Culture and Language

TLDR

Personal deixis offers a window into cultural practices. The study examined 39 languages across 71 cultures, correlating first‑ and second‑person singular pronoun use and drop‑ability with cultural dimensions such as Individualism. Pronoun‑drop languages are associated with lower Individualism, and the frequency of personal pronouns correlates with cultural conceptions of the person.

Abstract

The relationship between culture and language was examined across 39 languages spoken in 71 cultures. Correlations were computed across languages and cultures between the use of first- and second-person singular pronouns (e.g., "I" and "you") and global cultural dimensions such as Individualism, which were previously extracted in large-scale cross-cultural surveys. The personal pronouns were analyzed in terms of the number of first- and second-person singular pronouns and whether the pronouns can be dropped when used as the subject of a sentence in speech. Cultures with pronoun drop languages tended to be less Individualistic than those with nonpronoun drop languages. The number of personal pronouns correlated with some cultural dimensions that reflected different conceptions of the person. Personal deixis (person-indexing pronouns) may provide a window through which cultural practices can be investigated.