5.2 The Language of Space
Hello, welcome to the class. Today we will continue to learn about another type of nonverbal communication. What is it? Let’s watch a video first.
Now one question for you. Do you know why that woman suddenly stopped talking with Mark and turned to others?
In the video, Mark didn’t keep a proper distance between him and the Australian lady. He infringed on her distance, so the lady felt threatened and uncomfortable. In fact, that’s what we are going to learn today — the language of space.
The learning would cover three aspects, look at the content.
Space is one important concept in nonverbal communication. It is defined as “the study of the human use of space within the context of culture” by Edward Hall. According to Hall, space also talks. Then, what does it talk about, what does it convey to the others?
We’ll explore it from two aspects: personal space and territory.
When talking with someone, we generally like to have a little bubble of space around us. We view this as our personal space. As the owner of the area, we usually decide who may enter and who may not. If someone invades too close into our personal space before we are ready to be close to him/her, we will feel uncomfortable, anxious or even angry, just as the Australian lady in the video.
The size of space bubble is determined by many factors, such as interpersonal relationship, cultural background, emotional state, crowdedness of the situation, etc. In today’s lecture, we focus on the first two factors.
According to Hall, there are four zones of personal space for different relations: intimate, personal, social, and public.
The distance of intimate zone is 0-0.45 meters. It is reserved for lovers, children, and close family members. They usually communicate in a whisper.
The distance of personal zone is 0.45-1.2 meters. It is used in conversation with friends, relatives, or acquaintances. People communicate in soft voice.
The distance of social zone is 1.2-3.6 meters. It is proper between colleagues, business partners, or people at other social gatherings when they are talking. They usually communicate in full voice.
The distance of public zone is greater than 3.6 meters. It is generally for speakers in public and for teachers in classrooms. They communicate in loud voice.
Another factor that affects personal space is cultural background.
Take Arabs as example: 1. They prefer a shorter personal space. It is normal for them to stand closely to each other. Their distance from others in ordinary social conversations is equal to that of intimate conversations of many Westerners. 2. Moreover, they have a lot of body touch, such as holding hands, patting, and hugging.
However, for North Americans: 1. They prefer comparatively greater distance between themselves and others. 2. Physical contact is generally avoided in conversation among ordinary friends or acquaintances. If they touch a stranger accidentally, they would make an apology such as “Sorry” or “Excuse me”.
So, in the communication between North Americans and Arabs, both sides would easily feel uncomfortable or even offended about personal space.
This tells us it is significant to respect the others’ space boundary in intercultural communication. If we find that other people keep moving further back when we stand close to them, it does not necessarily mean they do not like us. It might mean that we are invading their personal space. At this moment, we should not move physically closer to them until we know them better and they seem more willing to get close to us.
The second aspect we should know about space is territory.
The word “territory” originates from the word “terra”, which means “land.” It usually refers to an area possessed by an individual or a group of individuals.
Territory can be classified into private territory and public territory.
What is private territory? Such as one’s house, a corner in a dormitory, a car one owns or even a newspaper one buys to read. It is usually marked by using actual barriers such as fences, walls, flags and signs.
Public territory is public place, open to all, such as a table in a library, a space in a parking lot, a seat in a bank. It is often marked informally by nonverbal markers such as clothes, books and other personal items. People use them to indicate their intent to temporarily control or occupy the area. So, we could find students may occupy a seat by throwing a book on the table in the library.
When protecting and defending their territory, people display a set of behaviors. We consider them as territoriality.
Cultural differences in territoriality can be exhibited in 3 ways.
(1) In the general degree of territoriality that its members tend to exhibit.
(2) In the range of possible places or spaces about which they are territorial.
(3) In the typical reactions exhibited in response to invasion of territory.
As to this, let’s watch the following video.
Based on today’s learning, do you know why the host prepared to shoot at them? Do you think he had the right?
In fact, the conflict in the video lies in the territoriality or territory protection in different countries. In China, people always regard the woods as a public territory because large population will rarely let people own one wood of their own. Even if one wood belongs to a person, it is usually not a big deal for the others to visit. However, in America, if anyone enters other people’s woods or houses without being permitted, no matter whether he is a robber or not, the host has the right to shoot at him. Of course, the host will always give warning before shooting. The law of America endows the power for every citizen to do that. Once such a tragedy happened to a Japanese overseas student. He entered an American house by mistake and heard “freeze.” Since he didn’t know the meaning of the word and still approached the host, he was shot dead and the host was pronounced no guilt by the American court.
You see how significant it is to learn about the language of space and its cultural differences.
Ok, in this class, we have learned the definition of space and two important concepts in space. I hope today’s learning would help you to avoid embarrassments and conflicts in intercultural communication.
