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Then why bother to post it at all?

If I am in hostile dialogue with a person, and they snip off a comment in a language I do not comprehend as a response to my statement of unwellness and then refuse to offer the least clarification without apologies for the previous exchange... what am I to understand of it?
Let us look at the givens:
1. I am on bad terms with this person.
2. I have just expressed a negative situation I am in.
3. The person responded, but in some manner I do not comprehend.
4. Common cultural context of the forum is in English.
5. Common assumption regarding multi-lingual speakers includes the utility of non-shared languages to levy hidden insults. This is partially a media quip, but it is enough to affect common perception.
6. The person refused to clarify when I requested such, unless I performed services for them, in this case, rendering an apology.

Now, on to common inference. Or rather, non-factuals that are causally assumable in the circumstances.
1. My enemy has posted on a forum in response to me. They want me to see it, and they want others to see it as it is not a private message.
2. My enemy has posted in a language I do not speak. They post in a rare language, and one that they likely assume I do not speak.
3. My enemy refuses to clarify what they have posted at me, without my apologies for past wrongs. They are using this to humiliate me, and, once my apology is submitted, they will provide a translation that is convenient for them. For all I know, they made that up on the fly and are baiting me.
4. My enemy will not clarify their post. They have said something they do not wish to publicly own, and are protecting themselves with the obscurity of their language from being reprimanded under what passes for rules of civility.

I am not saying who started it, or whether the exchanged that followed was fair or not. That matters not one whit.

As anyone who has any mastery of multiple languages can tell you, direct translations rarely carry the same impact as the word in it's native language does. This established, I could merrily post in transliterated Persian and then wave everyone off with the justification that it doesn't translate well. If anyone doesn't like me posting in that language, then they are guilty of Culturocentrism... common language used most everywhere else in this guild be damned.

Heh, I can post gibberish and claim it glossolalia, and then defend it as sacred.

Is this what we want?

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not making a judgment here, I am just trying to establish the single standard for this location. It is like inquiring regarding the the rules of a foreign nation, as I have surely entered into, when one sees something they do not comprehend, and then using examples to show where the foreigner's misunderstanding comes from.

Well, if you love the language, you would loathe the transliteration. the simplified Arabic Script is enough butchery already, but the force Farsi thru the Roman script... well, it's ugly, I do it sometimes, but it is never satisfying.
I'll skype it at people, but that is as far as I am comfortable with. Then again, I leave my comfort zone every day when I get out of bed.

Most of the Farsi I learned was through an Iraqi friend - her mother is Persian and much of her family resides in Mashhad. I love the look of written Persian, but I agree that it isn't sufficient for the language. Latin is probably more equipped in the vowel arena, but it is ugly.



>.< Good point. Hopefully the serenading would come with a translation.

What script do you prefer, if any?

As someone who's primary language is the main shared language here, I myself personally have no reason to post something in another language.

For someone in another culture, with a different language, and different rules regarding how given situations are to be handled, they may have reasons to post it that we would not immediately be privy to without explanation.



That depends. You could:

1) Operate completely within your own cultural paradigm and assume that your reasons for applying a language someone can't understand are automatically applicable to the individual who did it.
2) Operate with the idea of multiple cultures in play and make sure not to assume that your culture's methodology, motivations and approaches are ruling the actions of someone who is, for all intents and purposes, from another culture.

2 seems more intelligent and less culturocentric to me because it doesn't require assumptions made on the following reasoning, "everyone will act the way people in my culture act for the reasons people in my culture have"



1-3 are perfectly fine.

4 is where the system breaks down. Common cultural context of the forum may be in English, but that doesn't mean the common context will dictate the methodologies or approaches of all individuals from other cultures. (for someone reason it took eight tries to spell individuals. I do not know what is wrong with my fingers today. Please pardon any further typos that I miss)

5 goes further along the line of 4 attributing a cultural norm applied mostly among Westernized English speakers who possess another language and use it as a weapon (not as an element of their own culture) It assumes, in a particularly unfortunate way that goes beyond 4, that because we are in an English speaking forum, anyone who uses a language other than English is still operating the way we would expect people of English base culture to operate specifically when negativity is involved.

This particular assumption is especially culturocentric because situations of conflict are often handled in radically different ways among cultures, so assuming that a multilingual English/Western culture Modus Operandi is applicable to someone from another culture automatically raises a sharply high chance of inaccuracy and further offense.



1-4 bring about the assumption that one is an enemy, an assumption that doesn't really have backing, especially considering that different cultures declare enemies differently. This is once again asserting Western/English culture methodology over the methodologies of other cultures as a default and centered method.

1: Assumes that the message is a message at all. It may be a simple statement that does not require any eyes at all. Not all cultures post something in a public forum with any specific intent to make it public. There can be indifference.

3: Assumes intent based on common cultural tropes in Western/English speaking world. Namely, to humiliate and to dangle hope of comprehension without necessarily giving it.

4: Assumes that speaking in a language as part of one's own culture is an attempt to protect oneself. This is especially heinous as a cultural assumption because many people who don't know how to say a certain thing in English will blend their language with English when they speak. This especially happens when one is upset. It's fairly common and so not a very good assumption to make.



Of course.

I'm just pointing out that the logic itself centers English speaking/Western culture over other cultures in constructing assumptions about non English speaking/Western individuals, or individuals not originally from that culture. Something that is an invocation of a begging the question fallacy and also (as I said earlier) culturocentric and quite possibly ethnocentric as well.



It would be culturocentrism if they didn't take into account your own culture when making assessments about what you're doing. Now, if you are Persian or have an involvement in Persian culture and you were posting all in Persian (and there were reasons within your culture to do so) it would be culturocentric to assume you were just ******** with us.

However, if you aren't Persian or a Persian (or someone who has made a very major study of Persian culture) comes in and says, "hey, there's really nothing in this culture that requires you to post in badly transliterated versions of your own language" that could be used to dispel any possibility of culturocentrism.

Basically, one must take into account other cultures. Once one has done that, the conclusions one comes to are fine. It is culturocentric to assume, right off the bat, that everything is done in the context of your culture's motivations. But if you put the effort into figuring out what the culture brought up in context of the language would do in such a situation and the it becomes apparent that the person has no reason to do what they did there either, you can call them on it just fine without issue.



A given culture also has to exist before one can make a culturocentrism claim. XD



Well, it's more that this can't happen, provided the word is used correctly.

Remember the conversation we had about cisgendered? These words are discourse words, they have a certain somewhat academic purpose and usage. There are situations where they are clearly applicable and situations where applying them would be absurd. The examples you gave are recognizably absurd or recognizably analyzable. So there really isn't the platform available to use the word absurdly. It has built in safeguards like cisgendered does.



It's certainly not a bad thing, what you said. It allows me (or others) to further clarify the conditions wherein the phrase may be applied. If there were no rules to the usage, the word would (as you claimed yourself) be so easily applied as to become a useless hindrance to all discourse.

Fortunately, it is very much regulated and requires an understanding of the academic concepts to reliably apply it in discourse. So there are and have been bullshit calls of culturocentrism. 3nodding Because really, a culturocentrism call is designed to make one aware of dangerously inaccurate assumptions they make about another person based on centering their own culture. And really, are any of those assumptions above true about Tea? Because we know her (even if we don't know her culture that well) we know that they aren't. And if redwings had accounted for cultural differences and not assumed, she wouldn't have made such an inaccurate set of assumptions.

I actually deeply appreciate these conversations with you, because they truly force me to comprehend the concepts involved far better than I would normally have to. You essentially give me a teaching challenge (but not when I'm triggered or hurt, just in peaceful contexts) and through that I am safely induced to learn even more about what I discuss. XD

It's frustrating when people I love don't have their s**t together, and are beyond my reach for aid.

Here's a link to Ohio's dog laws, It's long, but worth reading through if you can understand half of the legal mumbo jumbo. I couldn't find anything specific to Toledo, but if you hit up the courthouse or maybe even the police station they may be able to tell you more about the local laws.