Working hypothesis

Review of Frameworks for the Representation of alternative Conceptual Orderings as Determined by Linguistic and Cultural Contexts (Part #15)

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Although much work on subcultures does exist as the meat of social science research, it does not appear to be comparable to Hofstede's multicultural survey. Most of it is on particular subcultures and would not permit implications for information processing to be easily drawn. 

As a working hypothesis it is therefore useful to assume that the forms of differentiation of relevance to information processing that can be found between cultures and languages can also be found within cultures and languages. 

This assumption can be used to formulate questions for further research. Taking Gardner's multiple intelligences as an example, amongst any group of people in which the logico- mathematical form of intelligence is dominant, do the other forms of intelligence occur to different extents as sub-dominants, thus contributing to the variation amongst the sub- culture of mathematicians ? 

But this assumption is most useful as a way of drawing upon Hofstede's research and its implications. Taking one of the clusters grouping the USA and the UK it is probable that the differentiation between the English speaking sub-cultures would result in similar mappings to those he portrays for the case between cultures (in Fig 1 and 2). The information processing consequences (Annex 1) are as relevant in distinguising between sub- cultures as they are in distinguishing between cultures. Within an English-speaking culture, for example, one would expect to find a sub-culture of people and groups who have information processing preferences analogous to those predominating in Latin cultures. Conversely within Latin cultures, one would expect to find a sub-culture of people or groups with information processing preferences analogous to those predominating in English- speaking cultures. 

This makes it clear why some proportion of a population may be especially sympathetic to information processing approaches characteristic of another culture. But it also highlights the illusion of assuming from that interest that the 'market' for that approach could easily be extended to the remainder of the population to the same degree as in the culture where that mode predominates.