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A Cross-Cultural Context: Americans, Germans, and English

游客2024-06-06  15
问题                   A Cross-Cultural Context: Americans, Germans, and English
    The Americans, the Germans, and the English share significant portions of each other’s cultures, but at many points their cultures clash. Consequently, the misunderstandings that arise are all the more serious because sophisticated Americans and Europeans take pride in correctly interpreting each other’s behavior. Cultural differences which are out of awareness are, as a consequence, usually misunderstood as unskillfulness, ill manner, or tack of interest on the part of the other person.
Germans and Intrusions
    I shall never forget my first experience with German proxemic patterns, which occurred when I was an undergraduate. My manners, my status, and my ego were attacked and crushed by a German in an instance where thirty years’ residence in this country and an excellent command of English had not affected German definitions of intrusion. In order to understand the various issues that were at stake, it is necessary to refer back to two basic American patterns that are taken for granted in this country and which Americans therefore tend to treat as universal.
    First, in the United States, there is a commonly accepted, invisible boundary around any two or three people in conversation which separates them from others. Distance alone serves to isolate any such group and to provide it with a protective wall of privacy. Normally, voices are kept low to avoid intruding on others and if voices are heard, people will act as though they had not heard. In this way, privacy is granted whether it is actually present or not. The second pattern has to do with the exact point at which a person is experienced as actually having crossed a boundary’ and entered a room. Talking through a screen door while standing outside a house is not considered by most Americans as being inside the house or room. If one is standing on the threshold holding the door open and. talking to someone inside, it is still defined informally and experienced as being outside. If one is in an office building and just "pokes his head in the door" of an office, he’s still outside the office. Just holding on to the door-jamb when one’s body is inside the room still means a person is not quite inside the other fellow’s territory. None of these American spatial definitions is valid in northern Germany, In every instance where the American would consider himself outside he has already entered the German’s territory and by definition would become involved with him. The following experience brought the conflict between these two patterns into focus.
    It was a warm spring day. I was standing on the doorstep of a converted carriage house talking to a young woman who lived in an apartment upstairs. The first floor had been made into an artist’s studio. The arrangement, however, was peculiar because the same entrance served both tenants. The occupants of the apartment used a small entryway and walked along one wall of the studio to reach the stairs to the apartment. As I stood talking on the doorstep. I glanced to the left and noticed that some fifty to sixty feet away, inside the studio, the Prussian artist and two of his friends were also in conversation. He was facing so that if he glanced to one side he Could just see me. I had noted his presence, but not wanting to interrupt his conversation, I unconsciously applied the American rule and assumed that the two activities -- my quiet conversation and his conversation -- were not involved with each other. As I was soon to learn, this was a mistake, because in less time than it takes to tell, the artist had detached himself from his friends, crossed the space between us, pushed my friend aside, and with eyes flashing, started shouting at me.  By what right had I entered his studio without greeting him? Who had given me permission ?
    I felt hurt and humiliated, and even after almost thirty years, I can still feel my anger. Later study has given me greater understanding of the German pattern and 1 have learned that in the German, there is no such thing as being inside the room without being inside the zone of intrusion particularly if one looks at the other party, no matter how far away.
The English
    It has been said that the English and the Americans are two great people separated by one language. The differences for which language gets blamed may not be due so much to words as to communications on other levels including ways of handling time, space, and materials. If there ever were two cultures in which differences of the proxemic details are marked it is in the educated (public school) English and the middle-class Americans. One of the basic reasons for this wide difference is that in the United States we use space as a way of classifying people and activities, whereas in England it is the social system that determines who you are. In the United States, your address is an important cue to status (this applies not only to one’s home but to the business address as well). The Englishman, however, is born and brought up in a social system. He is still Lord -- no matter where you find him, even if it is behind the counter in a fishmonger’s stall. In addition to class distinctions, there are differences between the English and ourselves in how space is assigned.
    The middle-class American growing up in the United States feels he has a right to have his own room, or at least part of a room. American women who want to be alone can go to the bedroom and close the door. The closed door is the sign meaning" Do not disturb" or" I’m angry. "An American is available if his door is open at home or at his office. He is expected not to shut himself off but to maintain himself in a state of constant readiness to answer the demands of others. Closed doors are for conferences, private conversations, and business, work that requires concentration, study, and resting.
    The middle-and-upper-class. Englishman, on the other band, is brought up in a nursery shared with brothers and sisters. The difference between a room of one’s own and early conditioning to shared space has an important effect on the Englishman’s attitude toward his own space.  He may never have a permanent" room of his own" and seldom expects one or feels he is entitled to one. As a consequence, the English are puzzled by the American need for a secure place in which to work, an office. Americans working in England may become annoyed if they are not provided with what they consider appropriate enclosed work space. In regard to the need for walls as a screen for the ego, this places the Americans somewhere between the Germans and the English.
    The contrasting English and American patterns have some remarkable implications, particularly if we assume that man has a built-in need to shut himself off from others from time to time. An English student in one of my seminars typified what happens when hidden patterns dash. As he stated it," I’m walking around the apartment and it seems that whenever I want to be alone my roommate starts talking to me. Pretty soon he’s asking ’ What’s the matter?’ and wants to know if I’m angry. By then I am angry and say something."
    It took some time but finally we were able to identify most of the contrasting features if the American and British problems that were in conflict in this case. When the American want to be alone he goes into a room and shuts the door -- he depends on architectural features for screening.  For an American to refuse to talk to someone else present in the same room, to give them the "silent treatment," is the ultimate form of rejection and a sure sign of great displeasure. The English, on the other hand, lacking rooms of their own since childhood, never developed the practice of using space as a refuge from others. Therefore, the more the Englishman shuts himself off when he is with any American the more likely the American is to break in to assure himself that all is well. Tension lasts until the two get to know each other. The important point is that the spatial and architectural needs of each are not the same at all. [br] In the United States, distance alone serves to isolate any group and to provide it with a ______.
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答案 protective wall of privacy
解析 见小标题Germans and Intrusions下第二段第二句活。
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