HCC class lecture 25 comments John Canny 4/25/05

Administrivia

E. T. Hall E. T. Hall is an anthropologist known for several very influential books, including “The Silent Language” and “The Hidden Dimension.” The second book created the field of “proxemics,” which studies the spatialiality of human social behavior, with notions of “social distance” etc. The first book is a similar study of human use of time.

Thought and Language Actually, this is the title of one of Vygotsky’s books. Hall makes a similar argument: that thought is indelibly shaped by language. “Culture” is a notion of heritage and history, but also of “thought style” inherited from language. Hall is careful to stand back from the idea that thought is language, but his perspective seems compatible with the Vygotskian notion that languages mediates thought.

Time M-time: Monochromatic time. Emphasizes schedules, segmentation, promptness. P-time: Polychromatic time. Many things happen at once, emphasis on involvement and successful outcomes. Radically different among cultures, and fundamentally shapes their work behavior.

Context Motivated as a way to deal with “information overload” (remember this book was written in 1976!). The (social) world is structured by culture, situation and context, which helps us deal with all the information.

Key Aspects of Context The Activity (or subject): Like activity we have been discussing (Hall seems to invoke “motives” as well) The Situation: What is going on around the person. Social Role and Status: Do you lead or follow? Inspire or please? Experience: Learned and shared knowledge of what to do given contextual factors. Culture: The normative practices of a social group.

HC and LC Or, High-Context and Low-Context. HC: Tacit communication: twins, grifters, fortune tellers, chinese characters, horses that do arithmetic.,… LC: Explicit communication: maps, math. papers, dictionary definitions, semantic web, immutable mobiles.

Context and the Law The legal profession in the US (like most other professions) is founded on a realist philosophy (there are objective “facts” in the world and in human behavior). The assumption of realisms underlies the legal process which is supposed to be based on logical construction from empirical fact. It is LC. The French system by contrast is HC (It also has a lower burden of proof of guilt).

Situational Dialects Are “local languages” that people master. E.g. the protocol for ordering in a restaurant. Each workplace develops a situational dialect that mirrors the social structures in place.

Situation and Personality Behavior is so closely coupled to situation that some authors will only analyze behavior relative to the particular situation.

Discussion Topics T1: Pick two or three concrete contexts (places where you have had some communication with others recently). What were the contextual factors? (Activity, situation, role, experience and culture). What were the conversational and behavioral markers for that context?