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U.S. and Australian auditors.

These studies show that national membership can affect perceptions of accounting specific principles and concepts. These results do not necessarıly imply, however, that national culture will affect interpretations of more general words and phrases commonly found in uncertainty expressions such as"probable" and"remote." The link between national culture and the perception of general concepts can be made by considering one very important aspect of culture--language.

Language and culture are interrelated. Sapir(1964) argues that the perfection of language is a prerequisite for the development of a culture as a whole, and that language is the verbal expression of a culture. Belkaoui(1989) suggests that language is indicative of the "metaphysics" of a culture which consist of"unstated premises which shape the perception and thought of those who participate in that culture and predispose them to a given mode of perception"(p. 283). Indeed, in previous accounting research, language has been used as a surrogate for culture(Frank, 1979; Nair and Frank, 1980).

Linguistic relativism relates to the role language plays in our understanding of the world.

The grammatical forms and categories provided by a language are thought to affect the manner ın which speakers of a given language interpret the world(Sapir, 1964; Whorf, 1956). In other words, a given language predisposes its users to a distinct belief(Belkaoui, 1989).

Monti-Belkaoui and Belkaoui(1983) tested the hypothesis derived from linguistic relativism that different languages result in different meaning being attached to basic accounting principles. Using Anglophone and Francophone students in Canada as subjects, their results

support the notion that speakers of different languages perceive basıc accounting concepts