GUIDELINES FOR NONETHNOCENTRIC USE OF LANGUAGE: A FAIRY TALE AND A PLEA

In: Social behavior and personality: an international journal, Band 11, Heft 2, S. 91-94

Abstract

The present article takes the widely publicized Guidelines for Nonsexist Use of Language, and, staying scrupulously (or even unscrupulously) close to the wording of the original, indicates its relevance for the pervasive but largely unmentioned cultural bias in American psychology.
Basically, the only changes required to the original text were the words "ethnic/cultural" in place of "sex", and the omission of a couple of "untranslatable" examples of sex bias. The purpose of this "fairy tale" is to raise the consciousness
- primarily of American psychologists - regarding the constricted nature of their enterprise for a science of humankind.