The language of social relationship

Abstract

There is a very big idea in psychology and anthropology these days which can be missed because its parts are distributed across authors and fields and there is some shifting of conceptual terms. Nakedly stated, the idea is that the self in Japan, China, Korea, India, Java, Thailand, the East generally, with Japan usually named as the clearest case, is not the same as the self in the West, with the United States usually named as the clearest case. The self in the East is said to be relational, interpersonal, or collective whereas the self in the West is individualistic and autonomous. The self in the West is, furthermore, said by Deborah Tannen (1991) and Carol Gilligan (1986) to be more characteristic of men than of women. Women in the West are said to have a more relational, a more Eastern self. And, what is more, the deflection of the West from its present doomsday course is thought to depend on the moderation of Western male individualism by Easternand-female relationism (Geertz, 1975; Gergen & Gergen, 1988; Gilligan, 1982, 1986; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Marselli, DeVos, & Hsu, 1985; Roland, 1988; Sampson, 1985, 1988, 1989; Shweder & Bourne, 1984; Shweder & LeVine, 1984; Tannen, 1991; Triandis, 1989; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988).