Languge and Culture: a New Approach to Consumer Behavior in International Marketing Research

In recent years, there has been a wealth of research examining the relevance of culture to consumer behavior. This chapter reviews a particular line of work within this larger body of research: work investigating the unique relevance of language. Our review finds that both structural features of language (properties of grammar) and lexical-semantic and phonological features of language (related to writing systems) are important. More specifically, current work suggests that these language features affect how consumers perceive, and also respond to, various marketing stimuli (e.g., advertisements and brand names). Our review summarizes and integrates a number of related findings, and highlights their practical significance.