Cultural scripts, ways of speaking and perceptions of personal autonomy: Anglo English vs. Singapore English
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Jock Onn Wong
Abstract
Every language variety embodies a set of culture-specific ways of thinking that can be articulated with maximal clarity and minimal ethnocentrism in the form of ‘cultural scripts’ using natural semantic metalanguage (NSM). In this study, perceptions of ‘personal autonomy’ in Anglo culture and in Singapore culture are explored on the basis of linguistic evidence using NSM. These Anglo and Singaporean attitudes to personal autonomy are articulated in the form of cultural scripts, and are thus compared and contrasted. The proposed cultural scripts show that even though Anglo English speakers and Singapore English speakers can both be said to speak the same ‘language’, the cultural values reflected by the two varieties can be radically different from and even at odds with each other.
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Cultural scripts: What are they and what are they good for?
- Areal cultural scripts for social interaction in West African communities
- Not just words: Korean social models and the use of honorifics
- Chinese categorization of interpersonal relationships and the cultural logic of Chinese social interaction: An indigenous perspective
- Cultural scripts, ways of speaking and perceptions of personal autonomy: Anglo English vs. Singapore English
- The ethnopragmatics of the diminutive in conversational Colombian Spanish
Articles in the same Issue
- Cultural scripts: What are they and what are they good for?
- Areal cultural scripts for social interaction in West African communities
- Not just words: Korean social models and the use of honorifics
- Chinese categorization of interpersonal relationships and the cultural logic of Chinese social interaction: An indigenous perspective
- Cultural scripts, ways of speaking and perceptions of personal autonomy: Anglo English vs. Singapore English
- The ethnopragmatics of the diminutive in conversational Colombian Spanish
