Language sciences volume 27 issue 1 2005 [doi 10 1016%2fj langsci 2004 05 001] cliff goddard the lex by Vlad Shoo

Language Sciences 27 (2005) 51–73 www.elsevier.com/locate/langsci

The lexical semantics of culture Cliﬀ Goddard

School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales 2351, Australia Accepted 17 May 2004

Abstract Culture is one of the key words of the English language, in popular as well as scholarly discourse. It is ﬂourishing in popular usage, with a proliferation of extended uses (police culture, Barbie culture, argument culture, culture of complaint, etc.), while being endlessly debated in intellectual circles. Though it is sometimes observed that the meaning of the English word culture is highly language-speciﬁc, its precise lexical semantics has received surprisingly little attention. The main task undertaken in this paper is to develop and justify semantic explications for the common ordinary meanings of this polysemous word. My analytical framework is the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) approach originated by Anna Wierzbicka. I will propose a set of semantic explications framed in terms of empirically established universal semantic primes such as PEOPLE , THINK , DO , LIVE , NOT , LIKE , THE SAME , and OTHER . 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Abstract concepts; Lexical semantics; Natural semantic metalanguage; Wierzbicka; Culture concept

1. Introduction Williams (1976, p. 87) famously described culture as ‘‘one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language’’. Though there is no doubt an element of

Fax: +61 67 73 3735. E-mail address: cgoddard@metz.une.edu.au

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rhetorical overstatement in this dictum, I show in this study that the English word culture indeed exhibits a complicated network of interlocking polysemic meanings. My approach will be a lexicographic–semantic one, employing the natural semantic metalanguage method of semantic description of Wierzbicka (1996), Goddard (1998) and Goddard and Wierzbicka (2002). Using the method of reductive paraphrase in semantic primes, I hope to bring new clarity to bear on the meaning of what is undeniably a key word of the English language, in both popular and scholarly discourse. There is much to be gained from a systematic exploration of the abstract ‘‘metacategories’’ of English, such as culture, society, science, art, religion, politics, etc. From a purely semantic point of view, such abstract words pose an intriguing, and as far as I know, little tackled, analytical challenge. Since they constitute a high-level language-specific taxonomy of human activity, articulating their meaning structure in close detail would presumably shed much light on prevailing social and cultural attitudes. Many such words are, furthermore, foundational terms of particular academic discourses: culture is the key word of anthropology, society the key word for sociology, and so on. Of central interest is the fact that all these terms are highly language/culture-specific. Even in other European languages the nearest counterparts to culture, for example, such as German Kultur or Polish kultura, differ significantly to the English word, 1 and one could expect greater differences in concepts from more distant languages, such as Mandarin Chinese wen2hua4 Ôculture, cultivationÕ or Malay kebudayaan Ôculture, traditional cultureÕ. Similarly with the English concept of science, its extreme culture-specificity is shown by the fact that even a language as close as German lacks an exact equivalent. German Wissenschaft, roughly Ô(systematic) knowledgeÕ, has a much broader range of application which includes the humanities as well as science in the English sense. 2 The semantics of such abstract metacategories is surely a compelling topic for sustained cross-linguistic and cross-cultural study. I intend to make a start here with the English word culture. As Bauman (1996, p. 9) observes in the opening passages of his book Contesting Culture: ‘‘No idea is as fundamental to an anthropological understanding of social life as the concept of culture. At the same time, no anthropological term has spread into public parlance and political discourse as this word has done over the past 20 years.’’ Ironically, however, as this process has been under way the so-called ‘‘culture concept’’ has been subject to sustained scrutiny and criticism in anthropology itself (cf. Duranti, 1997; Kuper, 1999; Shweder, 2001). Among its alleged sins, as itemised by Shweder, 2001, p. 3152), are: ÔessentialismÕ, ÔprimordialismÕ, ÔrepresentationalismÕ,

In the case of culture and related terms, a start has been made in classic studies such as Elias (1978[1939]), but without the beneﬁt of modern methods of linguistic semantics. 2 With the aid of modiﬁers one can distinguish Naturwissenschaften Ôsystematic knowledge of nature, natural sciencesÕ from Geisteswissenschaften Ôsystematic knowledge of human spirit, humanistic sciencesÕ, but the existence of these derived subcategories does not alter the fact that German has a broader overarching category lacking in English; plus, on close examination, neither of the German derived terms precisely matches the English terminology of English either.

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ÔreificationÕ, ÔidealismÕ, ÔpositivismÕ, ÔfunctionalismÕ, ÔrelativismÕ, ÔsexismÕ, ÔracismÕ, ÔcolonialismÕ, ÔOrientalismÕ, and Ôjust plain old-fashioned stereotypingÕ. 3 My primary focus in this study is not on specialised academic understandings of the culture concept, but rather on the lexical semantics of the word culture as used in contemporary non-technical written and spoken discourse. Most of the examples I will cite come from Australian newspapers and magazines published in 2002–2003 (the abbreviations SMH and Aust refer to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian newspapers, respectively). A smaller number of (unsourced) examples represent personal observations by myself, usually from ephemeral sources, and the remaining handful are drawn from recently published books intended for non-academic audiences. I will, however, have occasion to refer to intellectual critiques of the culture concept to the extent that they can be connected with the semantic structure of the ordinary word culture. As far as I know, no previous study has sought to bring the methods of linguistic semantics to bear on the word culture. 4 The present study employs the natural semantic metalanguage method originated by Wierzbicka (1972, 1996, 1999) (cf. Goddard and Wierzbicka, 1994, 2002; Goddard, 1998). I will therefore be seeking to articulate the various meanings of culture in the form of explanatory paraphrases framed in a highly constrained metalanguage of some 60 simple semantic primes, such as PEOPLE , THINK , DO , SAY , GOOD , BAD , BECAUSE , IF , and others. By using such a small and controlled vocabulary (see Appendix A), the method aims to eliminate the circularity and obscurity which plague most dictionary definitions (and most scholarly discussions), and to enable the maximum possible resolution of meaning. A growing body of evidence, accumulated over 20 years, indicates that the postulated primes are lexically encoded, as words or word-like elements, in all languages. A large body of empirical semantic description has been conducted in this framework, spanning domains such as emotions, speech acts, colours, concrete objects, value terms and a variety of grammatical phenomena, in many languages. 5 Before we get started, a brief historical overview will provide some useful orientation (cf. Williams, 1976; Kuper, 1999; Inglis, 2004). In its earliest English uses, culture was a noun of process, referring to the tending of crops, animals, or the like, typically accompanied by a modifier indicating the nature of the thing being cultivated. Presumably this meaning (roughly ÔcultivatingÕ) remains with us in words such as agriculture, horticulture, and viviculture, and expressions such as tissue culture, yoghurt culture, cultured pearls, and so on. In the 16th century culture began to be used about ÔcultivatingÕ the human body through training, and then about ÔcultivatingÕ the

3 For discussions consistent with the semantic orientation of the present study, see DÕAndrade (2001), Enﬁeld (2000), Goddard (2002) and Wierzbicka (1997, pp. 1–31). For a defence of the culture concept, see Wierzbicka (in press). 4 Kroeber and Kluckhorn (1963[1952]) book Culture: A critical review of concepts and deﬁnitions was focused on social science concepts of culture, rather than on ordinary, everyday uses of the word, and, more importantly, they did not apply any principled or systematic analytical procedures. 5 A comprehensive bibliography is available at ÔThe NSM HomepageÕ: www.une.edu.au/arts/LCL/ disciplines/linguistics/nsmpage.htm.

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non-physical aspects of a person. Among the OEDÕs citations are ‘‘to the culture and profit of theyr myndes’’ (Thomas More, c. 1516) and ‘‘necessary for the culture of good manners’’ (Lennard, 1633). This ‘‘self-cultivation’’ meaning remained the predominant one till as late as the 19th century: a classic definition is that of Arnold (1873): ‘‘Culture, acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world’’. In the late 19th century, things got more complicated. On the one hand, there were extensions which broadened the usage of culture to take in a general state of human intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development (roughly comparable to ÔcivilisationÕ). More recently still, this line of development gave rise to the ‘‘artistic works and practices’’ meaning, referring to such things as music, literature, painting, theatre and film. On the other hand, a new ‘‘anthropological’’ usage of culture was introduced into English by Tylor in his 1870 book Primitive Culture. 6 Tylor defined culture as ‘‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’’. This sense subsequently flourished with the advent of modern social science, especially anthropology, before spilling out into popular discourse and spawning several polysemic extensions. I will deal with these immediately in Section 2 below, and then turn to the ‘‘artistic works and practices’’ meaning in Section 3.

2. ‘Culture’ as ways of living, thinking, and behaving 2.1. The classical ‘‘anthropological’’ concept of culture and its immediate oﬀspring According to Kroeber and Kluckhorn (1963[1952]) (cf. Vermeersch, 1977), the older or classical anthropological concept of culture combines as key components of its meaning both ‘‘mental states and processes’’ and ‘‘patterns of behaviour’’ (habits, customs, ways of life). Clearly implicated are the semantic primes THINK and DO , and, if one can take expressions such as Ôway of lifeÕ at face value, the semantic prime LIVE . Another key ingredient is the role of the precedents of the past, as highlighted in classic deﬁnitions such as Ôthe whole complex of traditional behaviourÕ (Margaret Mead, 1937) and Ôbehaviour which in man is not given at birthÕ (Ruth Benedict, 1947). As discussed above, this idea of culture, or something very close to it, has since migrated, so to speak, into ordinary English. To cite just two examples:

Williams (1976, pp. 91–92) claims that this usage originated in specialised uses of German Kultur under the influence of Herder, but like other aspects of WilliamsÕs account, this is controversial (cf. Kuper, 1999). In any case, although Herder made some use of the term Kultur (in an earlier spelling Cultur, reflecting its origin as a French loan word), his primary concept was rather that of Volkgeist, cf. Johoda (1993, pp. 75–78). The modern meaning of German Kultur, which developed in German in opposition to the French concept of civilisation (cf. Elias (1978[1939], pp. 1–34)), is significantly different to any contemporary meaning of English culture.

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1. I loved being immersed in a different culture and having the chance to learn so much about the Japanese people. It was great! (re. studentÕs holiday trip to Japan). 2. After childbirth in the Chinese culture, the women are made to stay in bed and basically do nothing but feed baby. Equally, this older or classical concept of culture has attracted harsh criticism within anthropology itself. Two quotations follow, and it is interesting to consider them, not from the point of view of their validity as critiques, but in order to ask what in the meaning of the term culture invites these complaints. [T]he term seems to connote a certain coherence, uniformity and timelessness in the meaning systems of a given group, and to operate rather like the earlier concept of ÔraceÕ in identifying fundamentally different, essentialized, and homogenous social units (as when we speak about Ôa cultureÕ). (Abu-Lughod and Lutz, 1990, p. 9) [cultural fundamentalism] reifies culture conceived as a compact, bounded, localised and historically rooted set of traditional values. (Stolcke, 1995, 4) To begin with the issues of ÔboundednessÕ and ÔlocalisationÕ, various commentators have traced the origins of the classical concept of culture back to the 18th century, a time in which ‘‘travel stories’’ were popularising, among educated readers, the existence of widely differing customs and values in places around the world. It was the age of exploration and the age of colonialism, and the world was shrinking. Johoda (1993, p. 29) records that according to one detailed study, the total numbers of travel books in the French language in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries were 21, 78, and 250, respectively: ‘‘a large proportion of such books dealt with non-European cultures, either oriental or concerned with the ÔsavagesÕ of America or Africa. The image of the savage, albeit an unrealistic one––played an important role in Enlightenment ideas of human nature’’. 7 Herder, Humboldt, Voltaire, and other foundational Enlightenment thinkers all read and studied travel reports with the greatest interest. My point is that the recognition that there were ‘‘communities of morality and belief’’ very different than ‘‘ours’’ was linked at the beginning with geographical difference, i.e. with localisation. I would like to suggest that this feature is still preserved in the meaning of the English word culture, as found in expressions such as Chinese culture, Samoan culture, Russian culture, Aboriginal culture, and so on. Notice that canonical uses of this sense are associated with place-related descriptors (such as Chinese, Samoan, or Russian, derived from the names of countries), or from other words, such as Aboriginal, with strongly place-related meanings. For this meaning of culture, I propose explication [A1], composed exclusively in semantic primes. The initial components in (a) are intended to model the fact that culture is 7 Pa´lsson (1993, p. 6) pushes the institutionalism of the travel account back to the Middle Ages, saying that it satisfied ‘‘the desire to experience both difference and the crossing of boundaries’’. He also mentions that later, especially in the 19th century, there arose allied genres such as the semi-ethnographic novel, e.g. Herman MelvilleÕs1846 novel Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life.

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a noun (which implies that it designates ÔsomethingÕ) and that, as with many other abstract nouns, there is a certain vagueness in its meaning. The referent (the ÔsomethingÕ in question) is not described directly, but is only linked with a ‘‘mental model’’ (Ôwhen people say things about it, they are thinking about things like thisÕ). The components in (b1) and (b2) set up the presupposed existence of various far-flung geographical locations, each inhabited by a different kind of people, and each with a distinctive way of living, thinking, and behaving. Subsequent sections attribute the distinctive ways of living, thinking and behaving (characteristic of the people of a particular region) to the influence of precedent: the people of a particular place live, think and behave as they do because people of the same kind have lived, thought and behaved in these ways traditionally, i.e. Ôfor a long time beforeÕ. This is not a fully explicit reference to intergenerational transmission, but it comes close to it. Note that section (d), which concerns ways of thinking, has two parts, corresponding to ‘‘attitudes’’ and to ‘‘values’’, respectively. [A1] (Samoan, Chinese, Russian, etc.) cultureA1= a. something when people say things about it, they are thinking about things like this: b1. people live in many places some of these places are far from here many kinds of people live in these places, one kind of people in one place, another kind of people in another place b2. these many kinds of people donÕt live in the same way as people here live they donÕt think about things in the same way as people here think about things they donÕt do things in the same way as people here do things c. people in one place live in one way, not in another way, because other people of the same kind lived this way before for a long time d. people in one place think about things in some ways, not in other ways because other people of the same kind thought this way before for a long time they think some things are good, they think some other things are not good because other people of the same kind thought this way before for a long time e. people in one place do things in some ways, not in other ways because other people of the same kind did things this way before for a long time In several ways, the structure of explication [A1] is consistent with modern critiques of the culture concept. First, it refers repeatedly to Ôkinds of peopleÕ, thereby ‘‘essentialising’’ social units. 8 Second, although nothing in the explication rules out them out, adaptation and change are not provided for explicitly and the overall

There may be a non-compositional link between the notion of a Ôkind of peopleÕ and a distinctive Ôway of livingÕ which is reproduced across time. In the natural world at least, the notion of ÔkindsÕ is centred around species, which certainly do reproduce themselves across the generations.

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phrasing certainly suggests ‘‘coherence, uniformity and timelessness’’. Likewise, although nothing in the explication rules out internal variability, the overall phrasing, with its emphasis on ‘‘sameness’’, is suggestive of ‘‘homogeneous’’ social units. Third, it may fairly be said that this concept does in a sense ‘‘exoticise the Other’’, for it assumes the viewpoint of Ôpeople hereÕ, and envisages people and places Ôfar from hereÕ in terms of their diﬀerences from Ôpeople hereÕ. The ‘‘home-based’’ aspect of the notion of culture explains why in everyday usage culture tends to be seen as something that ‘‘other people have’’. It is for this reason that getting students to accept that they have a culture too is a necessary standard move in introductory anthropology courses and textbooks. Nevertheless, it may well be questioned whether the relevant contemporary concept of culture is always bound to such a home-based point of view. While the oldfashioned or unsophisticated concept of culture explicated in [A1] is still alive and well in popular usage, in more sophisticated discourse it is perfectly all right to speak of, for example, American culture, Anglo culture, Western culture, and so on, i.e. to apply the culture concept to oneÕs home society as well as to others, on an equal footing, as it were. To cite just a single example: 3. He has argued that many exhibits [in the Australian National Museum] treat white culture with mockery and irony while the treatment of indigenous culture ranges from respect to reverence. European culture in Australia was largely portrayed as a series of disasters. (SMH 4-5/01/03, p. 13) In recognition of this, it is necessary to posit a modiﬁed concept, as in [A2], stripped of the home-based perspective and with a reduced emphasis on localisation. For the most part, the relationship between [A1] and [A2] can be seen as one of semantic generalisation, in the sense of the loss of some previous semantic material. [A2] (white, European, Muslim, etc.) culturesA2= a. something when people say things about it, they are thinking about things like this: b. people live in many places many kinds of people live in these places, one kind of people in one place, another kind of people in another place c. people of one kind live in one way, not in another way, because other people of the same kind lived this way before for a long time d. people of one kind think about things in some ways, not in other ways because other people of the same kind thought this way before for a long time they think some things are good, they think some other things are not good because other people of the same kind thought this way before for a long time e. people of one kind do things in some ways, not in other ways because other people of the same kind did things this way before for a long time

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A smaller but still significant change in [A2] is that in components (c)–(e) the culture-bearing people are identified as Ôpeople of one kindÕ, rather than as Ôpeople in one placeÕ. Importantly, a link with places is retained in component (b): the notion of different Ôkinds of peopleÕ is initially introduced by way of localisation––as if, ideally, different kinds of people live in different places––but once having been introduced in this fashion, subsequent references to Ôpeople of one kindÕ are not necessarily tied to any one place. On this model, one could perhaps say that there is an implication that white culture or Chinese culture, for example, ‘‘belong somewhere’’ or originated somewhere, but without any suggestion that they are presently confined to any single location. In other respects the concept explicated in [A2] is identical to that of [A1]: an ‘‘historically rooted’’ way of living, thinking, and behaving attributed to ‘‘essentialised’’ and ‘‘homogenous’’ social units. 9 These explications help explain why this particular concept of culture does not sit well with modern urban multiculturalism, in which many different groups are all living together, and not only that, mixing all the time in schools, in shops, and on the street. This is not really consonant with the notion of geographical separation (implying social separation) which forms part of the classical culture concept. The explications also make it clear why those who believe that the world, or at least their patch of it, has passed into a fragmented, globalised postmodern condition, where cultural influences are interpenetrating, cross-cutting, and in constant flux, no longer believe that the concept of culture has any applicability. Not only is there no longer the stability implied by the explication, but equally there is no longer any ÔlocalisationÕ, any grounding in ÔplaceÕ. 10 2.2. Promoting subcultures to cultures In contemporary usage a modified concept of culture has detached itself even more definitively from localisation, e.g. in expressions like youth culture, gay culture, Kid culture [a book title], redneck culture, ocker culture, drug culture. Here the principle of differentiation has shifted entirely to the notion of different Ôkinds of peopleÕ, 9 In some academic writing an even more generalised concept of culture may exist, seen as a generic attribute of the human species. For example: Unlike that of other species, the human mind has a collective counterpart: culture. . . we have evolved an adaptation for living in culture (Donald, 2001, p. xiii); There is no contradiction between a naturalistic, biologically informed approach to human cognition and the rcognition of a constitutive role in it of culture (Sinha, 2002, p. 273), cf. McGrew (1998)). This further meaning, which we could designate [A3], appears to contain a different (b) component––Ôpeople are not like other kinds of living thingsÕ, while at the same time disregarding localisation and the existence of different kinds of people. Stripped down versions of subsequent components could be: Ôpeople live in some ways, not in other ways, because other people live in these ways; people think about things in some ways, not in other ways, because other people think in these ways; people do things in some ways, not in other ways, because other people do things in these waysÕ. 10 Richards (1994) says of the classic anthropology of Clifford Geertz that it depended fundamentally on the ‘‘evocation of a locale’’: his classic studies of Morocco, for example, are as much about Morocco (the place) as about Moroccans (the people). Against this, Richards (1994, p. 241) counterposes the postcolonial vision of Homi Bhabha, remarking: ‘‘A sense of place is the first denial in the writings of dislocated postcolonial writers’’.

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each with a distinctive way of living, thinking and behaving. A new component representing the idea of ‘‘co-association’’ (Ôpeople of one kind do many things with other people of the same kindÕ) takes over the explanatory role of historical precedent. In this usage of culture, the assumption is that people of a particular kind (youth, gays, kids, drug-addicts, or whatever) live, think and behave in certain shared ways, because other people of the same kind live, think and behave similarly. Needless to say, the ‘‘essentialising’’ and ‘‘homogenising’’ implications remain. [B] (youth, gay, redneck) cultureB= a. something when people say things about it, they are thinking about things like this: b. there are many kinds of people people of one kind do many things with other people of the same kind c. people of one kind live in one way, not in another way, because other people of the same kind live this way d. people of one kind think about things in some ways, not in other ways, because other people of the same kind think this way they think some things are good, they think some other things are not good because other people of the same kind think this way e. people of one kind do things in some ways, not in other ways because other people of the same kind do things this way Presumably this culture meaning is a kind of descendent of the term subculture (which seems to be becoming obsolete). I am not exactly suggesting that the meaning of subculture has shifted to become a sub-sense of culture itself, because the meaning of the term subculture must contain an additional component, linked with the preﬁx sub-, which explicitly refers to the status of the people concerned as a ÔpartÕ or section (Ôsome ofÕ) of the larger society. The suggestion is rather, as Hartman (1997, p. 49) puts it, that there has been a tendency to ‘‘promote[s] all subcultures to cultures by dropping the preﬁx sub-’’. Paradoxical as it may seem, I believe that explication [B] is compatible with the expression mainstream culture, because the term mainstream culture in a sense acknowledges the existence of subcultures or minority cultures, even as it excludes them. 2.3. ‘‘Small cultures’’ The cover-term ‘‘small cultures’’ is taken from Holliday (1999). In this meaning, the word culture refers to the shared ‘‘mindset’’ and behaviours of people who spend a lot of time doing the same kinds of things, i.e. who share the same occupation or pastime, or live in the same kind of institution. A notable early usage (possibly innovative) was Snow (1964) famous dictum that ‘‘It is dangerous to have two cultures which canÕt or donÕt communicate’’, referring to the gulf between those working in science and in the humanities. Since then this kind of usage has proliferated to the

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extent that one commentator (Hartman, 1997, p. 30) has likened it to a ‘‘linguistic weed’’. Examples include phrases such as the following: 4. (a) institutional culture, occupational culture, police culture, student culture, corporate culture, ABC culture, beach culture, prison culture, health club culture, gym culture, culture of the classroom, the culture of the Catholic Church in Sydney (b) culture of bullying, a culture of alcoholism and drug-taking, argument culture [a Deborah Tannen book title], pill-popping culture, surf culture, gun culture (c) culture of deference, culture of complaint [a Robert Hughes book title], culture of privacy, culture of violence, culture of corruption, culture of secrecy and suppression, culture of indecision, one-bullet, one-kill culture (i.e. attitude behind the Ôsniper cultureÕ) The meaning occurs with modiﬁers (an adjective, noun, or postposed genitive) in various functions: identifying a ‘‘social domain’’ e.g. institutional culture, prison culture, and the other examples in (4a), or a characteristic behaviour or attitude attributed to the people concerned, e.g. argument culture, culture of bullying, culture of deference, and the other examples in (4b) and (4c). That these various usages involve the same meaning is clear from ‘‘double barrelled’’ expressions like the ABCÕs culture of entrenched resistance to change, the police culture of secrecy and AnsettÕs culture of cost-cutting. The extension of culture to so-called ‘‘occupational cultures’’ or ‘‘institutional cultures’’ is a very natural one. In a study titled ÔPolice cultureÕ, Chen (1999) explains that ‘‘social scientists who studied routine police work have for decades postulated the existence of a distinctive police occupational culture’’. She cites a seminal early statement about the elements of this postulated culture, which are strikingly similar in nature (ÔrulesÕ, ÔideologyÕ, ÔstandardsÕ, ÔmodelsÕ, ÔcustomsÕ, etc.) to those we have seen previously: long-standing rules of thumb, a somewhat special language and ideology which help to edit a memberÕs everyday experiences, shared standards of relevance as to the critical aspects of the work, matter-of-fact prejudices, models for street-level etiquette and demeanour, certain customs and rituals suggestive of how members are to relate not only to each other but to outsiders, and a sort of residual category consisting of the assorted miscellany of some rather plain police horse sense. (Manning and Van Maanen, 1978, p. 267) The ‘‘small culture’’ concept is extremely versatile, since it can be applied to just about any set of people who undertake common activities. Some less standardised examples are given below. 5. ThereÕs not only a culture of bullying, thereÕs a culture of being men, being macho, not talking about your feelings (at Trinity School). (Telegraph, 9/02/00) 6. These two phenomena come together in tittie bar culture; Houston has more tittie bars than any other city in the world. (Aust Magazine, 10-11/03/02, p. 26)

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7. Today, for example, the new culture of the Internet and the rave/rap/DJ ethos is rising with the New Economy... (SMH Spectrum, 10/03/01, p. 10) The meaning can be stated as in explication [C]. Notice that the notion of there being different Ôkinds of peopleÕ is no longer present. The principle of classification and social segregation is rather a matter of shared activity. As Holliday (1999) puts it: The idea of small cultures. . . is non-essentialist in that it is not related to the essence of ethnic, national or international entities. Instead it relates to any cohesive social grouping. . . Small culture is thus more to do with activities taking place within a group than with the nature of the group itself. (Holliday, 1999, p. 240, 250) The explication begins with the assumption, in component (b1), that although people in general undertake all sorts of activities, some people in a given place spend a lot of time doing things with other people in the same place. According to component (b2), this association sets these particular people apart from others in terms of their attitudes and ways of going about things. Notice the resemblance to a similar ‘‘contrastive’’ component in explication [A1] for the traditional culture concept. Components (c) and (d) spell out the idea that the people concerned share certain attitudes, values, and ways of behaving, in similar fashion to previous explications. Notice also that ‘‘intra-group’’ affiliation in components (c) and (d) is no longer specified in terms of Ôother people of the same kindÕ, with its essentialist implications, but rather in terms of Ôother people in the same placeÕ. [C] (place-XÕs) cultureC (of Y) e.g. Trinity SchoolÕs culture of bullying= a. something when people say things about it, they are thinking about things like this: b1. people in this place do many things with other people in the same place b2. these people donÕt think about things in the same way as other people think about things they donÕt do things in the same ways as other people do things c. these people think about things in some ways, not in other ways, because other people in the same place think this way they think some things are good, they think some other things are not good because other people in the same place think this way d. these people do many things in some ways, not in other ways, because other people in the same place do these things this way The reference to a ÔplaceÕ in component (b1), i.e. Ôpeople in this place. . .Õ, and subsequently, could be queried. It is true that sometimes (not very often in my collection of examples) there is no explicit place name in the immediate context, but I believe that one could always be supplied from context, if necessary. If we are to think of a

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certain set of people as constituting a ‘‘social grouping’’, as Holliday terms it, it seems to be a conceptual necessary that they must all be in one place, on the understanding that this place can be very broad and vague. If someone starts talking about police culture, for instance, it is always legitimate to ask ‘‘what police culture?’’ or ‘‘police culture where?’’, and the answer will come back ‘‘police culture in Australia’’ or ‘‘police culture in general’’ (i.e. everywhere), or whatever. Even an expression like the new culture of the Internet implies from a semantic point of view that the people concerned are in a certain particular ÔsomewhereÕ, i.e. on the internet. (Indeed, the ‘‘spatialisation’’ of the new media of shared electronic communication is quite striking; cf. terms such as cyberspace, chatroom, and so on). As mentioned, in the cultureC meaning the term can be supplied with modifiers which indicate a particular entrenched attitude, value orientation, or behaviour, i.e. a particular way of thinking or acting. Some examples: 8. [They] appeared seriously traumatised and severely affected by a culture of selfharm (e.g. slicing of wrists and suicide threats). (SMH, 3-4/08/02, p. 33) 9. We would be very concerned if the growth of a Ôcustomer cultureÕ in universities were to lead to examples of plagiarism being tolerated and/or swept under the carpet. (SMH 24/02/01, p. 6) 10. Otherwise, all we will get is a culture of managed and correct behaviour with no progress in developing moral consciousness in adult/child relationships (Aust. 19/07/02, p. 10) In the examples so far, the overall tone can be characterised as ‘‘negative’’ but the construction also occurs (albeit less commonly) in contexts where the speakerÕs attitude is positive, as, for example, when universities are urged to embrace a culture of excellence or (sigh!) a culture of entrepreneurialism. There are also cases where there seems to be no obvious value judgement involved. In (12), for example, the writerÕs intention seems to be purely descriptive and explanatory, and not at all judgmental. This is true despite the fact that if taken in isolation the expression culture of criticism would probably sound negative (presumably, because the word criticism implies the idea of conflict). A context-dependent tone, either positive or negative, can easily ‘‘colour’’ an expression of this kind. For example, in (13) the expression culture of academic freedom is presented as a source of problems and hence seems to pick up a negative cast, while in (14) the expression audiovisual culture acquires a negative cast for similar reasons. These context-dependent effects are not part of the semantic invariant. 11. It emerged during the 17th century, when Louis XIV built a culture of beauty, etiquette and elegance which still dictates almost every detail of French life,. . . (Turnbull, 2002, p. 135) 12. There is a culture of criticism in France which means that people do not hold back from telling you that something is bad. (Turnbull, 2002, p. 248) 13. The culture of academic freedom has perhaps led to inappropriate devolution of powers and lack of internal control. (SMH 24-25/08/02, 2002)

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14. The book is dead, crow the champions of audiovisual culture. (Devine, 1998, p. 19) Another indication that the construction is not inherently ‘‘valanced’’ in either the negative or positive direction comes in the form of paired expressions. For example, in an article about business management, Charan (2001) explains how a culture of indecision (also culture of indecisiveness) can be turned around into a culture of decisive behaviour (also culture of decisiveness). I conclude with some more novel and idiosyncratic modifying expressions. 11 15. a culture of putting on a happy smiling face and pretending the problems arenÕt there (12/07/02, ABC morning radio) 16. WeÕre talking about the backs-against-the-wall culture that sees every change as an assault on the ABCÕs independence and therefore its credibility. 17. Munck describes how Marriot transformed its ‘‘see and be seen’’ culture by implementing an initiative dubbed Management Flexibility at several of its hotels. (Munck, 2001, p. 21) 3. ‘Culture’ as artistic works and practices, etc. This meaning (or set of meanings) appears in expressions such as high culture, popular culture, the pursuit of culture, and so on. As mentioned in Section 1, it has followed quite a diﬀerent track of historical development to the ‘‘anthropological’’ concepts of culture, and, as we shall see, it is semantically very diﬀerent in its structure and content. Culture in this sense can used as an independent noun in the following examples:

11 In high register academic and intellectual contexts a related usage is found in expressions like gender culture, speech culture, work culture, culture of sex, culture of death. Here the modiﬁer identiﬁes a certain ‘‘domain of activity’’: gender relations, speech, work, death, sex, death, etc. For example, the book The Culture of Sex in Ancient China (Goldin, 2002) is about how people in Ancient China thought about sex, what their sexual practices were, and so on. This meaning, which we can designate as [C2], seems to call for a (b) component like Ôpeople in this place all do things of this kind with other people at some timesÕ; that is, it refers to certain kinds of things which concern everyone in some implied social domain, and which call for some shared activities at some time. Subsequent components refer to attitudes, values and practices about this domain of activity. Holliday (1999)) groups this meaning with cultureC, under the single term ‘‘small cultures’’. The two concepts cannot be subsumed under a single explication, however, because in the cultureC2 of X, the term X refers to a domain of activity, whereas in the cultureC of X, it indicates an entrenched attitude, value orientation or behaviour. This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that certain phrases are susceptible to both interpretations. For example, the expression cultureC of death was used by Pope John Paul II (1995) in his condemnation of the widespread acceptance of abortion in secular Western society. The expression the cultureC2 of death appears in following example, which is the opening remark in a review of a book about death in Australia: This is not a book about the culture of death or mortuary custom (ANU Reporter 33(13), Oct. 2002, no pagination). The expression here refers a set of attitudes and practices for dealing with death (analogous to the culture of sex).

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18. [It was] a crime against culture (UN spokesman condemning the TalibanÕs destruction of giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan) (Aust. 14/03/01, p. 1) 19. As we talk about the various strands of culture––both popular and classical–– that run through the books, Fforde confesses he is always surprised when readers much younger than himself enjoy them. (SMH Spectrum 28-29/12/02, p. 20) It is found in the names of official bodies such as the Department of Culture and the Arts (Western Australia) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (UK), in newspaper section headings such as Arts and Culture, Lifestyle and Culture, in specialised expressions like pop culture and film culture; in references to cultural events, cultural activities, cultural facilities, cultural institutions, and so on. The adjective cultured, as in a cultured person, and the expression a person of culture, also display this usage. Culture in this sense can be used at different levels of generality and in relation to different subjects. On the one hand, it can be used to designate general processes regarded as conducive to ‘‘the improvement of the human mind and spirit’’ (Eliot, 1962, 21), and to refer collectively to various works and activities (of art, music, literature, and so on) regarded as contributing to this process. On the other hand, culture can be attributed to a place. For example, one of the mottos of Armidale, NSW, is City of culture and learning; see also example (20). More commonly, culture is denied to a place, as in (21) and (22). 20. In both culture and education, the city [Liverpool, Sydney] is about to boom, with a refurbuishment of the Casula Powerhouse, which will include a specialist book shop, gallery, and a 250-seat theatre. (SMH 6/01/03, p. 4) 21. Cairns is not a great place for culture. 22. Low rents but not much culture [comment re. a poor neighbourhood] Similarly, culture can be attributed to a person, as in a person of culture, or denied, as in example (23). 23. . . . when you really scratch the surface and see whatÕs in there, a lot of the time you discover that there really isnÕt much there. Not much culture, not a great deal of intellectual complexity. It is important to note that although the ÔartsÕ may be the most salient components of culture (in the usage under discussion), the concepts of culture and the arts are by no means co-extensive. For example, culture could include knowledge of philosophy and history, and other intellectual activities, and it seems to imply a certain refinement of sensibility and manners. As Eliot (1962, p. 23) insisted, an artist, writer or other ‘‘contributor to culture’’ is not a person of culture if they are narrow in their interests, or crude, or dull. According to explication [D] below, the mental model associated with cultureD begins with the idea, set out in section (b), that there are certain things whose existence is thought to be Ôgood for peopleÕ, but not for reasons of survival or for practical utilitarian purposes. These components position culture, so to speak, above mundane

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concerns and establish its beneficial or enriching potential for humanity at large. Skipping down to the components in (d), we can see why. A person can benefit (Ôsomething good can happen in a personÕ) if they see, hear or think about things of this kind. The nature of the potential benefit is not specified: it could be some kind of personal growth or development, or perhaps simply an enjoyable experience. 12 The wording is intended to allow for the existence of various kinds of cultural products (paintings, music, books, and so on) which can be experienced in various ways, and even to allow for intangible things, such as philosophical ideas, to count as ‘‘cultural stimuli’’. The component in (c) specifies that human agency is necessary for the ‘‘stuff’’ of culture to come into existence, with the proviso that Ônot everyone can do these thingsÕ. The wording is deliberately vague for several reasons. First, it has to be compatible with the existence of various intangible cultural matter, such as ideas and performances (a reference to Ômaking thingsÕ would therefore be over-specific). Second, though one might think at first blush that cultural matter has to be produced for the purpose, so to speak, this is actually not the case, as shown by the example in (18) above. The giant Buddha statues were originally made for religious rather than artistic reasons, but the UN spokesperson evidently felt that their existence was a good thing for the world (i.e. for people in general), such that their deliberate destruction by the Taliban was a crime against culture. Similarly, museums and art galleries often feature exhibitions of fine furniture, clothing, and decorative art from different historical periods, which were not necessarily produced with primarily artistic motivations. The phrasing of component (c) is sufficient to require human agency, without insisting on any particular kind of motive. Finally, section (e) concerns people who ‘‘pursue culture’’, i.e. who do many things because they want the benefits of cultural experience. These people are described as having significant knowledge about a range of things, and as having certain ways of thinking and behaving, on account of their cultural experiences. Notice that the initial expression Ôsome peopleÕ implies that ‘‘cultured people’’ are a subset of society at large. This set of components is compatible with the implication of ‘‘social superiority’’ attaching to this meaning of culture, parodied by terms like Kulcha and culture vulture (Williams, 1976, p. 92). [E] cultureD= a. something when people say things about it, they are thinking about things like this: b. it is good for people if some things exist not because people canÕt live if they donÕt have these things not because people canÕt do other things if they donÕt have these things

In the component Ôsomething good can happen in a personÕ, the word in can be regarded as an ‘‘allolex’’ or contextual variant of the semantic prime INSIDE . That is, the overall meaning is the same as Ôsomething good can happen inside a personÕ. I have preferred the simpler phrasing for easier readability.

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c. things of this kind canÕt exist if some people donÕt do some things not everyone can do these things d. something good can happen in a person when this person sees things of this kind something good can happen in a person when this person hears things of this kind something good can happen in a person when this person thinks about things of this kind e. some people do many things because they want things like this to happen to them these people know much about many things because of this these people think about things in some ways, not other ways, because of this these people do things in some ways, not other ways, because of this At first, the existence of the expression popular culture (referring to popular, or even commercial, ‘‘art forms’’ such as movies, television, paperback novels, comics, and so on) might seem to run counter to explication [D], which has a distinctly ‘‘high culture’’ tone about it, especially in the ‘‘noble-sounding’’ first line of component (b), the implication of specialised skills in component (c), and in the ‘‘social selectiveness’’ and ‘‘social superiority’’ implied by the components in (e). On closer inspection, however, the expression popular culture is actually confirmatory of [D]. This is because popular culture is a fixed expression, which works precisely by ‘‘cancelling’’ part of the normal presuppositions of the word culture itself. (Without the adjective, culture cannot refer to popular cultural products.) Explication [D] is designed to fit general uses of culture as an independent noun, in examples such as a crime against culture and the pursuit of culture. How does it fare with uses where culture is attributed (or not attributed) to a ÔplaceÕ or to a ÔpersonÕ, as in (20)–(23) above? Essentially, these uses are confined to these particular grammatical frames, and the meaning of the word in these contexts can be easily derived from the general meaning given in [D]. If a ÔplaceÕ is said to have (or not have) culture, this means that the Ôkinds of thingÕ referred to in components (b)–(d) can (or cannot) be found in that place. If a ÔpersonÕ is said to have (or not have) culture, this means that the person matches (or does not match) the description given in (e). An additional usage is shown in (24), where culture refers to activities such as going to art galleries and concerts, viewing historic buildings, and so on. Here the word refers to the activities of ‘‘experiencing’’ culture, as set out in component (d). 24. There is a lot to see in Rome [Sistine Chapel, Vatican museum, Forum, Colosseum, etc.], but as we said there is only so much culture we can take.

4. Concluding remarks In this study I have identified five different senses of the word culture in contemporary English, and presented formal semantic explications for each of them. Clearly four of these meanings are in a relationship of close polysemy, in the sense that certain individual components of meaning recur, in the style of a theme with variations,

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across the various meanings. They can be seen as extensions of the classical concept of cultureA1 as, roughly speaking, the distinctive ways of living, thinking and behaving of different kinds of people in far-away locations, e.g. Samoan culture. By eliminating the implicitly ‘‘home-based’’ perspective, this meaning was generalised to take in the distinctive ways of living, thinking and behaving of any localised kind of people (not excluding ourselves), the meaning identified here as cultureA2 as in European culture. Subsequently, subgroups within the home society (youth, gays, kids, etc.) were identified as different Ôkinds of peopleÕ, each with its own subculture, and this mediated the rise of cultureB as in youth culture or gay culture. Though in this meaning the principle of localisation lost its prominence, it made a comeback of sorts in cultureC. This focuses on a collectivity of people who need not live together in a single place, but who nevertheless do many things together and are seen as sharing distinctive attitudes and behaviours, as in police culture or the culture of secrecy. As for the fifth meaning, the ‘‘artistic works and practices’’ meaning cultureD it bears little relation to the others, having undergone a more or less independent historical development. The explications are tabulated for reference in Appendix B. For some readers, the formal semantic explications will have been heavy-going. Despite their simplicity at the level of individual phrases and clauses, lengthy explications framed entirely in semantic primes require a certain measure of con-centration and reflection to take in and understand as a whole. Questions such as the following naturally arise: Are such long and involved explications really necessary? What do they add to the informal explanation given in the surrounding text? To begin with the issue of the length and complexity of the explications, in my view this simply has to be accepted as an empirical finding about the semantics of the word culture. The reaction one sometimes hears, along the lines of ‘‘there must be something wrong, it canÕt be as complicated as that’’, seems to me to be an attitude which is anti-scientific, in the sense that it places a higher value on preconceptions than on careful and methodical analysis. I do not mean to claim that my analyses cannot be improved. No doubt they can be refined, and any serious proposals to this effect are to be welcomed. It is sufficiently clear, however, that the semantics of the word culture, in its various interrelated meanings, has a certain inherent informational complexity which can be revealed, but not reduced, by faithful semantic analysis in fine-grained detail in terms of semantic primes. As for why we need this level of fine-grained detail, while many readers may find explanations framed in academic English easier to process than those framed in semantic primes, this apparent ease of interpretation is deceptive. It depends on our specialised abilities to understand a complex, language-specific (and register-specific) code, involving terms such as Ôpatterns of behaviourÕ, Ômental states and processesÕ, ÔlocalisationÕ, Ôhistorically transmitted precedentsÕ, Ôcohesive social groupingÕ, Ôartistic works and practicesÕ, and so on. For ease of exposition it would be foolish not to take advantage of such terms with a readership which can be assumed to comprehend academic English fluently, but in reality each of these terms is itself a tightly knotted bundle of language-specific semantic complexity. They are entirely unsuitable as a medium for the systematic documentation of meaning

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structure, both because they are complex (and hence do not allow for maximum resolution of meaning) and because they are language-speciﬁc (and hence cannot be transposed cleanly into other languages). Using empirically established semantic primes as the medium of explication, on the other hand, obliges one to analyse all the way down to the maximum resolution or granularity of meaning, and to do so in terms which are readily transposable across all human languages, thus freeing the formal representation of meaning from the grip of the English language.

Acknowledgments I am grateful to Anna Wierzbicka for many helpful discussions about earlier versions of this paper. I would also like to thank an anonymous reviewer for Language Sciences who made a number of helpful suggestions.

Appendix A. Table of semantic primes (after Goddard and Wierzbicka, 2002) Substantives: Determiners: Quantiﬁers: Evaluators: Descriptors: Intensiﬁer: Mental/experiential predicates: Speech: Actions, events, movement: Existence and possession: Life and death: Time:

I , YOU , SOMEONE (PERSON ), PEOPLE , (THING ), BODY THIS , THE SAME , OTHER ONE , TWO , SOME , ALL , MUCH/MANY GOOD , BAD BIG , SMALL

SOMETHING

VERY THINK , KNOW , WANT , FEEL , SEE , HEAR SAY , WORDS , TRUE DO , HAPPEN , MOVE THERE IS

(EXIST ),

HAVE

LIVE , DIE WHEN

(TIME ),

NOW , BEFORE , AFTER ,

A LONG TIME , A SHORT TIME , FOR SOME TIME , MOMENT

Space:

WHERE

(PLACE ),

HERE , ABOVE , BELOW , FAR ,

NEAR , SIDE , INSIDE , TOUCHING

Logical concepts: Augmentor: Taxonomy, partonomy Similarity:

NOT , MAYBE , CAN , BECAUSE , IF MORE KIND , PART LIKE

(AS ,

WAY )

• Exponents of primes may be words, bound morphemes, or phrasemes. • They can be morphologically complex.

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• They can have combinatorial variants, i.e. allolexes. • Each prime has a well-speciﬁed set of grammatical (combinatorial) properties.

Appendix B. Explications with explanatory annotations [A1]: As in the other explications, component (a) identifies the meaning as ÔsomethingÕ linked with the mental model spelt out in the subsequent components. (b1) sets out the assumption that there are many Ôkinds of peopleÕ each living a place of its own, while (b2) adds the assumption that these different kinds of people live, think and behave differently from Ôpeople hereÕ. Components (c)–(e) attribute to the people of each place a distinctive way of life, a distinctive set of attitudes and values, and distinctive ways of doing things, on account of historical precedent, i.e. because other people of the same kind lived (thought, behaved) in this way Ôbefore for a long timeÕ. [A1] (Samoan, Chinese, Russian, etc.) cultureA1= a. something when people say things about it, they are thinking about things like this: b1. people live in many places some of these places are far from here many kinds of people live in these places, one kind of people in one place, another kind of people in another place b2. these many kinds of people donÕt live in the same way as people here live they donÕt think about things in the same way as people here think about things they donÕt do things in the same way as people here do things c. people in one place live in one way, not in another way, because other people of the same kind lived this way before for a long time d. people in one place think about things in some ways, not in other ways because other people of the same kind thought this way before for a long time they think some things are good, they think some other things are not good because other people of the same kind thought this way before for a long time e. people in one place do things in some ways, not in other ways because other people of the same kind did things this way before for a long time [A2] is a more general concept than [A1], stripped of the implicit ‘‘home-based’’ perspective in the second line of (b1) and the entire bundle of components in (b2). Relatedly, in components (c)–(e) the people concerned are identified, not in terms of location (Ôpeople in one placeÕ), but as Ôpeople of one kindÕ.

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[A2] (white, European, Muslim, etc.) cultureA2= a. something when people say things about it, they are thinking about things like this: b. people live in many places many kinds of people live in these places, one kind of people in one place, another kind of people in another place c. people of one kind live in one way, not in another way, because other people of the same kind lived this way before for a long time d. people of one kind think about things in some ways, not in other ways because other people of the same kind thought this way before for a long time they think some things are good, they think some other things are not good because other people of the same kind thought this way before for a long time e. people of one kind do things in some ways, not in other ways because other people of the same kind did things this way before for a long time [B] differs from [A1] and [A2] in several interrelated ways. Component (b) recognises the existence of different Ôkinds of peopleÕ without reference to localisation. Instead there is reference to ‘‘co-association’’: people of one kind doing many things together. Components (c)–(d) have lost the implication of historical transmission. The people in question live, think and behave as they do Ôbecause other people of the same kindÕ live, think and behave similarly. [B] (youth, gay, redneck) cultureB= a. something when people say things about it, they are thinking about things like this: b. there are many kinds of people people of one kind do many things with other people of the same kind c. people of one kind live in one way, not in another way, because other people of the same kind live this way d. people of one kind think about things in some ways, not in other ways, because other people of the same kind think this way they think some things are good, they think some other things are not good because other people of the same kind think this way e. people of one kind do things in some ways, not in other ways because other people of the same kind do things this way In structure, explication [C] partly resembles [B], but there are two important differences in content. First, the reference to different Ôkinds of peopleÕ has been replaced by reference to Ôpeople in a placeÕ doing things together; second, although the reference to shared ways of thinking and behaving persists, the attribution of shared ways of living is absent. Like [A2], the explication has a ‘‘distinctiveness’’ component in (b2).

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[C] (place-XÕs) cultureC (of Y) e.g. Trinity SchoolÕs culture of bullying= a. something when people say things about it, they are thinking about things like this: b1. people in this place do many things with other people in the same place b2. these people donÕt think about things in the same way as other people think about things they donÕt do things in the same ways as other people do things c. these people think about things in some ways, not in other ways, because other people in the same place think this way they think some things are good, they think some other things are not good because other people in the same place think this way d. these people do many things in some ways, not in other ways, because other people in the same place do these things this way As explained in the main body of the paper, the concept explicated in [D] bears little direct relationship, either semantically or historically, to the others. There is one semantic link, however, in the ﬁnal two lines of component (e), which essentially state that ‘‘cultured people’’ have certain characteristic attitudes and behaviours on account of their cultural experiences. [D] cultureD e.g. the pursuit of culture= a. something when people say things about it, they are thinking about things like this: b. it is good for people if some things exist not because people canÕt live if they donÕt have these things not because people canÕt do other things if they donÕt have these things c. things of this kind canÕt exist if some people donÕt do some things not everyone can do these things d. something good can happen in a person when this person sees things of this kind something good can happen in a person when this person hears things of this kind something good can happen in a person when this person thinks about things of this kind e. some people do many things because they want things like this to happen to them these people know much about many things because of this these people think about things in some ways, not other ways, because of this these people do things in some ways, not other ways, because of this

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