回帖下载音频及双语全文：
Good morning everyone, today we'll look at culture or rather classifications of cultures.
大家早上好，今天我们来谈谈文化或者说文化的分类。
Usually when we deal with different people, we deal with them as if we were all members of the same culture. However, it's possible that people from different cultures have different assumptions about the world, regarding such important and basic ideas as time, personal space. And this is the view of Edward Hall.
通常，当我们与不同的人打交道时，我们会将他们当做同一文化的成员对待他们。然而，不同文化背景的人，可能在某些重要的基本观念方面对世界有不同的设想，比如时间、个人空间等。这是爱德华·霍尔的观点。
And Edward Hall is an anthropologist who spent a large part of his life studying American Indians, their culture, their language, but he was different from a lot of other anthropologists who just study one culture. He was interested in the relations between cultures, how cultures interact. What Hall believes is that cultures can be classified by placing them on a continuing, ranging from what he called high-context to low-context.
爱德华·霍尔是一位人类学家，他一生中大部分时间都在研究美洲印第安人，研究他们的文化和语言，但他不像其他人类学家只研究一种文化。他对文化之间的关系，文化如何相互影响感兴趣。霍尔认为可以通过将文化置于一个连续体中，从他所谓的高语境到低语境来排列，进行分类。
OK, what is a high-context culture?
那么什么是高语境文化呢？
A high-context culture is a culture in which the context of the message or the action or an event carries a large part of its meaning and significance. What this means is that in a high-context culture more attention is paid to what's happening in and around the message than to the message itself.
在高语境文化中，信息、行动或事件的语境承载着其含义和意义的很大一部分。这意味着，在高语境文化中，人们更多地关注信息相关的事件而不是信息本身，这样的文化就是高语境文化。
Now let me give you examples.
现在让我给你们举几个例子。
First, in terms of personal space, generally speaking in a high-context culture, because there's a greater dependency on group thinking, people lean towards heavier sensory involvement or closeness to people. And they have less respect for privacy, for personal space. If you go into that culture, people might stand closer when they're talking to you. They might touch more and if they're just led in a crowd, they won't feel violated.
首先，在个人空间方面，一般来说，在高语境文化中，因为人们对群体思维的依赖性更强，人们倾向于更强烈的感官参与，人与人的距离更近。而他们对隐私和个人空间的尊重较少。如果你进入那种文化环境，人们和你说话时，可能会站得比较近。他们可能会有更多的肢体接触，如果他们被挤在人群中，也不会觉得受到冒犯。
And also people from a high-context culture pay attention to body language. Because remember what I said, the definition of a high-context culture is that more attention is paid to the context of the message than to the message itself. And part of the context is body language.
同时，高语境文化的人们也会注意身体语言。因为，还记得我说过的吗，高语境文化的定义是要更多的关注信息的语境而不是信息本身。身体语言就是语境的一部分。
Second, in terms of time, people in high-context cultures are considered to have what is called a polychronic attitude toward time. Here "poly" means multiple and "chronic" means time. What this means is that they believe people, things, events have their own time and there can't be a standard system of time for everything. What this leads them to believe is that you can't emphasize punctuality. Things happen when they are supposed to happen. So there's a different attitude toward time. There is no set standard of time. You can't control time. Everything has its own sense of time. So it's a culture that pays little attention to time, to clock time.
第二，在时间方面，一般认为高语境文化的人有一种多元时间态度。这里的“poly”意思是多元的，“chronic”是指时间。这意味着他们认为人，物，和事件都有自己的时间，不可能有适用于一切的标准时间体系。这使得他们相信，人不能强调守时。一切事情都要顺其自然。所以这是一种不同的对待时间的态度。没有固定的时间标准。你不能控制时间。一切事物都有自己的时间观念。所以这是一种不太关注时钟时间的文化。
Now, let's move on to low-context culture. A lower context culture is just the opposite.
现在，让我们来看低语境文化。低语境文化正好相反。
A low-context culture is one in which the message, the event or the action is a separate entity, having meaning onto itself, regardless of the surroundings or the context. That the message, the event, the action has meaning in itself. So what this means in a low-context culture is that people pay more attention to the event itself rather than to the context which surrounds the event or the message.
低语境文化中，信息、事件或行为都是独立的实体，不管周围环境或背景如何，它们本身都有意义。信息，事件，行为本身有意义。因此，这意味着在低语境文化中，人们更关注事件本身而不是事件或信息的环境。
For example, in terms of personal space again, there's more emphasis on individuality. So the concept of privacy is very very important whereas before as I said in a high-context culture they might not even be concerned with privacy or personal space. But in a low-context culture, there's a feeling that we each have our own personal space. If you get too close, if you don't knock on doors before entering, that's an invasion of privacy; people feel violated. There's a respect and desire for privacy, and you also see that people might pay less attention to body language because as I said the message is, the message is everything. They are not going to worry about all the details around it. What you say is the important thing or what you do is the important thing.
还是举个个人空间的例子，低语境文化更强调个性。所以隐私的概念是非常非常重要的，而之前我在高语境文化的介绍中说过，他们可能不关心隐私或个人空间。但在低语境文化中，我们会觉得每个人都有自己的私人空间。如果你离得太近，如果你不敲门就进门，那是对隐私的侵犯；别人会觉得被冒犯了。人们对隐私有一种尊重和渴望，你也会看到人们对肢体语言的关注比较少，因为正如我所说的，信息就是一切。他们不会担心周围的细节。重要的是言行本身。
Another example of a low-context culture is people's attitude towards time. In terms of time, I said before there was a polychronic sense of time in a high-context culture. What do you think there would be in a low-context culture? Monochronic! Right! A monochronic sense of time and by that we mean that there is one time. And that concept means that people in a low-context culture believe that there's one standard of time and that should be for everything. And so I'm not willing to hear "Oh, the traffic was heavy. That's why I am late." or "Oh, I slept late." People in a low-context culture would be much more upset with lateness because they feel that everyone should follow the same time; there shouldn't be all this flexibility with time and they expect punctuality.
还有一个低语境文化的例子是人们对时间的态度。在时间方面，我之前说过，在高情境文化中有一种多元时间观念。你认为在低语境文化中会有什么？单一时间观念！没错！一种单一的时间观念，即只存在一种时间。这个概念意味着在低语境文化下的人们认为只有一种时间标准且这个时间标准应该适用于所有事物。所以我不愿意听到“哦，路上很堵，所以我迟到了。”或者“哦，我睡过了。”在低语境文化下，人们会对迟到更加反感，因为他们觉得每个人都应该遵守同样的时间标准；时间不应该有那么多的变动，他们希望准时。
And they look at time as almost a commodity that they use expressions like "use time", "to waste time", "to spend time" or "time is money". All of these expressions reinforce the concept that time is actually something you can hold onto.
他们把时间看作是一种商品，他们会使用“使用时间”、“浪费时间”、“花时间”或“时间就是金钱”等表达方式。所有这些表达都强化了这样的概念，即时间实际上是你可以把握的。
So what this is all about is that Hall expresses that people need to be aware of these different assumptions or concepts about reality. And he thinks that this has all kinds of relevance no matter what you're doing, if you're in business, negotiations, interpersonal relations. If you're dealing with people from different cultures in any way, it's going to affect every part of your life. In any multicultural situation, these assumptions need to be taken into account for successful interactions.
这就是霍尔想要表达的，人们需要意识到这些对现实的不同预设或者概念。他认为，无论你在做什么，在商业、谈判、人际关系中，这都有很强的影响。如果你和来自不同文化背景的人打交道，这会影响到你生活的方方面面。在多文化情境下，想要成功完成交流都要考虑到这些预设。
Ok, today, we'll take a brief look at Edward Hall's view of culture, mainly his classification of high or low context culture with some examples.
今天，我们简要地了解了爱德华·霍尔的文化观点，主要是他对高低语境文化的分类以及相关实例。 |
发表于 2020-1-9 19:58:05
收藏
分享
发表于 2020-1-11 08:34:09
