Chapter 5

Click on the following links - please note these will open in a new window

Article 1: Low, S. M. (2003). Anthropological Theories of Body, Space, and culture. Space and Culture, 6(1), 9–18. doi:10.1177/1206331202238959

Questions that apply to this article:

1. Find where the author notes that "Edward Hall (1966, 1973) is best known for studying the influence of culture on spatial perception and behavior, establishing the field of proxemics, the study of people’s use of space as an aspect of culture (1966) and that he postulated that humans have an innate distancing mechanism, modified by culture, that helps to regulate contact in social situations." What connections do you make with your textbook?
2. Identify where the author suggests that “in proxemics, the body is a site of spatial orientation with multiple screens for interacting with others and the environment.” Do you see this as consistent with the ideas in Chapter 5? How so, or why not?
3. Find where the author states that “in his analysis, Duranti reinterpreted proxemics within a linguistic model that includes language, spatial orientation, and body movement.” Does nonverbal communication fit into this interpretation?
4. Locate where the author suggests that “many researchers need theoretical formulations that provide an everyday, material grounding and an experiential, cognitive, and/or emotional understanding of the intersection and interpenetration of body, space, and culture (Low, 1996, 2000)." Do you see this as true in communication in everyday life?

Article 2:  Kalman, Y. M., & Rafaeli, S. (2010). Online Pauses and Silence: Chronemic Expectancy Violations in Written Computer-Mediated Communication. Communication Research, 38(1), 54–69. doi:10.1177/0093650210378229

Questions that apply to this article:

1. Identify the authors note that suggests “chronemic cues play an important role in online communication.” How do you see “time” issues as having a role in online communication, which may or may not be attended to immediately?
2. Identify the authors’ discussion regarding “text-based CMC [computer-mediated-communication] is able to convey nonverbal cues (Walther, 2006) and that these cues interact with communicator attributes.” How do you use text-based CMC to convey nonverbal cues?
3. Find what the authors determined in the conclusion of their article. What do you make of the conclusion section of the article relative to the reading in your textbook on face-to-face nonverbal chronemic behaviors?