aggression

[Benjamin Rifkin]

The very question is problematic.  The terms "hard consonant" and "soft  
consonant" are linguistic.  They cannot be related to behavioral  
phenomena.  For comparison, in some languages nouns are classified  
according to categories that have come to be known as "gender":  the  
word "table" may be masculine in some languages, but feminine in  
others. It is not possible to ascribe to the concept "table" any  
qualities of masculinity or femininity.  The names given to the  
linguistic phenomenon are names of convenience for scholars describing  
that language: these terms cannot be associated with other phenomena.

In the case of the interpretation of "aggressiveness" the problem is  
one of intercultural understanding and individual personality traits  
rather than one of the linguistic qualities of the languages spoken by  
individuals of different cultures.  People from the New York City area  
*generally* speak more rapidly than people from the southeastern part  
of the United States.  Southerners may find New Yorkers aggressive for  
that reason.  A Russian may complete a phone conversation in 3 minutes  
and hang up with a sense that the conversation is *complete*; people in  
my family tend to have a 3-minute phone conversation followed by a  
12-minute process of saying good-bye.  One pattern is not more  
aggressive or less polite than they other; they are simply different  
cultural norms and have to be understood in that context.

Ben Rifkin

  On Mar 17, 2004, at 8:39 AM, erich steffen wrote:

> hello
>
> i have a simple question wher maybe sb can help me:
>
> i heard about that the hard pronunciation in common slavic languages  
> is a
> reason for some peole being more aggressive than when spoken to in  
> another
> language?
>
> is there a corn of thruth in this or is it just bl***ht?
>
> thanx for some inputs
>
> eric
>
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*************
Benjamin Rifkin
Professor of Slavic Languages, UW-Madison
1432 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706 USA
Voice (608) 262-1623; Fax (608) 265-2814
http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/slavic

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