Cultural emphasis is defined as an important aspect of a culture which is often reflected though language and, more specifically, vocabulary (Ottenheimer, 2006, p. 266). This means that the vocabulary people use in a culture indicates what is to that group of people. If there are a lot of words to describe a certain topic in a specific culture, then there is a good chance that that topic is considered important to that culture.

Background

The idea of cultural emphasis is rooted form the work of Franz Boas, who is considered to be one of the founders of American Anthropology (Ottenheimer, 2006, p. 15). Franz Boas developed and taught concepts such as cultural relativism

Cultural relativism

Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and...

 and the "cultural unconscious", which allowed anthropologists who studied under him, like Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....

 and Ruth Benedict

Ruth Benedict

Ruth Benedict was an American anthropologist, cultural relativist, and folklorist....

, to further study and develop ideas on language and culture (Hart, 2005, p. 179).

Application

One way in which cultural emphasis is exemplified is a populace talks about the weather. For example, in a place where it is cold and it snows a lot, a large collection of words to describe the snow would be expected.

For example: whiteout

Whiteout (weather)

Whiteout is a weather condition in which visibility and contrast are severely reduced by snow or sand. The horizon disappears completely and there are no reference points at all, leaving the individual with a distorted orientation...

, blizzard

Blizzard

A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong winds. By definition, the difference between blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind. To be a blizzard, a snow storm must have winds in excess of with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to 400 meters or ¼ mile or...

, sleeting

Ice storm

An ice storm is a type of winter storm characterized by freezing rain, also known as a glaze event or in some parts of the United States as a silver thaw. The U.S. National Weather Service defines an ice storm as a storm which results in the accumulation of at least of ice on exposed surfaces...

, snowdrift

Snowdrift

A snowdrift is a deposit of snow sculpted by wind into a mound during a snowstorm. Snowdrifts resemble sand dunes and are formed in a similar manner, namely, by wind moving light snow and depositing it when the wind is slowed, usually against a stationary object. Snow normally crests and slopes...

, powder snow, packed snow, fresh snow.

In a place where it is hot, a cornucopia of associated terms would be expected.

For example: dry heat, muggy, humid, sticky, monsoon season, sweltering.

A concentration of related terms for similar phenomena suggests the importance in distinguishing between them. Furthermore, if you are not from the area, or that culture, you might not have experienced or know the difference between, for example, a dry heat or a humid heat, when the difference may have huge implications for the outcome of a particular action.

See also

• Eskimo words for snow
  Eskimo words for snow
  The "Eskimo words for snow" claim is a widespread misconception alleging that Eskimos have an unusually large number of words for snow. In fact, the Eskimo–Aleut languages have about the same number of distinct word roots referring to snow as English does...
  
  , popular urban legend that the Inuit or Eskimo have an unusually large number of words for snow
• Linguistic relativity
  Linguistic relativity
  The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which its speakers are able to conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view...
  
  , or "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis", the idea that the varying cultural concepts and categories inherent in different languages affect the cognitive classification of the experienced world in such a way that speakers of different languages think and behave differently because of it