Space language

It is also called spatial language or proxemics. The study of it covers body distance and body touch.

1. Body distance

When you are with others, what distance is comfortable to you? No matter whether you have noticed or not, we all have our personal space, or body bubbles. How large is your bubble? There is no fixed answer to the above question as it depends on three elements.

The first important element is personality. Introverts often tend to interact with others at a greater distance than extroverts.

Secondly, interpersonal relationship. As Edward Hall (1999) summarized, there are four major types of distances in America:

• public distance(2-3 meters)

• social distance (1.3-3meters)

• personal distance (45-80 centimeters)

• intimate distance (0-45 centimeters)

But this is not always the case. This is only the body distance scholars observed in America. We will have to take into consideration another element, culture.

The third element of body distance is cultural styles. Different cultures vary in body distance. Mediterranean Arabs and Latins prefer short distance; Americans and Northern Europeans keep medium distance; Japanese and Mediterranean Europeans would rather like long distance. 

1. 1.2 Touch culture and non-touch culture

Besides body distance, in the study of space language, we need to distinguish two broad categories of culture, touch culture and nontouch culture.  

Frequent physical contact is common in touch culture, while nontouch culture is not rich in body touch. 

Physical contact varies from culture to culture. Arabs not only touch each other frequently, they also smell each other, as others’ smell make them feel comfortable. 

When Southern and Western Europeans, Jews and Latins want to show their kindness, happiness or desire to meet and communicate with others, they have rich body touching; and in the cultures of Americans, Northern Europeans and Asians, they tend to avoid rich physical contact. In China, there is little body touch in public even among intimate friends or family members. However, there are also exceptions. We Chinese like patting, hugging or even kissing babies to show our care and affection.

In the movie Mind-Reader Detective, the detective is a real expert in space language. He analyzes the case from the view of personal distance to find out the true relationship between the victim and the suspect. The distance they keep suggests that they are not strangers, but rather intimate friends. This is a good proof of the application of Edward Hall’s research about personal space.