Text A The Nature of Culture
Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants. Years of study have convinced me that the real job is not to understand foreigh culture but to understand our own.
Edward T. Hall
Edward Hall is a famous American scholar in anthropology and intercultural communication. He was born in Webster Groves, Missouri on May 16, 1914. He received his B.A. in anthropology from the University of Denver in 1936, his M.A. in anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1938, and his Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in 1942. He died in Santa Fe, New Mexico on July 20, 2009. Edward Hall is remembered for his significant contributions to the study of intercultural communication. During his career, he introduced a number of new concepts. During the 1950s, he developed the concept of “high context culture” ( 高语境文化 ) and “low context culture” ( 低语境文化 ). He is most notable for the Theory of Proxemics ( 空间关系学 ), a description of people’s perception and use of space in different cultures. Several of his works, for example The Silent Language (1959), The Hidden Dimension(1966) and Beyond Culture (1976), are very influential in anthropology and cross-cultural research. A sentence “The single greatest barrier to business success is Why culture counts one erected by culture”, comes from Hidden Differences: Doing Business with the Japanese(1987), a book co-authored by Edward Hall and Mildred Reed Hall. The full version of the original sentence is “Despite popular beliefs to the contrary, the single greatest barrier to business success is the one erected by culture.”
Pre-reading Activities:
Do you know "simile" and "metaphor"? And what do you know about an iceberg? Watch the following video clip, then think about the feature(s) of an iceberg.
Text A Study:
Read Text A through Page 8 to Page 10 to get the key idea of this text. The following is the text audio for your reference.
Find out the answers to the following questions:
1. What is the title of Text A? How do you understand it?
2. Please write down the subtitle in Text A and make clear the structure in the text.
3. Read Text A, and underline the content that you think are important.
4. How many parts does an iceberg have? Which part can you discover? Which one is larger? Which one is more important? Why?
5. Computer includes two parts, what are they? Why do we think our physical selves as the hardware?
6. Why do we say that water is very important for a fish? How does the fish think about water?
7. What is grammar? How do we learn our native language?
Now please watch the mini-lecture which aims to help you better understand the key points in the text.
Now answer the following questions and have a discussion with your peers.
After-reading Check:
Case 2 Study
Read Case 2, then try to summarize the case and analyze it from intercultural perspective.
White Dress
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In India, a white sari (women’s garment) symbolizes widowhood, while in the west, a white dress symbolizes purity.
Being involved in discussion may help you think more critically.
After reading the case, finish the following tasks with your group members.
1. Discuss the following questions with your group members, and get ready to report your findings to the class.
What do you think these Indian women might think about the Western custom of a bride in white?
Which nature of culture do you think can help best explain this phenonmenon?
2. Now report your group's views below.
Now you've finished studying Text A, have you mastered the key points in the text? If the answer is yes, then you are ready to study the next text. Congratulations!
