is often tacitly or explicitly assumed that ‘Western’
cultures are ‘egocentric’ and ‘non-Western’ cultures ‘sociocentric.’ Consider for example Foley (1997: 266) (with apologies to Bill Foley, whose excellent book I’ve used for 20 years to teach Ling Anth):
</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">“The egocentric individualist concept of the person in Western culture is in marked contrast to that of many traditional cultures. These cultures have a sociocentric, context dependent
conception of personhood (Shweder and Bourne 1984).”</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">(As a bonus, in this quote we also get the further equation of ‘non-Western’ with ‘traditional’.)</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">But even if I want to criticize such equations (if only as empirically at best premature), it seems that I have to find a way of talking about the types of cultural communities involved.
</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">Thanks! – Juergen</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">Foley, W. A. (1997).
<i>Anthropological linguistics: An introduction</i>. Malden, MA: Blackwell.</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">Levinson, S. C. (1994). Vision, shape, and linguistic description: Tzeltal body-part terminology and object description. In S. C. Levinson & J. B. Haviland (eds.),
<i>Space in Mayan languages. Special issue of</i> <i>Linguistics</i> 32 (4): 791-856.</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">Levy, P. (1994).
<i>How shape becomes grammar: On the semantics of part morphemes in Totonac</i>. Working Paper 29, Cognitive Anthropology Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.</span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black">Ogelo, A. & E. Bylund. (2024). Spatial frames of reference in Dholuo.
<i>Language Sciences</i> (104). <i>https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2024.101614</i></span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black">Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)<br>
Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>
University at Buffalo <br>
<br>
Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus<br>
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 <br>
Phone: (716) 645 0127 <br>
Fax: (716) 645 3825<br>
Email: </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><a href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" title="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:#0078D4">jb77@buffalo.edu</span></a></span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"><br>
Web: </span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black"><a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/" title="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:#0563C1">http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/</span></a></span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"> <br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh) </span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Helvetica;color:black"><br>
<br>
There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In <br>
(Leonard Cohen) </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:black">-- </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span lang="DE" style="font-family:"CMU Serif";color:black"> </span><span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p style="margin-left:.5in"><b><span style="color:black">From: </span></b><span style="color:black">Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Jocelyn Aznar via Lingtyp <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Date: </b>Friday, May 30, 2025 at 17:12<br>
<b>To: </b>lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Lingtyp] Two terminological quandaries for the price of one: 'traditional' and 'non-Western' cultures<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:black">Dear everyone,<br>
<br>
Somehow, it seems to me that the issue is to try to subsume societies <br>
with different situations and histories into one category, an endeavor <br>
that can only lead to either misrepresent many societies, or not really <br>
tell anything interesting. So I don't see any "one solution for every <br>
situation", as many terms mentioned previously in this discussion can be <br>
relevant depending on the specific interrogation/research question at hand.<br>
<br>
But perhaps the question should be more about the context associated <br>
with this inquiry? Is there a research question, or at least some more <br>
context, associated with this terminological issue? Maybe then can we <br>
suggest terms that could represent and distinguish properly the <br>
societies/communities in this given context.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Jocelyn<br>
<br>
Le 30/05/2025 à 18:54, Martin Haspelmath via Lingtyp a écrit :<br>
> I have encountered a similar problem, when trying to talk about "non- <br>
> LOL" (or "non-WISPy") languages, where I have sometimes used the label <br>
> "small languages".<br>
> <br>
> This does not sound very good, but "minor(ity) languages" is much worse, <br>
> I think, because many minority languages are not small at all (e.g. <br>
> Catalan in Spain, or Tatar in Russia, or Spanish in the US). Moreover, <br>
> there seems to have been a general shift to "minoritized languages", <br>
> which has additional overtones.<br>
> <br>
> For languages, "traditional" does not work at all, because all languages <br>
> have a tradition. For societies, it may work, but it has an association <br>
> with "non-industrialized", "marginalized" and "poor".<br>
> <br>
> However, I really didn't understand what Juegen was getting at – because <br>
> in Asia and Africa, there are big industrialized societies which are not <br>
> of European descent.<br>
> <br>
> But if we are looking for a term for "small-scale [indigenous] <br>
> communities practicing predominantly non-industrial (or pre-industrial) <br>
> modes of production in non-urban settings", why not simply say "small- <br>
> scale societies"? It seems that industrialized and urban societies would <br>
> never be considered small-scale, and Western countries hardly include <br>
> such societies, so maybe we can simply talk about "small-scale <br>
> societies"? (Most of these speak "small languages", but there are some <br>
> "small languages" spoken in urban/industrial settings.)<br>
> <br>
> Best,<br>
> <br>
> Martin<br>
> <br>
> On 30.05.25 03:40, Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> Dear all – I really need your help with this! I’ve been struggling for <br>
>> quite some time now with the terms ‘traditional culture/society’ and <br>
>> ‘(non-)Western culture/society’. Both concepts play significant roles <br>
>> in my work, but both labels seem problematic. I’m looking for better <br>
>> alternatives. (If you want to call this query an exercise in political <br>
>> correctness, I would plead guilty to the charge. I do try to avoid <br>
>> offending people unintentionally.)<br>
>><br>
>> Let me briefly try to explicate the concepts that I have been using <br>
>> these labels for:<br>
>><br>
>> ‘Traditional cultures/societies’: Small-scale indigenous communities <br>
>> practicing predominantly non-industrial (or pre-industrial) modes of <br>
>> production in non-urban settings. By ‘small-scale’, I mean that <br>
>> stratification is predominantly in terms of age and gender, division <br>
>> of labor is low, and offices of power are largely non-hereditary. By <br>
>> ‘indigenous’, I mean pragmatically that the presence of the community <br>
>> in the area they inhabit is not an immediate result of European <br>
>> colonization. And the concept needs to be flexible enough to allow for <br>
>> the fact that the overwhelming majority of such communities are part <br>
>> of larger majority societies, are in more or less intensive contact <br>
>> with them, are under pressure by them, etc.<br>
>><br>
>> I suspect that objections to the label ‘traditional’ may be the result <br>
>> of associating that label with Social Darwinism. At the same time, I <br>
>> find the label acceptable to the extent that one accepts that modes of <br>
>> production, while not following a strict developmental sequence, are <br>
>> not distributed randomly throughout human history either, particularly <br>
>> in the sense that industrialization did not take place prior to the <br>
>> Industrial Revolution. So what I’m looking for is a label that <br>
>> occupies the sweet spot between Social Darwinism and completely <br>
>> ahistoric and non-evolutionary perspectives of social organization.<br>
>><br>
>> The sexiest currently available alternative to ‘traditional’ is ‘non- <br>
>> WEIRD’, in the Heinrich-et-al.-(2010) sense of ‘WEIRD’ (Western <br>
>> educated industrialized rich democratic). I don’t personally mind <br>
>> using that term, but it is awfully vague. There are many developing <br>
>> nations that I would not consider WEIRD (they may check neither of the <br>
>> five definitional properties), but that do not globally fit the <br>
>> ‘traditional’ concept either.<br>
>><br>
>> ‘(Non-)Western cultures/societies’: By this I mean any cultures/ <br>
>> societies of (non-)European origin/descent. The problem with the label <br>
>> ‘Western’ is the very misleading geographic association with the <br>
>> Western hemisphere: the vast majority of Europe isn’t even part of the <br>
>> Western hemisphere, and there are ‘Western’ societies (societies of <br>
>> European descent) outside Europe **and** outside the Western <br>
>> hemisphere, **and** of course there are many ‘non-Western’ cultures in <br>
>> the Western hemisphere. I’m well aware that the etymology of this use <br>
>> of ‘Western’ has little to do with the model of the geographic <br>
>> hemispheres, but my sense is that people make the association whether <br>
>> it belongs there or not – I know I do.<br>
>><br>
>> I suspect the best solution to the second problem is to just talk <br>
>> about ‘cultures/societies of (non-)European origin/descent’. That’s a <br>
>> mouthful, but sooner or later somebody will coin a handy acronym. But <br>
>> I wanted to make sure I’m not missing anything.<br>
>><br>
>> Anyway, many thanks in advance for your help! – Juergen<br>
>><br>
>> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)<br>
>> Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>
>> University at Buffalo<br>
>><br>
>> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus<br>
>> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260<br>
>> Phone: (716) 645 0127<br>
>> Fax: (716) 645 3825<br>
>> Email: jb77@buffalo.edu <<a href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu">mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu</a>><br>
>> Web: <a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/">http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/</a> <http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/
<br>
>> ~jb77/><br>
>><br>
>> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID <br>
>> 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)<br>
>><br>
>> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In<br>
>> (Leonard Cohen)<br>
>><br>
>> -- <br>
>><br>
>><br>
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