跨文化交际L7PerceivingCulturally.pptVIP

Linell Davis Perceiving Culturally Representing the world in words and images Doing Culture chapter 7 Linell Davis Sensory Perception All humans can See Hear Smell and taste Sense temperature, pressure, etc. Touch, and Sense through the movement of their bodies. We learn how to use these senses in culturally specific ways We live in different perceptual worlds Senses can be categorized as distant and close Distant Sight Hearing Close Smell/taste Touch Kinesthetic – body position, movement Cultures differ in their use of close and distant senses in orienting to the world High and low CONTACT cultures low contact – emphasis on distant senses (sight, hearing) Northern Europe, North America high contact – emphasis on close senses (smell, touch) Mediterranean – Arab, Southern Europe, Latin America An Arab might bathe you in his breath as a sign of friendship An Arab wants to get close to judge emotional reactions from the expansion and contraction of the pupil of the eye. Low and high contact behavior Observing cultural differences in use of senses Proxemics Distances that people prefer in various social situations The arts Literature – what kinds of sensory based description are used? Visual arts – what are the usual ways of representing the world in images? Asian and Western formal gardens Stones and sculpture Stones in Chinese and Japanese gardens serve as natural sculpture and way of moving through Sculpture in Western gardens provide a focal point around which a whole garden is designed Evoking and reproducing nature The Asian garden evokes the essence of nature The stone bridge draws the eye across the void Common plants are used; there is no spectacular color The Western garden reproduces nature The flowers and hedges are beautiful but unnatural Geometrical pattern Cultural differences in perception What do we see in a painting? The arts show us the perceptual world of a culture. The differences we see in a Chinese painting as compared to a Western painti