Face in the Arab Nations
Cultures vary on how they view face. Bargiela-Chiappini (2003: 1462-63) indicated that extensive research found a clear-cut between those cultures where face is considered a significant, if not dominant factor that determines interpersonal behaviour and those where face is placed after other more dominant notions such as discernment, respect and deference. Understanding of face is affected by several factors in any culture, including personal values, self-identity in various groupings, role expectations and normative constraints (Earley, 1997: 95-96). Earley pointed to the importance of understanding and comparing cultural conceptualizations of the social self and its relationship to others in studying the dynamics of face and face-work in interpersonal contacts.
Face plays an essential role in regulating people’s behaviour in the Arab world. In standard Arabic, the expression ħafiẓa ma:ʔ ʔal-waӡh, which is literally translated as ‘save the face's water’, is widely used to mean save face. In addition, other face saving expressions are found in Arabic.
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Following Bousfield (2008:37) view, negative face and positive face are two essential and universal aspects of face that are found in every culture. However, the type, quantity, strength and importance of each aspect will differ from culture to culture, discourse to discourse, and, even, context to context. Negative face orientation can be found, for example, in the Islamic norms of seeking permission to enter one’s house. Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) has said: “When any one of you seeks permission three times and he is not granted permission, he should come back.” Freedom from imposition has been strongly emphasized as one has no right to enter the other’s house without being allowed to do so. This shows respect to one’s private
This idea is also expressed in chapter 1 of Eboo Patel's Act of Faith. Throughout the chapter, Patel familiarizes the reader with several suicide bombers. Through this, he is essentially giving them a ‘face’. Although he doesn’t go into much detail on their appearance, he does talk about their lives and their families. This allows them to become more comprehensible and show that they truly are just people. A quote from Terry McDermott simplifies it quite well on page 3 as he concludes,” The men of September 11 were, regrettably, I think, fairly ordinary men.” It's an idea that Levinas also touches on in this paper on page 197 when he talks about ‘faceless gods’ having power over people. This concept confirms the belief that if something, in this case, someone, is not seen seem bigger or more powerful that they really are. These conclusions that terrorist are truly just people wouldn’t have come together if they had remained anonymous. It is the power of the face that allowed Patel and others to be able to relate to them and see them as they truly are. Levinas says on page 194,” In gaining access to in I maintain myself within the same,” to say that by seeing it and understanding it he relates to
As a result of my childhood experiences with my grandmother, I became aware and have observed the way people treat and respond to each other based on their appearances, such...
This face of the other, the stranger serves as an “indicative surface” to us. Lingis (1994) states “The face of another is a surface upon which one senses directions and directives that order me; w...
Photographs of facial expressions by Chinese people were presented to Chinese judges and photographs of facial expressions by American people were presented to American judges. The result was that American judges had an higher rate in recognizing emotions through facial expressions than Chinese judges. This could track back to the cultural background of each group and how it affected their behavior...
It is ordinary seeing woman in a veil in countries where the majority of people are Muslims. Even though, the picture of “Hijab” is not strange because it was known in previous cultures before Islam, it is considered as a phenomenon especially in the western societies which it still carries many of misunderstood thoughts. Some People who are non-Muslims in United States view “Hijab” as a fundamentalism, fanatics, barbarism, oppression, retro gradation, and terrorism image. Wearing the veil raises many controversial questions such as: Why do Muslim woman wear the veil? Is wearing the veil a cultural tradition or religious practice! What exactly is “Islamic Dress Code” and is it must be altered in its qualities from periodical time to another in order to be acceptable! Does “Hijab” isolate woman from interacting normally within society? However, all facts behind this issue will be revealed throughout the discussion of its meaning, the purpose of practicing it and seeing Hijab within references and historical context. This would unveil the mystery.
Culture plays a crucial role in defining who were are and how we interpret the world and environment around us. Culture is also influential in providing the structure, rules, expectations, and guidelines that help people to perceive, translate, and express various emotions. It is also important to note that there is a cultural display rule that offers members of a particular culture the standards governing the frequencies and form of emotional displays that are considered acceptable within a given society. Furthermore, cultural scripts dictate how negative and positive emotions are experienced and displayed. The scripts also offer guidelines on how people elect to regulate their emotions. This means that culture has a predominant role in influencing
Humans have been communicating for thousands of years using nonverbal and non-written ways by giving specific gestures like, facial expressions, body movements and postures, eye contact, touch, and space between individuals. The way someone looks, moves, stands, and positions themselves tells the other person if your care, how closely you’re paying attention and tells them if you’ve been truthful. When your nonverbal communications match up with your subconscious actions, like the look on your face they increase trust, confidence, and rapport. But when they don’t, they can create pressure, suspicion, mistrust, and confusion.
Mianzi stands by the reputation, social achievements person has. The higher social status he has, the more face he earns. It can be gained by one’s illustrious origins, by means of personal efforts, talent or just by the strength of one’s guanxi. According to Pelled and Xin (1997), saving face is related to harmony; both emphasize the avoidance of conflict in interpersonal relationships. Its influence defines widespread phenomenon of holistic and indirect thinking. Face can be built or lost in social interactions, and one’s face is not an individual and private issue but it is closely associated with entire
During conversations, I have to put extra effort to maintain eye contact. One of the most important aspect of nonverbal communication is eye contact. The use of eye contact can be one of the most crucial and influential feature of our face. In America eye contact is essential “eye contact serves as a signal of readiness to interact and the absence of such contact, whether intended or accidental, tends to reduce the likelihood of such interactions”(Ruben & Stewart, 2015, 34). Eye contact shows that the person is interested in communicating with you, and has respect and appreciation for you. It gives the conversation a sense of flow. However the lack of eye contact can often seem disrespectful across culture. It is due to cultural comparison present regarding nonverbal communication. Every culture has its own altered
There are several social factors affecting our interpersonal interactions. Culture, as the most important factor, plays a significant role on people’s daily interactions and behavior by defining the norms and values in a society (). As the functionalist view states, all the cultural norms are made to maintain social stability and equilibrium (). Many cultural differences, despite being minor, have an exclusive effect on the social order. For example, how a person responses to a compliment highly depends on the culture he follows. As an immigrant coming from the Persian ethic subculture, the general way of replying to compliments in the Canadian culture seemed remarkably different to me.
The dialogic engagement with Levinas’s ‘The Face’ has unearthed a constant shift between an identity and relational logics. Levinas discusses the face creatively and hence constructs an alternative approach to understanding everyday ways of being, particularly by illuminating the deviation between questions of what an individual is and who an individual is. Interpretively, identity logics restrict humanity and potential for social interaction, thus the assumption of vulnerability and humanity in humans can only occur when applying a relational logic to the social world.
Therefore, it is essential to study nonverbal and verbal communication Nonverbal communication is all forms of communication other than words themselves, which includes “body motions; vocal qualities; and the use of time, space, and even smell” (Neuliep, 2011, p. 269). On the other hand verbal communication or language “consists of symbols in the form of spoken or written words (Wood, 2014, p. 67). Thus cultures have different representations of symbols and what one culture interprets another may define or view differently. Communication is closely related to culture because communication expresses and alters culture. In a culture you learn behaviors and acceptable ideologies. This can be seen in verbal and nonverbal communication. For example, the tone of your voice is based on culture. Without communication you are unable to establish cultural differences. Your own culture directly shapes how one communicates, such as when it is appropriate to make eye contact. We are not born knowing when and how we should speak; this is a learned behavior that is taught by interaction with others. This is not an easy task because nonverbal signals differ from culture to culture. Charles Braithwaite stated, “One of the fundamental components of cultural and linguistic competence is knowing how and when to use silence as a communication tactic” (Neuliep, 2011, p. 64). Before one can communicate effectively one must understand the context in which the culture exchanges information. One must have a working awareness of how each society conveys meaning, hence high vs. low context cultures. According to the Central Michigan University text, organizational dynamics and human behavior (2009), to become a successful international manager one must develop “cross-cultural skills”. One part of the skill set involves the comprehension of the difference between high-context and low-context
For example, the Latinos women are often treated without respect since they tend to wear clothes that might seem flashy and not appropriate for women in usual circumstances. Nevertheless, this situation of misunderstanding comes as a result of the lacking cultural education whereas there exists the standard way of what a person has to wear and how to behave, including the special kind of a smile with “no show of teeth, no extreme contortions of the facial muscles” (Cofer 305). In learning to conform with the requirements of the society and the norms in terms of clothes and behavior, one also tends to lose a part of his or her identity. Otherwise, the person just would not be perceived as
In “The Arab World” (1966), Edward T.Hall the American anthropologist explains the difference in behavior between Westerners and Arabs and the miscommunication between the two great cultures; he says that “Americans in the Middle East are immediately struck by two conflicting sensations. In public they are compressed and overwhelmed by smells, crowding, and high noise levels; in Arab homes Americans are apt to rattle around, feeling exposed and somewhat inadequate because of too much space”(Hall, 1966, p.94). Hall used ethos, logos, and pathos to describe clearly the behavior in public between the two cultures, and how Arabs are being pushy and rude, then he described the concept of the privacy and Arab personal distances, he also mentioned how Arabs talk to each other and how they feel about enclosed places, finally he talked about boundaries . Although Hall does not seem to persuade the reader to a certain point of view, it appears that he unintentionally made some of the Arabs beliefs and actions seem impractical and in some cases he was quite exaggerating. Moreover; I disagree w...
Different cultures perceive and interpret the world around them in different ways and they fall into two separate categories, independent construal of self and interdependent construal of self. Depending on which of the categories one was born in, they will socialize differently and