In the context of the elements of culture, briefly discuss the concept of linguistic distance.
Linguistic distance is proving useful to marketing researchers in market segmentation and strategic entry decisions. It has been shown to be an important factor in determining differences in values across countries and the amount of trade between countries. The idea is that crossing "wider" language differences increases transaction costs. Over the years, linguistics researchers have determined that languages around the world conform to family trees based on the similarity of their forms and development.
For example, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese are all classified as Romance languages because of their common roots in Latin. Distances can be measured on these linguistic trees. If we assume English to be the starting point, German is one branch away, Danish two, Spanish three, Japanese four, Hebrew five, Chinese six, and Thai seven.
Other work in the area is demonstrating a direct influence of language on cultural values, expectations, and even conceptions of time. For example, as linguistic distance from English increases, individualism decreases.
These studies are among the first in this genre, and much more work needs to be done. However, the notion of linguistic distance appears to hold promise for better understanding and predicting cultural differences in both consumer and management values, expectations, and behaviors.
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