US Military Continues to View Cultural Training As Effective Tool

Modern soldiers are equipped with many options for resolving conflict on and off the battlefield. The role of one of those options, cultural training, is being discussed this week by representatives from the academic arena, defense contractors, government agencies, and representatives from all branches of the US military in Sierra Vista, Arizona, at the Training and Doctrine Command Culture Center (TRADOC TCC)'s fifth annual Culture Summit.

A soldier's duty includes the responsibility of understanding the culture and language of an area of operations, no matter how basic that level of understanding may be. The TCC provides resources for making sure a soldiers initial entry into foreign lands is augmented by language skills and cultural awareness.

Lt. Gen P.K.(Ken) Keen, military deputy commander of the Southern Command, outlined the value of cultural training, cultural competency and culture tactics as important components of success in military operations in foreign countries.Keen is charged with operations and security for the Latin American and Caribbean region and has experience serving in Panama, Honduras, Brazil, Columbia, and was recently assigned to the Joint Task Force dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti last year.

Anglicisms and Americanization: I Say, Old Boy, What's Up?

Americanization is a term used by sociologists to describe the process of imposing the values, attitudes, beliefs, roles, and meanings that are inherently part of the American culture on people of another culture. The context of the term can be seen as an infiltration of one culture into another.

From Pedro to Peter

The term is not to be confused with anglicizing, which attributes words of another language with English qualities or characteristics. For example converting the name Pedro to Peter would be considered anglicizing a Spanish name. The term also describes what happens to foreign words when imported into English. The most common examples of this can be found in the anglicized names for countries, principal cities and capitals found on world maps published in the U.S. or U.K. A common example is Munich for Munchen, the city in the southwest German state of Bavaria (Bayern on German maps).

It's All in the Name


Anglicizing and Americanization both reflect the process of change that happens when cultures collide. One culture can often readily accept the other, as in Japan, where certain aspects of Americanization defines social groups. Products reflecting U.S. brand names effectively attract Japanese consumers.  While other cultures seek to expel vestiges of former colonization and British rule, as in the case of India's bustling western port of Mumbai. Named by British settlers in the 17th century, the name Bombay withstood three centuries until it was officially changed by India's Shiv Sena nationalist party in 1995.

Texting in French

Like the former colonies, France has also made efforts to preserve the novelty of its culture and language by creating neologisms, newly minted French terms to reflect English equivalents, especially for terms of technological innovations like PC, texting, and tweet. It is not hard to imagine why a country would want to retain standards of culture and language. For example, the French use EDR (Ecroulé de rire) for LOL (laugh out loud).  The use of les textos appears to growing at a slower rate in French culture than elsewhere in Europe.

From Pidgins to Creole

In some former colonies like Hawaii and Haiti, indigenous populations used creative derivatives of language to communicate with the colonizing settlers. These pidgins of European descent developed into the creole languages used today. In this case, language and culture were not so much anglicized or Americanized as creatively invented to promote the flow of communication and trade when two cultures lacked one language in common. Pidgin vocabularies are usually regarded as marginal languages but eventually they can become established in a population, as in the case of Haiti and Jamaica, where they are recognized as creole languages.

Anglicisms can be viewed by some cultures as encroachments while in others they are perceived as mechanisms for social mobility. Therefore, the business or pleasure traveler would be wise to utilize them judicially when in a host country. Most cultures will not take kindly to visitors or expats who act as evangelists for Americanization. With a little investigation, the right cultural equivalent  in both language and gesture for "I say" or "what's up" can be but a few keystrokes away. It is always wise to utilize empathy rather than imposition in any attempt to communicate.