7/27/2019 The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society - sapir

1/9

I011 t l l r other hnnd, the fundamental concepts i l lustrated by human langungesare no t d i s t inct in k ind f rom ethnolog ical phenomena; and because , fu r ther-more, th e peculiar ch aracterist ics of languages are clearly reflected in t l ie viewsand customs of the peoples of the world.

I

28 F o r m a t i v e P e r i od : 1910-1940s

The Unconscious Patterningof Behavior in SocietyEdward Sapir

W e may seem to be guil t); of a p arado x xvhen we speak of the unconscious inreference to social activity. Doubtful as is the usefulness of this concept \vhenwe confine ourselves to the beha vior of the individual, i t m ay seem to be u.orsetha n doubtfu! when we leave the kinds of behavior tha t are strict ly individu aland deal with those more co mplex kinds of act ivi ty \vhich, rightly or wrongly,are supposed to be carried on, not by indi\-iduals as such, but by th e associat ionsof human beings that const i tute society. It may be argued thzi t society has nomor e of a n unconscious than i t has hands or legs.

I propose to show, however, tha t the para dox is a real one only if t he te rm"social beha vior" is unde rstood in the very literal sense of behavior ref erre d togroups of hum an beings which act as such, regardiess of the m ental i t ies of theind iv idual s which compose the g roups . T o such a mys t ica l g roup a lone ca n amysterious "social unconsciousness" be ascribed. But as we are very far frombelieving that such groups real ly exist , we may be able to persuade ourselvesthat no more especial kind of unconsciousness need be imputed to social be-havior than is needed to understand the behavior oi the individual himself. Mieshall be on muc h safer groun d if we take i t for grante d that al l hum an beha viorinvolves essentially the same types of mental functioning, as well conscious asunconscious, and tha t the term "social" is no more exclusive of the con cep t"unconscious" than is the term "individual," for the very simple reason th at t heterms "social" an d "individual" are contrast ive in only a l imited sense. W e wil lassume that any kind of psychology that explains the behavior of th e individ ualalso explains th e behavio r of society in so far as the psychological point of vie wis applicable to and sufficient for the study of social behavior. It is t rue t ha t forcertain purposes i t is very useful to look aux y entirely from the individu al an dto think of social ized behavior as though i t \ \ .ere carried on by certain largerenti t ies which transcend the psycho-physical organism. But this vie~vpointimplici t ly dem ands the abandonm ent of the psychological appro ach to theesplanation of human conduct in society.I t \vil l be clear from what we have said that \ve do not find the essentialdiffe;.ence bet\veen individual and social behavior to lie in the psychology ofthe behav ior i tself. Strict ly speaking, each kind of be hal~ ior s individu al , th e2'Fe rc;lce in termino!ogy bein: entirely due to a differenc e in the poirit of vie\\..

7/27/2019 The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society - sapir

2/9

If our a t tent ion i5 focu5ed or, the a ctual , theoret ical ly nleasurable behavior of agiven indivit lual at a given t ime and place, we cal l i t " individual ," no m atte rwhat the physiological or psychological nature of that behavior may be. If, onthe other hand, we prefer to el iminate certain aspects of such individual behav-ior from our consideration and to l~o l t l n orily to those respects in \vhich i tcorresponds to certain norms of conduc t \ \ -hich have been developed hy h um anbeings in associat io: i with on e anot her a nd \ v l l i ~ ~ l lend to perpetuate themselvesby tradi t ion, we speak of "social be l~avior ." In othe r words, social behavior ismerely the sum or, bet ter, arr ang em ent of such aspects of individual b ehavioras are refer red to cu l tu re pa t t e rns tha t have the i r p roper con tex t , no t i n thespat ial and tenlporal cont inui t ies of biological behavior, but in historical sc-quences that are im put id to actual behavior by a principle of select ion.

We have thus defined the difierence between individual and social behavior,not in terms of kind or essence, bu t in terms of organizrj tion. To say that thehum an being behaves indi \ridual ly at one m ome nt and social ly at an othe r is asabsurd as to declare t l iat ma tter fol lo\vs the laws of cl lemistry at a ce rtain t imeand succumbs to the suppc,edly different laws of atomic physics at mother,for matte r is always o:jcying ce rtai n meclianica l laws \v!lich ar e at one an dthe same t ime both pl iysical and chemical according to tile manner in which\ve choose to define its orga nizati on. I n dc=!ing with hu nia n beings, w.e simplyfind i t more convenient for certain purposes to refer a given act to the psycho-physical organism i tself. In othe r cases the interest happens to l ie in continui t iesth at go beyond t he individ ual organ is:^^ an d its funct ioning , so that a bit ofconduct that is object ively no more and no less individual t l ian the fi rs t isinterpreted in terms of t l ie non-individual pat terns that const i tute social be-havior or cul tural behavior.

It \vould be a useful exercise to forc e ourselves to see any given h um an actf rom bo th of these points of v i ~ w nd to t ry to convince ourselves in this waytha t i t is fut ile to classify huma n acts as such as having a n inherent ly individualor social significance. It is t rue tha t there ar e a gre at many organisma] fun c-tions that it is difficult to tllink of in social terms, but I think that even lierethe social point of view may often be applied with success. Few social studentsare interested, for instance, in the exact m ann er in vrhich a given individualbreathes. Yet i t is not to be doub ted that ou r breathin g habi ts are largely con-di t ioned by factors conventional ly classified as social . There are pol i te andimpoli te way: of breathing. Th ere a rc s l~rci al tt i tudes which scern to charac -terize whole societ ies that undou btedly co ndit ion the br eathing habi ts of theindividuals who ma kr u p these societies . Ordin ari ly the characteris t ic rl~ yth m fbreathing of a given individual is lool ied upon as a matter for s t rict ly indi-vidual defini t ion. But i f , for one reason or another, the emphasis shifts to theconsiderat ion of a certain m an ner of bre at l~ ing s du e to good form or socialt radi t ion or sorne other principle t l lat is u>ual ly gi\ .en a social contest , thenthe \\,hole subject of bre athi ng at on ce ceases to 11e a m rrely in di\.idu al concer nan d takes on the appearan ce of a social pat tern. Th us, the regularized breath-ing of the Hindu Yogi , the subdued breathing of t !lose \ iho are in the presence

30 F o r m a t i v e P e r i o d : 191 - 1 9 4 0 s

of a rece ntly dccrnsecl com pan ion lnid a\\ .a) in a coFfi11 and s-rro-r,dcc! b j- a!!the ri tual of fun eral obscn.ances, the s tyle of brcathing bvhich one l rar ns fro man operat ic s inger \vl jo gi \ .es lessons on the proper control of the voice, are,eac h and e \.ery one ot then], capable of isolatiorl as socialized irlodes of c ond uc tthat ha\ .e a d efini te placc in the l l istory of hurnan cul ture, though they a reobviously not a wh it less facts of indi\~icIualbehavior than the rnost c.asual andrlormal s t).le of breathing, such as one rarely imagines to have oth er th an purelyindi \ ,idual implications. Strange as i t may seem at fi rs t blush, there is no hardand fas: line of division as to class of behavior between a given style of breath-ing, provided that it be socially interkret ed, and a rel igious doctrine or a formof pol i t ical administrat ion. T his is not to say that i t may n ot be infini tely moreuseful to apply the social mode of analysis of huma n ccn duc t to certa ':n casesand th e individual mod e of analysi ; to others . Rut \ve do ~n ain tain hat suc hdifferences of analyhis are merely i~nposeclby tile natu re of th e intc.,.est of th eobserver and are not inherent in the phenomena theinselves.

All c~i l tu ral ehavior is pat terncdi T his is merely a way of sa: ing t l lat man ythings that an individual does and thinks and feels may be looked upon notmerely from the s tandpoint of the forms of behavior th: i t are proper to himselfas a biological organism but from the s tandpoint of a general ized rnode ofconduct that is imputed to society rather than to the individual , though thepersonal genesis of conduct is of precisely the same nature, \vliether \\.e chooseto cal l the cor lduct i~ ld iv idual r soc ia l . I t is i~npossib l e o say ~v ha t n ind i -vidual is doing unless we ha\,e tacitly accepted the essentially arbitrary modesof interpretat ion that social t radi t ion is constant ly suggest ing to us from thevery nlolnent of our birth. Let a nyone \vho doubts this t ry the experim ent ofmaking a p ainstaking report of the act ions of a g roup of nat ives engaged insome forrn of act ivi ty, say rel igious, to which he has no t th e cul tura l key. If h eis a skillf~llwri ter, !IF ma y succeed i r i gi\,ing a piciiirehque accoun t of \\.hat hesees an d hears , o r thinks he sees and hears , but the ch ances of his being ab leto gi \.e a relat ion of w l~ a t appens in ternls that \vould be intel l igible andaccep tab le to the na t ives t l~e~nse lvesre practically nil. He \

7/27/2019 The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society - sapir

3/9

an d to see altruism or beauty where nothing of th e kind is ei ther fel t orin tended .

Ordinari ly a cultura l pat tern is to be defined both in terins of fu nction a ndof forrn, t l ~ elvo concepts being inseparably intert \vined in pract ice, howeverconvenient i t may be to dissociate them in tbcory. Many functions of behaviorare primary in the sense that an individual organic need, such as the szt isfac-tion of hunger, is being fu lfilled, bu t oft en tlie function al side of be havio r isei ther entirely transformed or, a t the Icast , takes on a n ew incr eme nt ofsignificance. In this way ncw functional interpretat ions are constantly beingdeveloped for forms set by tradit ion. Of te n the true functions of behav ior ar eunkno\\ .n and a merely rat ionalized function may be imputed to i t . Because ofthe readiness ui th \vhich forms of human conduct lose or modify their originalfunctions o r take on entirely new ones, it becomes necessary to see socialbehavior f rom a fo rma l as cve!l as from a fu ncti ona l poin t of view, an d \ve shallnot consider any kind of hu ma n beliavior as understood if we ca n merely give,or think we can give, an answer to the quest ion "For what purposc is thisbcil ig done?" \Ve shall have also to kno\v what is the precise rnanner andart iculat ion of the doing.

Now it is a commonplace of observation that the reasoning in zlligence seeksto at tach i tself rather to the functions tha: . to the forms of conduct . For everythousand individuals \vho can tel l \ \ i th some show of reason \ \ -hy they sing or

7.e who canuse ~vor ds n connected speech or han dle money, there is barely o.,adequately define the essential outl ines of these modes of behavior. N o do ubtcertain fornis will be imputed to such behavior i f at tentio n is draw n to i t , butexperience sho\vs that the forms discovered may be very seriously at variancewith those actually followed and discoverable o n closer study. In other words,the pat terns of social behavior ar e not necessari ly discovered by simple observa-tiolil, tho\;& they :ay h e ad he re d to 1.vith tyrannica! consistency in th e actualconduct of l i fe. If we c an show that norm al hu ma n beings, both in confessedlysocial behavior and often in supposedly individual behavior, are react ing inaccordance with deep-seated cultural pat te rns, and if, further , lve can showthat these pat terns are not so much known as fel t , not so much capable ofconscious descript ion as of n aive pract ice, th en wc have the right to speak ofthe "unconscious pat terning of behavior in society." T he unconscious natu reof this pt t er ni ng consists not in some mysterious function of a racial o r socialmind reflected in th e minds of the individual members of society, but merelyin a typical unawareness on the part of the individual of outl ines and deinarca-t ions and significances of condu ct which he is al l the t im e implici t ly fol lowing.Jung3s"racial unconscious" is neithe r an intelligible nor a necessaly conc ept. I tintroduces m ore difficulties th an it solves, while we have all \ve need for thepsychological understanding of social behavior in the facts of individual psy-chology.IVhy are the forms of social behavior not adequately known by the normalindividual? How is it tliat 1v.c can speak, if only meta;iliorically, of a socialunconscious? I believe that the answel. to this quest ion rests in the fact that

32 Fornzative Period: 1910-1940s

the relat ions between the elements of experience \v!!ich s e l ~ eo gi\.e tliem tlieirform a nd sigr~ificance re more powerfully "felt" or " intui ted" than consciouslyperceived. I t is a mat ter of com mon knowledge that i t is relati \ .ely e x y to firt he a t t en t ion on seine arbitrarily selectcd element of experience, such as asensation or an elnotion, but that i t is far from e2sy to become conscious of theexact place w hich such a n element holds in the total constei iations of behavior.It is easy for an A ustral ian nat ive, fo r instance, to sa;, by \ \ .hat kinship tcr m heca!ls so and so or lvhcther or not he may undertake such a nd such relat ionswith a biven individual. It is exceedingly difficult for him to give a generalrule of which these specific examples of behavior are but i l lustrat ions, thoughall the bvhile he ac ts as though the rule \ \ ,ere perfect ly \ \el l kno wn to h im.I n a sense it is well known to hirn. But this knowledge is not cap>.ble of con-scious manipulat ion in terms of word synlbols. It is , rather, a very del icately~u a nc ed cr ' i ng o f sub t l e re la t iqns , bo th exper ienced and poss ib le . T o th i s k indof knowledge may be applied the term "intuit ion," which, when so defined,need hz..:e no mystic connotati ons whateve r. It is strang e how frequ ently o nehas the illusion of free kno\vledge, in the light of ~vh ic h :e may in ani pul atecondu ct a t will , only to discover in the test that on e is being impelled by strictloyalty to forms of behavior that on e can fccl with the utn:ost nicety bu t c anstate only in the vaguest and m ost approxim ate fashion. It would seem tha t \yeact al l the mo re securely for our unawareness of th e pat terns th at control us.I t may \ \el l be tha t , owing to the l imitat ions of the conscious l i fe, any at t em ptto subject even the higher forms of social behavior to purely conscious controlmust result in disaster. Perhaps there is a far-reaching moral in the fact thateven a child may speak the most difficult language with idiomatic ease but thati t takes an unusually analyt ical type of mind to define the m ere elem ents ofthat incredibly subtle linguistic mechanism bvhich is but a plaything of thecE.i!d's unc~nsc io .~~.s it not posj iblr i i iat the contemporary mind, in i ts rest lessat tempt to drag al l the forms of behavior into consciousness and to apply theresults of i ts fragme ntary or experim ental analysis to the guidan ce of con duct ,is real ly thro wing aw ay a gre ater wealth for the sake of a lesser and mo redazzling one? It is almost as though a misguidcd enthusiast exchanged histhousands of dollars of a ccumulated credit at the bank fo r a few gli t teringcoins of manifest , though l i t t le, worth.\Ve shall now give a number of examples of pat terns of social beha\ ,ior andshow that they are very incompletely, if a t al l, kno\vn by the n ormal, naiveindividual . We shall see that the penu mbra of unconscious pat tern ing of socialbehavior is an extraordinari ly complex realm, in which one ar.d the same typeof o v e r t b e h a ~ ~ i o ray have al together dist inct s ignificances in accordance ~\ .i thi ts relat ion to other types of behavior. Owing to the compell ing, but mainlyunconscious, nature of the forms of social behavior, it becomes almost irnpossi-ble for the normal individual to observe or to c0ncek.e of functionally similartypes of b ehavior in other societies than his otvn, or in oth er cultural contextst h n those he ,has exper ienced , wi thou t p ro ject ing in to them the fo rms tha t he

Th e Uncon:-ious Pattc rlli~zg f Behavior in Society 33

7/27/2019 The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society - sapir

4/9

is famil iar \ \ .i t ]] . In oth rr \cords, onc is al \\ .ays unconscioudy finding wh at oneis i;i unconscious subjection to.

Our fi i -ht examl~lc< i l l be taken fro m the field of lang uagc . Langu age Llas the~ o n l e \ v h a t s c ep ri on a l ~ ~ r o l ~ e r t yhat i t5 forms arc, for t l lc most pnrt , indirectratllel. than clircct in their functional significance. The souncls, \vorc!>, gralnrnlt-ical forl~ls , yntact ic construct ions, and o t l ~c r inguistic forms that \vc assimilatein cliild!~ood1m.c only valuc in so far as society has tacit ly agrecd to see them ascy:nho!< of reference . For this rcnson Ianzuag e is an unu hually favo rable do ma infor thc study of tlic general tendency of cultural behavior to \cork out all sortso f fo rmal c l abora t io i~s ha t have on ly a secondary , and , as i t were , " af t er t hec\ .entV reletxncc to funct ional needs. I 'urely funct ional ex planat ions of Ian-guagc, if \d id , \vould lead us to expect ei thcl . a fa r greater uniforini t ) . inl i~lgui j t ic sprcssion thai l \ve actual ly find, or sh ould iead us to discover s t rictrelat ions of a funct ional natu re bet \vecn a par t icular forin of Ia ~lgu agr n d thccultur e of the pe oplc using it. Neitllcr o f these cxpectatic:.; is fulfilled by thcfacts. \\ 'hateve r Irla). bc true of otlicr types of c ultu ral beha vior, we c an safclysay that the forms of spccch developed in th e di tyercnt parts of the world areat on ce free and ncccssary, in t!lc scnsc in \\-h ich all artistic proc!.:ctions arefree and ncccssary. Linguistic forrlls as \vc find them bear only tlic loosest rela-tion to thc cultural needs of a gi\.cn socicty, but they havc the very tightestconsistency as aesthetic products.

A \.cry simple cxam ple of thc justicc of tllese remar ks is affor ded by thcEnglish plura l. T o most of us speak English the tangible expression of theplural idea in thc noun srcms to be a self-evident necessity. Carefu l obsen ~ati onof English usage, ho~v cvc r, eads to tllc con\-ictio n that this self-evident neces-sity of expression is morc of an i l lusion than a real i ty. If t l lc plural were to beunde rstoo d function aily alone, \vc should iind it difficult to explai n why \veusc plural forins \vi th num erals an d oth er \cords tha t in themselves inlplyplurality. "Five Inan" or "several housc" \vould be just as adequate as "fivrmen" or "scveral I~ouscs."Clea rly, ivhat ha s 11al)pcncd is tha t English, like allof the other Indo-E uropra n languag es, has devclopcd a feeling for the classi-fication of all expressions which ha\ .e a nominal f orm into s ingulars and plurals .So much is this the case tha t in the early pcriod of th e history of ou r linguisticfamily cven the adject ive, \vhich is nominal in form , is unusable except inconjunct ion \vith the category of nu mbe r. I n ma ny of the languages of thegroup this habit still persists. Such notions as "\vhitc" or "long" arc incapableof cspression in Frcnch or Russian without form al commitrnel l ts on t l le scoreo f \vhcthcr thc qual i t ) is predicated of o ne or sc\era l pcrsons or objects . No\vit is not denie d tha t the cxprcssion of th r conce pt of plurality is useful. In dee d,langu age tha t is forever incapab!e of makin g thc differelice betxveen tlie oneand the many is obviously to that extent hainpcrcd in its tcchniclue of expres-sion. But \cc must emphatically deny that this part icular kind of cxprcssionneed cvcr dcvclop into the conlplcx fornlal system of number defini t ion thattcc are famil iar \vit ll . In m any ot her l inguist ic groups the concept of nuinbcr

31 Fornzatiue Period: 1910-1 940s

belongs to the groul) of ol~t iorlal l>-spl-ccsil~le otions. Ir. Chi::e>e; fo:- i;;star ~cc ,the \tu rd "111a11" iilay be intc rpr crc d as tlrc Englisli ccjui\-alc rlt of cit hr r " ina n"o r " i r l e ~ ~ , "cco rdir ~g o the par t icular co ntext i ll \chic11 the \ ~ o r d s usccl. It is

!I to be carciully ncted, hobvcvcr, that this forli:a! anlbiguity is nc\er 21 funct ional1 one. 'I'crms of irillcrcnt plurality, such as "6\-c," '.all," or "several," o r of!I inhci-ent hingulari t ) , such as "one" or ''111y" in the phrasc "m), \ \ i i r:" cal li a1tiq.s bc counted upon to lender factual l ) clear \ i l lat is forinal ly left to thcimagination. If the anlbiguity persists, it is a useful ollc GI. ollc tllat docs not1 nlatter. IIoir littie the expression of oi;r concept of number is left to tile prar-

t ical exigencies of a part icular casr, how much i t is a matter of consistency ofaes:lietic treatmenr, \

7/27/2019 The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society - sapir

5/9

01 "to the east" inight be conveyed not by an independent word or phrase butby a mere suffix in complex verb.

r .I hrre is a rather obscure Incl ian language in r;ort l ierr; Cali lor~iia,Ynna,~ ~ h i c l lot only can esprcss t l r i 3 t hought i i ~ s ing le \~ .o rd , u t \\.auld find itdifficult to express it in any oth er way. l 'he form of expression \:.hich ispeculiar to Yan a m ay be roughly analyzed as fol lo\ \s . Th e first elerncnt in theverb complex indicates the notion of several people l iving together or movingas a group from place to place. This element, which \vc may cal l the "verbtion.stern," can only occur at the bc~ in ni ng f the verb, never in any other po ' ''The second element in the complete \vord indicates the notion of crossing astream or of moving from on e side of a n area to the other. I t is il l no sense anindepenclent u.ord, but can only be used as an element at tached to a verbstem or to other elements which have themse1i .e~been at tached to the verbs tem. The th i rd ele inen t in the ~vords similarly suffixed and conveys the notionof movem ent toward the east . It is one of a ie t of eight elements which conveythe respective notions of m ovem ent t o\~ .ar d l ie east , south, \ve: t, and north ,and of movement from the east , south, \ \ .ej t , and north. Xone of these elementsis an intelligible ufo rd in iself bu t receives mean ing orily in so far as it fallsinto i ts proper place in the cornp:csly organized verb. The fourth element isa suffix that indic ates the relation of caus ality, that is; of ca using on e to do orbe something, bring i t about that one does or is in a certain way, t reat ing onein such and such an indicated ma nne r. At this point the lznguage indulges ina rather pret ty piece of formal play. The voi\.el of the verb stem \vhich wespoke of as occupying the first position in the ver b symbolized the intran sitiveor stat ic mode of apprehension of th e act . As soon as t l~ e ausat ive notion isintroduced, ho\\ .ever, the verb stem is compclled to pass to the category oftransitivized or active notions, which means that the causative suffix, in spiteo f the pare nthe tical inclusion of cert ain notions of direction of movem ent, hasthe retroactive effe ct of chan ging the vo\vel of the stem. U p to this point ,therefore, we get a perfect ly unified complex of notions which m ay be rendered"to cause a group to move across a stream in an easterly direct ion."

But this is not yet a ~vo rd , t least not a \vord in the finished sense of t heterm, for the elements that are st i l l to fol low have just as l i t t le independentexistence as those MT ha\ .e alread y referred to. Of the more form al elementsthat are needed to complete the xvord, tlie first is a tense suffix referring to thefutu re. Thi s is fol lo~ve d y a pro nolninal elem ent \vhich refers to the personsingular, is differen t in form fr om th e suffi.;ed p rono un ~ is ed n other tenses andmoda lities. Finally, tliere is an ele inen t consisting of a single conso nant w hichindicates tha t the \vhole word , which is a comple te proposition in itself, is tobe understoocl in an interrogative sense. Here again the language i l lustrates aninteresting kind of specia lization of for m. Nea rly all \vords of the langu agediffer s l ightly in fo rm according to whetl ier the speaker is a m an speaking toa ma n or , on the o ther hand , is a woman or a man speak ing to a woman. T he

36 Forrnatiue Period: 19 10-1940s

inter roga tive for111 tha t Lve hav e just discuzsed can only be used by a m anspeaking to a man. In the other three cases the suffix in quest ion is not used,but the last vo\vel of the word, u,l~icl : r r tiris pzrticular case liappens to be tilefinal vo\vel of the pronom inal suffix, is lengthened in order to espress t h ~interrogative modali ty.

\Ye are no t in the least interrste d in the details of tliis analysis, but so me ofits imp licatio ns should interest us. I n the first place, it is necess,lry to bea r inmind t hat there is nothing arbitrary or accidental or even curious about thestructu re of this word . Every element fal ls into its prope r place in accor danc ewith defini tely formula ble rules lvhich can be discovered by the invest igator butof ~v hi ch he spe akers themselves 1laX:e no niore co i~scio us no\vledge th an ofthe inhabita nts of the moon. I t is possible to say, for instance, tha t the verbstem is a part icula r exam ple of a larg e numbe r of elemen j \vhich belcng tothe same general class, such as " to si t ," " to \ \ .alk," ' . to run,' ' '. t o jump," andso on; or that the element which espresses the idea crossing from one side toanother is a part icular example of a large class of local elements of paral lelfun ctio n, such as "to the nc-.;t hc luse," "u p tlie hill," "into a ho!!ow,!' '.o\-er thecrest," "dow n hill," "uilder," "over," "in the middle of," "off," "hither," an dso on. Lt 'e may quite safely assume that no Yana Indian ever had the sl ightestknowledge of classification such as these or ever possessed even an inkling ofthe fact that his language neatly symbolized classifications of this sort by me ansof i ts phone tic app ara tus and by rigid rules of sequence an d cohesion of fo rma lelements. Yet al l the while we may be perfect ly certain that the relat ionswhich give th r elements of the language their s ignificance were somehow fel tand adhered to . A mistake in the vowel of the first syllable, for inst nce, wouldundoubtedly feel to a nat ive speaker l ike a self-contradictory form in English,for insta nce "five house" instcad of "five houses" or "they runs" in stead of"they run." Mistake s of this sort are resisted as any aesthetic trans gressionmig ht be resisted-as being some how incor:gruous, out of the pictu re, or, if on echooses to rationalize the resistance, as inherently illogical.

The unconscious pat terning of l inguist ic conduct is discoverable not only inthe significant forms of language but , just as surely, in the several materialsout of which language is buil t , namely t l ie vowels and consonants, the cha ngesof stress and quanti ty, and the fleet ing intonations of speech. It is quite a nil lusion to bel ieve th at the sounds and the sound dynam ics of lan guage ca n besufficiently d::fined by more or less deta iled state me nts of ho w the speechart iculat ions are inanaged in a neurological or muscular scnsr. Every languagehas a phonetic scheme in which a given sound or a given dynamic treatment ofa sound has a defini te configurated place in reference to al l the other soundsrecognized by the l anguage. Th e s ing le sound , in ~ ~ t h e ryards, is in n o senseidc~ : t i ca lwi th an ar t i cu la tion or wi th the pc rc~y t ion f an ar t i cu la t ion . I t i s ,ratllcr, a point in a pattern, precisely as a tone in a given musical tr;:ditionis a point in a patte rn lvhich inc ludes the \vholc ranye of ae sthetically possibletones. Ttco given tones ],lay be physical!) dist inguished but aesthet ical ly

Th e Urzconscious Pat tern ing of Behavior in Socie ty 37

7/27/2019 The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society - sapir

6/9

ident ical because each is heard or understood as occupying the Samr% ormalposition in t!le total set of recognized tones. I n a musical trad ition w hich doesnot recognize chromatic intervals "C sharp" \vould have to be ident ified \ \ i th"G" and \vould be considered as a m ere devi ; i tion, pleasant or unplca sar~t , r ,orr~"C." In o ur o \ \n inusical t radi t ion the cl i l Icrcnce het\veen "C " an d "C harp"i s c ~ u c i a lo an understanding of al l our music, an d, by unco:lscious project ion,to a certain ivay of misunderstanding a!l other music built on differcilt princi-ples . I: ] s t i l l other musical t radi t ions there are s t i l l finer intenal ic diffcrencesrecog!:izcd, none of \vhich quite corresponds to our semitonc interval. In thesethree cases i t is obvious that nothing can be said as to the cul tural andaesthet ic s tatus of a given tone in a song unless \ve know or feel against whatsort of general tonal background it is to be interpreted.

I t is precisely so \\!it11 the so unds of speech. F rom a purely objective stan d-point tl:: difierence be t~t 'ee n he k of "ki!lU and the k of "al;ill" is as easilydefinable as the, to us, major difference bet \veen the k of "kill" an d the g of"gi ll" (of a fish). In some languages th e g sound of "gill" w ould be lookedtlpon, or rather \vould be intui t i \ -ely interpr eted, as a com parat ively u nini-por tant or individual divergence from a sound typical ly represented by the k of"skill," while the k of "kill," \vith its gre ate r stren gth of arti cul atio n and itsaudible breath release, would co nst i tute an ut terly dist inct phonet ic ent i ty.Obviously the two di5t inct k sounds o f such a l anguage and the two ways o fpronouncing the k in English, \vhi lc object ively conlparable and even ident icalphenomena, are from the point of \ .icw of pat terning ut terly different . Hundredsof interesting and, at fi rs t blush, s t rangely paradoxica l exam ples of this sortcou ld be g i \~en , u t t he sub jec t is perhaps too t echn ical fo r t rea tm en t in th ispaper .

It is needless to say that no normal speaker has an adequate knowledge ofthese suhm ~rg cd ound configurat ions. H e is the unconscious and magnificent lyl o ~ a l dherent of thoroughly social ized phonet ic pat terns, which a re s imple andself-evident in dai ly pract ice, but subt ly involved and historical ly determinedin actual fact . O\vin g to the necessity of thinki ng of spe ech habits no t merely inovert terms but as involving the set t ing u p of intui t ively ma stered relat ionsin sui table contexts , \ \ .e need not be surprised that an art iculatory habi t bvhicl iis perfect ly feasible in one set of relat ions bcc o~n es ubject ively impossible w henthe pat tern in \vhich i t is to be fi t ted is changed. T hus , an English-speakingperson \vho is utterly unable to pronounc e a Frenc h nasal ized vowel m aynevertheless be qui te able to execute the necessary art iculat ion in another con-text , such as the imitat ion of sno ring or of the s ou ~ld f some wild anim al .Again, the Fren chm an or Germ an \vlio cann ot pronounce the " \vh" of ourAnlel .ican-English "why" can easi ly prod ucc th e same sound when he gent lyhlo\vs out a candle. I t is obv io~ ~sl yorrect to say that the acts i l lustrated inthese cases can only be understood as they are fi t ted into defini te cul turalpat terns concerning the form an d mechanics of which th e normal indi \ ,idualhas no adequate knowledge.

3S F o r n l a t i u e P e r i o d : 19 10-1 940s

We ma y su~nm ariz c ur interpretat ion of these, and thousancls of othe r, es-amples of language bchavior by saying that in each case an unconscious controlof v e n com plicated configurat ions or forinal sets is individual ly acquirrcl byprocesses whi ch it is the business of the ps)-chologist to try to u llders tand butthat , in spi te of the enor~n ously aried psyc!iological ~ ~rcdis posi t ion snd typesof condit ioning which characterize different personal i t ies , these pat terns intheir com pleted form differ only infini tcsin~al ly roin indi \-idual to individual ,in many cases fro m generat ion to generat ion, A nd yet thcse forms l ie ent irelyoutside the inhiri ted biological tendencies of the race and can be explainedonly in s trictly social terms. I n the s imple facts of language \\.e 11a.e an es -cel lent example of an imp ortant network of pat terns of beha \ ior, each of themlvit l i exceedingly complex and, to a large estent , only vaguely definable func-t ions, which is preserved and transmit ted \vi th a minimum of con~ciousness.Th e for ms of speech so t ransmit ted seem as necessary as the s implest reflexes ofthe organism. So po\vcrfully, indeed, a rc \vc in the g rip of our phonet ic habi tstha t it becomes one of the m ost delic ate anr' difficult tasks of the liriguisticstudent to discover what is the t rue configurat ion of sounds in languages al iento his own. Thi s means tha t the a\ ,cra gc person unconsciously interpre ts thephonetic material of other languages in terms impsscd upon him by the l iabi tsof his own lan guage. Th us, the naive Fre: lcl ilnan confounds the tw o sounds "s"of "sick" a nd "th" of "thick" in a single patt ern point-not because he is reallyunable to hear the difference, i -ut bccnusc the set t ing up of such a differencedisturbs his feeling for the necessary configuration of 1ir:guistic soun ds. I t is asthough an observer f rom hlars , knowing nothing of the curtoin we cal l war,were intui t ively led to confound a punishable murder with a thoroughly legalan d nob!e act of killing in the course of battle. Th e mecha nism of projectio nof pat terns is as evident in the one case as in the other.

N o t a ll f ~ r m s f cul tura l be!lavlor so i i . ~ l ! l !ustrate i l ic l~i ec i~a nic sf un-conscious pat terning as does l inguist ic behal ior, hut there are felv, if any ,types of cul tura l beha\ .ior \ \ ,hi& do n ot i l lustrate it . Functional considerat ionsof al l kinds, leading to a greater degree of conscious control , or apparent con-trol, of the patte rns of behavior, tend to obscure the unconscious na tur e of thepat terns themscl\ .es , but the more carcfu!ly \ve s tudy cul tural bcha\ .ior, themore thoroughly we become convinced that the diffcrences are but differencescf degree. A very good cxamp le of ano ther field for the de\ ,elopm cnt of unc on-scious cul tural pat terns is that of gesture. Gestures are hard to classify and i t isdifficul t to make a conscious separat ion bct~c ecn hat in gesture ~v hic h s ofmerely individual origin and that \cl .ich is referable to the habi ts of thc groupas a \vholc. In spite of these difficulties of conscious analysis, \vc resp ond togestures with an extreme alertness and, one might almost say, in accordance\vith an elaborate and secret codc that is \\.ri:tcn norvhcre, knolvn by none, andunde rstood by all. Rut this codc is by no Incans referable to simple org ani cre ;)onses. O n the c ontra ry, it is as finely certain and artificial, as definitely acrL.ation of social tradition, as langua ge or religion or industrial te chno logy.Like everything else in human conduct , gesture roots in the react ive necessi t ies

T h e U n c o n sc i o u s P u t t e r n i n g of E e h a u i o r i n S o c i e t y 39

7/27/2019 The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society - sapir

7/9

of the organism, but the laws of gesture, the unwri t ten code of gestured mes-sages and responses, is the anonymous work of an elaborate social tradition.IVhocver doubts this may soon become convinced when he penetrates into thesignificance of gesture pat terns of other societ ies than his own. A Jewish orI t a l i an sh rug o f the shou lders is no m ore the same pa t t e rn of beh av i 0 r . a~ heshrug of a typical Amerizan th an t l ,e forms an d significant evocat ions of theYiddish or Ital ian sentence are iden t ical wit11 those of any think able Englishsentence. The differences are not to be referred to supposedly deep-seated racialdifferencs of a biologica! sort . They l ie in the unconsciously apprehe nded buildsof the respect ive social pat tern s which include them and out of which theyhave been abstracted fo r an essential ly art i ficial comparison. A certain im -mobility of coun tenance in New York o r Ch icago may be in t erp re t ed as amasterly exaniple of tlre art of wearing a poker face, but when Lvorn by aperfect ly average inhabitant of Tokyo, i t may be explainable as nothing moreinterest ing or important than the s implest and most obvious of good manners.It is the fai lure to unde rstand the relat ivi ty of gesture an d posture, the degreeto ~v hic h hese classes of behavior are referable to social pat te rns w hichtranscend merely individual psycho!ogical significances, which makes it so easyfor us to find individua l indices of personal i ty w here i t is only the al ien culcurethat speaks.

In the ec onomic life of a people, too, Lve ar e consirtntly forced to reco gnizethe pervasive influence of pat terns which stand in no immediate relat ion to theneeds of the organism an d \ \ ,hich are by no me ans to be taken for granted ina general phi losophy of ecsnomic conduct but which must be fi t ted into theframe work of social forms char acte ristic of a given society. Th er e is not onlyan unconscious pat terning of the types of end eavor t hat ar e classed as eco-nomic, there is even such a thing as a characteris t ic pat terning of economicm=ti:re. Th u s , t he acn- ;p - -~n ti ..Ls.A... cf -,$;ea!th is not to be l ight ly taken fo r grantedas one of the basic drives of hu ma n beings. One ac cumulates prope rty, onedefers the immediate enjoymen t of ~v ea l th, nly in so far as society sets the pacefor these act ivi t ies and inhibi t ions. Many primit ive societ ies are qui te innocentof an understanding of the ac cum ulat ion of weal th in our sense of the phrase.Even where there is a defini te feel ing that ~v ea l th hould be accum ulated, themotives which are responsible for the pract ice a nd w hich give definite form tothe methods of acciuiring wealth are often s ignal ly different from such as wecan readi ly understand.

T he l l 'es t Coast Indians of Bri t ish Colum bia have often been quoted as aprimitive society that has developed a philosophy of \vealth which is somewhatcomparable to our own, with i ts emphasis on "conspicuous waste" and on thesacrosanct charac ter of property. T he cornparison is not essent ial ly sound. T he]Vest Coast Ind ian does not h andle ~ veal t l r n a ma nne r bvlrich we c an recognizeas our own. IVe can find plenty of analogies, to be sure, but t l rey are Inorel ikely to be misleading than helpful . No ]Vest Coast Indi an, so far as we know,ever amassed wealth as an indic.idual pure and siinple, \\.it11 tlie expectation ofd i spos ing o f i t in the fu l !ness o f t ime a t h i s own s w ~ et \ .i l l . This is a dream of

40 Formative Period: 1910-1 940s

t he modern European and Arner i i an ind iv idual i s t , a n d it is 3 dream u.11ichnot only brings no thri l l to the heart of t l ie \ \ 'es t Coast Indian but is probablyalmost meaningless to him. The concepts of weal th and the display of honorificprivileges, suc'ri as crests and danccs a nd songs and names, ~ vhi ch have beeninheri ted from legendary ancestors are inseparable among these Indians. Onecannot publicly exhibi t such a privi lege u.i thout expending wealth in connec-t ion with i t . Nor is there much object in accumulat ing wealth except to reaf-firm privileges already possessed, or, in the spirit of a parvenu, to imply thepossession of privileges fione too clearly recognized as legitimate by one's fello~vtribesmen. I n other w ords, weal th, beyond a c ertain point , is ~vi th hese peoplemuch more a token of s tatus than i t is a tool for the fulfi l lment of personald2sires . l t 'e may go so far as to say that among the l \ 'es t Co2,st Indians i t isnot the ind ividual a t al l who possesses ~vea l th. t is primari ly the c eremon ial Jpat r im c.1 ~ f which he i s t he t emporary cus tod ian tha t dem ands the symboli smof weal th. Arrived at a c ertain age, the ]Vest Coast In dian turns his privilegesover to those who are by kind or marriage connect ion ent i t led to manipulatethem. Hencefo r th he m ay be as poor as a church mouse , ~v i tho u toss of prestige.I should not l ike to go so far as to say that the concepts of u.eal t11 among our-selves and among the West Coast Indians are ut terly different things. Obviouslythey are nothing of the kind, but they are measurably dist inct and the natureof the difference mu st be sought in the total pat ter ning of l i fe in the two con]-munit ies from which the part icular pat tern of weal th and i ts acqui reme nt hasbeen extracted. It should be fairly clear that where the pat terns of manipula-tion of wea lth a re as different as they ar e in these two .cases, it xvould be amere exercise of the academic imaginat ion to interpret the economic act ivi t iesof one society in terms of the general economy which has been abstracted fromthe mod e of l i fe of the othe r.No ma tte r whe re ive tur n in the fie!d of socia! behavior , iiieii and \\.ome n do

what they do, and cannot help but do, not merely because they are bui l t thusand so, or possess such and such differences of personal i ty, or must needs a da ptto the i r immedia t e env i ronment in such and such a way in o rder to su rv ive a tal l , but very largely because they have found i t easiest and aesthet ical ly mostsat isfactory to pat tern their conduct in accordance with more or less clearlyorganized forms of behavior which no one is individual ly responsible for,which are no t c l early g rasped in the ir t rue na tu re , and w hich one migh t a lmos tsay are as self-evidently imputed to th e nature of things as the three dime nsions -,are im puted to space. I t is sometimes necessary to become conscious of theforms of social behavior in order to bring about a more serviceable adaptat ionto change d condit ions, but I bel ieve i t can be laid down as a principle of far-reaching applicat ion that in the norm al business of l ife i t is useless an d evenmischievous for the individual to carry the conscious analysis of his cul turalpat terns around with him. That should be left to the s tudent whose business i tis to under stand these pat terns. A heal thy unconsciousness of the for ms ofsocialized behavior to which vie are subject is as necessary to society as is themind's igno rance, or bet ter unawareness, of the workings of the viscera to the

Th e U nconscious Pat tern ing o f Belravior i n Socie ty 41

7/27/2019 The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society - sapir

8/9

heal th of th r body. In re a t \\.arks of the imagina tion, form is s ignificant onlyin so fa r as \vc feel oursel\-cs to he in its grip. I t is unimprcssivc \vlicn clivulgcclin t i le explici t te r~ ns f this or that s inlplc or complex ar range me nt of knoxvnelrmrnts. So, too, in social I~clla\ .ior, t is not the o \ -er t fo rms t l ~ a t ise reaclilyto the surface of at trnt io n t hat arc n ~o st vorth our \ \ .l~i le. Ye must 1ral .11 otake joy in t l ~ e arger freed om of loyz!ty to t l iousancls of subtle pa t tern> ofScha\ .ior that \vc can nc\ .cr l iopc to unclcrstarld in csl~ lici t cr~iis .Coinpleteanalysis and the conscious control th at com rs rvi t ll a com pletc a~ialy sis re a tbest hut thc ~ne dici nc f society, not i ts foocl. I\ -e must ne\ .rr al lo\v o~irscl \ .cs osubstitute the stan-rlirlg calories of kno\vledge for the meat and bread of his-torical experience. This historic experience Inay bc t l leorrtical ly hn ou-able, butit dare ne\.er be fully knoivn il l ti.? conduct of daily life.

42 Formative Period: 191 0-1 940s

LanguageEdward S a p i r

Th e gift of speech a nd a xvell ordered language a rc charactc rist ic of ever).known group of h um an beings. KO tribe l ias ever bccn found \vIi ich is \ I-i thoutlanguage, and ai l s tatements to the contrary rnay be disrnisscd as mere folklore.Th ere seems to be no \ \ ,a rrant \ \ .hatever for the state men t \vhich is soniet imesmade that there are certain people \ \ .hose vocabular). is so l imited that theyc a n n o t g e t o n w i t h o u t t h e s ~ ~ p p l e mc n t a r ) .se of gesture so that intel l igiblecomm unicat ion bctiveen ~ ncm bers f such a g roup becomes imposs ible i n th edark. T he t ruth of the matter is that languag e is al l essential ly perfect m ean s ofexpression and com mu:licat ion arn ong every known people. Of al l aspe cts ofculrure, i t is a fa ir guess that langu age rvas the first to receive a highly d e-\ ,eloped form and that i ts essential perfect ion is a prerequisi te to the dcvclop-ment of culture as a \vhole.

The re ar e such general character is t i cs ~vh ich pp ly to a l l l anguages, l iv ing orextinct , wri t ten or unwrit ten . In th e first place, language is primari ly a systemof phon etic symbols for the expression of cornm u~iica blc l iought an d feel ing.In o ther words, the symbols of language are differen tiated products of the vocalbehavior which is associated with the laryns of the higher n~amnlals .As a merematte r of theory, i t is conceivable that so~ ncth ing ikc a l inguistic structu recould have been evolved out of gesture or other forms of bodily behavior. Thefact that a t an advanced s t age in the h is tory o f the hum an race wri t ing emergedin close imitat ion of the pat ter n of spoken language proved that langu ageas a purely instrumen tal and logical de\ .icc is not de l~r nd ent on the use ofart icu late sound. Nevertheless, the ac tual history of m an and a w.eal th ofan thropolog ical ev idence ind icate wi th ovcnvhel~n ing cer t a in ty that phonet i clanguage takes precedence over al l other kinds of comm unicative symbolism,all of w hich a re, by comp ariso n, eith er suF~stitutivc, ike \vriting, or excessivelysupplementar) . , l i kc the ges tu re accompanying speech . The s l~ccch pparatus\vhich is used in the art iculat ion of langi~age s the salile fo:- all kno\v11 peo ples .It consists of the larynx, \vi th i ts del icately adjustable glot tal c l~or ds, he nose,the tongue, the hard a nd soft palate, the teeth, and the l ips. \ \ 'hil r the orginialimpulses leading to spcc:l~ may be thoug ht of as loial izcd in the lar).n s, thefiner phonetic art iculat ions a re chiefly clue to the n iuscular act i \ .i ty of th etongue, an organ \vl~o se rimary func tion has, of course, nothing rvhateve r todo \ \i t11 sound ~r od uc tio n u: \vli ich, in actual s pee cl~ eha\-ior, ic indispensablefo r the deve lopment o f elnotionally cxprcssi \.c sound into \ \ .hat \ \c cal l lan-

7/27/2019 The Unconscious Patterning of Behavior in Society - sapir

9/9

The University of Georgia

JProspect Heights, Illinois