UNIT 2 SPACE INVADERS
Learning Objectives
1) First listen to and then talk about personal space.
2) Learn text I Space Invader.
3) Wrote a letter to describe a crowdy situation.
4) Listen to A typical English conversation.
5) Read supplementary material Space and Distance.
Warm-up Questions
1) How do you feel if you are one of the pasngers?
2) Is personal space important to you? Why or why not?
3) What do you usually do when you are in a crowded bus or subway?
4) If people stand too clo or too far to you, how do you feel? And what would you do?
5) Do we have a weaker n of personal space than the Westerners? Why or why not?
6) What elements affect people’s personal space n?
Cultural background
Personal space
Personal space can be imagined as a kind of bubble surrounding a person that protects his or her privacy and which other people may not normally enter. Allowing somebody to get very clo and enter your personal space may be a sign of trust or love. On the other hand, intruding other’s personal space can be rather offensive.
The amount of space people need to feel around them varies with various factors, such as culture, x, familiarity between people, crowdedness of the situation, etc. For example:
● people from cultures that like a lot of personal space feel awkward and embarrasd when somebody comes too clo to them;
● people of the same x may sit or stand clor to each other than to somebody of the opposite x;
● strangers and casual acquaintances usually need more space than friends and members of the same family who know each other well;
● in a noisy street people may need to stand clor than they would normally, simply in order to hear each other.
Text I
SPACE INVADERS
Richard Stengel
Global Reading
. Structural analysis of the text
In the text, the writer first points out the fact that nowadays people are more concerned about themlves and want to have a larger personal space than decades ago, and then he analys the caus of space invasion.
The text can be divided into three parts.
Part I (Paragraphs 1 – 2): The writer calls the reader’s attention to the invasion of personal space by relating an experience of how his personal space was invaded.
Part II (Paragraphs 3 – 7): The writer analyzes some likely caus of the shrinkage of personal space, and attributes the invasion of personal space to the general decline of good manners.
Part III (Paragraph 8 – 9): The author prents his view about the esnce of personal space, . it is psychological, rather than physical, and urges people to “expand the contracting boundaries of personal space”.
II. Rhetorical features of the text
A vivid and accurate description of the behaviour of the space invaders and tho who personal space is being invaded is achieved by a delicate lection of verbs. Some of the examples are as follows.
Verbs and verbal phras ud to describe the behaviour of space invaders:
- a man … started inching toward me … (Paragraph 1)
- In elevators, people are wedging themlves in just before the doors clo ... (Paragraph 3)
- In movie theatres the days, people are staking a claim to both armrests, annexing all the elbow room ... (Paragraph 7)
Verbs and verbal phras ud to describe the reaction of tho who space is being invaded:
-
I minutely advanced toward the woman… in front of me ... (Paragraph 1)
- … who abnt-mindedly shuffled toward the white-haired lady ahead of him ... (Paragraph 1)
Detailed Reading
Questions
1. Is “personal space” a term of the venties? Is it out of date nowadays? Why or why not? (Paragraph 2)
Answer: “Personal space” was a term popularly ud in the venties but ldom mentioned nowadays. However, it doesn’t mean that it is out of date. People, whatever periods they are in, need personal space, which is not to be penetrated. The only problem is that the world is becoming so crowded that it is impossible for people to protect their personal space as well as they ud to do.
2. What does the author mean by saying “personal space is mostly a public matter”? (Paragraph 5)
Answer: Personal space, first of all, is the space you expect and are expected to keep between you and other people in public places in order to maintain an appropriate interpersonal relationship. Edward T. Hall in The Hidden Dimension, for example, describes the social values applied by Americans to certain distances between people as falling into four main categories: “Intimate distance (0 – 1&1/2 feet), Personal distance (1&1/2 – 4 feet), Social/Consultative distance (4 – 10 feet), and Public distance (10 or more feet).”
3. Do you agree with the writer’s view that the contraction of the outer, personal space is proportional to the expansion of the inner-space of modern man? (Paragraph 8)
Answer: Yes, people in the prent society tend to be more lf-centered, concentrating on their private affairs and ignoring the outer world around them. They say they have no time or energy to care about others in a society of fast tempo. As a matter of fact, they do
not want to bother about it.
