CULTURE : LANGUAGE

Language

•    Language is a primary delineator of cultural groups because it is an important means.

•    Experts have identified some 3,000 different languages and as many as 10,000 distinct dialects worldwide (see Map).

•    In one famous experiment in Hong Kong, 153 undergraduate students, bilingual in English and Chinese, were divided into two groups. One group was given a class assignment written in English; the other was given the same assignment written in Chinese.

•    French, German, and Spanish, have informal and formal forms of the word “you,” the use of which depends on the relationship between the speaker and the person addressed.

•    India recognizes 16 official languages, and approximately 3,000 dialects are spoken within its boundaries.

•    South America, including Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru, many poor rural residents speak local Indian dialects and have trouble communicating with the Spanish-speaking urban elites.

•    Savvy business people operating in heterogeneous societies adapt their marketing and business practices along linguistic lines to account for cultural differences among their prospective customers.

•    Market researchers discovered that English Canadians favor soaps that promise cleanliness, while French Canadians prefer pleasantor sweet-smelling soaps.

Language as a Competitive Weapon

•         Linguistic ties often create important competitive advantages because the ability to communicate is so important in conducting business transactions.

•         Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States is facilitated by their common use of English.

•          Spain’s Telefonica SA moved aggressively into Latin America as part of its internationalization strategy.

•         It has bought controlling interests in the formerly state-owned telephone monopolies of Argentina, Chile, and Peru. Spanish banks such as Banco Santander, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, and Banco Central Hispano adopted a comparable approach, investing heavily in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay.

•         Turkey is fast becoming the jumping-off point for doing business.

•         The linguistic legacy of colonialism also affects international business, as Map 4.2 indicates.

Lingua Franca

•         International business people must be able to communicate.

•         British economic and military dominance in the nineteenth century and U.S. dominance since World War II, English has emerged as the predominant common language, or lingua franca, of international business

Example

•         Philips, the Dutch-based electronics MNC, has used English for intracorporate communications since 1983.

Translation

•         Some linguistic differences may be overcome through translation.

•         Translators must be sensitive to subtleties in the connotations of words and focus on translating ideas, not the words hemselves.

•         Translation problems create marketing disasters.

Example Case

•         KFC’s initial translation of “Finger Lickin’ Good” into Chinese, which came out as the far less appetizing “Eat Your Fingers Off.” Similarly, the original translation of Pillsbury’s Jolly Green Giant for the Saudi Arabian market was “intimidating green ogre”—a very different image from what the firm intended (although it still might encourage children to eat their peas).

Saying No

•         Another cultural difficulty international businesspeople face is that words may have different meanings to persons with diverse cultural backgrounds.

•         North Americans typically translate the Spanish word mañanaliterally to mean “tomorrow,” but in parts of Latin America, the word is used to mean “some other day—not today.”

•         Even the use of yes and no differs across cultures.

•         Misunderstandings can be compounded because directly uttering “no” is considered very impolite in Japan.

•         Japanese negotiators who find a proposal unacceptable will, in order to be polite, suggest that it “presents many difficulties” or requires “further study.”

•         Foreigners waiting for a definitive “no” may have to wait a long time. Such behavior may be considered evasive in U.S. business culture, but it is the essence of politeness in Japanese business culture.