抄録
In our earlier works on cross-cultural surveys in Hawaii in the 1970s, the late Chikio Hayashi questioned the validity of the standard translation procedure used in public opinion surveys while we were doing a sampling of Japanese Americans in Hawaii. He used English, Japanese and marbles to demonstrate his point, that led to our work on English and Japanese language surveys as represented in an earlier article [Kuroda, Hayashi and Suzuki 19861. We found that the use of a middle response category presents a serious problem in the validity and reliability of cross-cultural surveys. Subjects, regardless of nationality, in this case be they Americans or Japanese, who were asked questions in Japanese are nearly twice as likely to select the middle response category from a selection of possible answers than when they were asked the same question in English. Kuroda proposed to test the same hypothesis by including Arabic, since the English alphabet is derived from the written Syropalestinian alphabet, which is most closely related to Arabic today [Albright 19561. We reported the results of our pilot study that included Arabic [Kuroda and Suzuki 19891, showing that Arabic speakers are even less likely to choose the middle response category in relation to English speakers. Our findings coincide with those who claim the word "Arab" is derived from a word meaning speak clearly so as for their compatriots to understand exactly what they are addressing through the use of explicit meanings in communication. This is diametrically opposed to the typical Japanese way of communication, which tends to be indirect and which frequently relies upon the use of implied meanings and non-verbal behavior in the process of communication - ishin denshin [以心伝心] or "telepathy". Is there any other aspect of the basic characteristics of Arab culture as represented by its language that we can learn? We reexamined our cross-language data to present our findings in this report. Our focus is on main component of Arab culture. What characterizes the Arab mind? Such authors as Raphael Patai[1976] have attempted to answer this question in the past, largely by observation and generalizations. The objective of this study is to characterize major components of Arab culture by looking into the deep attitudinal structure of Arabs through the use of cross-language survey data in Arabic and English.
