Unit 24 The Cultural Patterning of Time
In his book The Silent language, anthropologist Edawad Hall theorizes that perceptions of time and space are different in different culture and that the perception are culturally patterned. Hall called the dimensions of culture "out of awareness",becau people are not conscious of having learned them. It may well be ture that most important aspects of culture,such as our perceptions of physical environment of our food tastes,are learned "out of awareness". And certianly our perceptions of time and space are among the most deeply instilled of our cultural values. For example ,menbers of modern, industrializes Western societies are conditioned to view time space and matter in Newtonian terms. Sir Isaac Newton,the venteenth-century English scientist ,teansformed mathematics and science to such an extent that even though we may not be able to list or axplain his discoveries ,we are influenced them. Newton formulated veral laws of motion that are basic to the Western's understanding of the univer, continues at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by other forces acting upon it . This notion also underlies the concept of time in Western culture,and to Westerners it appears that it sh
ould be an intuitive concept of time shered by all people everywhere,But as anthropologists have demonstrated through their studies of other cultures,the Newtonian "laws" are not universal. They are instilled by a specific culture,thought system,and language.
affectionate在著作《无声的语言》中，人类学家爱德华霍尔的理论认为不同文化观念的人对时间和空间的看法是不同的。霍尔将这些维度的文化称为“无意识”，因为人们在学习他们的时候是潜移默化的。很可能文化真正的最重要的方面，比如我对食物的味道的生理认知，也来自于“无意识”。我们对时间和空间的看法深深来自我们文化价值观的灌输。例如，现代工业化西方社会的成员习惯于从牛顿的时空物质观来看待世界。17 世纪的英国科学家艾萨克·牛顿爵士将数学和科学发展到如此程度，即使我们可能无法罗列或者解释他的发现，我们也深受其影响。牛顿制定了几个基本的西方人理解宇宙的运动定律，即物体会继续静止或匀速直线运动，除非它因为其他力被迫改变这一状态。这个概念也成了西方文化中时间概念的根基。西方人认为这种时间概念应该被所有地方的所有人所接受。但人类学家已经通过对其他文化的研究认识到这些牛顿“法则”并不是普遍的。他们被一个特定的文化、思想体系和语言所灌输。
"Time is human ,nature knows only change. "In fact ,"telling time"is a strictly human invention. All cultures have some system of measuring duration, or keeping time, but in western industrialized societies, we keep track of time in what ems to other peoples almost an obssive fashion. We view time as motion on a space, a kind of linear progression measured by the clock and the calendar. Our n of time leads us to imagine it as a ribbon or a scroll marked off into equal blank spaces,suggesting that each of the spaces can be filled with an entry. This perception contributes to our n of history and the keeping of records, which are typical aspects of western cultures. In Western industrialized societies,records,annals,diaries,and accouting ledgers play an important role ,We are fascinated by the quenceing dating ,charting ,and measuring pieces of time. We calculate bot only the asons but
椅子的英语单词also the years ,months, weeks,days, hours,minutes,conds,and even thousandths of conds. We find it uful to divide the past into named periods such as "the Renaissance" or "the classical age". And our linguistic treatment of time has guided many other aspects of our lives. For example,literature is taught in school by being divided into
periods——or framed time slots——rather than by being treated in a thematic fashion that cuts across time boundaries.fabrics
“时间是一个人，自然只知道改变。”事实上，“告知时间”严格上来讲是人类的一种创造。所有的文化中都有测量时间或者保存时间的系统，但在西方工业化国家，我们以别人看来几乎是一种令人痴迷的时尚的态度来跟踪时间。我们把时间看作是空间上的移动，一种由时钟和日历衡量的线性增加。我们对时间的感觉引导我们把它想象成一条划分有等间隔空间的缎带或卷轴，告诉我们这些这些空间是可以用条目来填充的。这种感觉有助于我们的历史感和做好记录，这些是西方文化的典型方面。在西方工业化社会，记录、编年史、日记和账目扮演着非常重要的角色。我们沉迷于记录，图画和测量时间的片段。我们不仅仅通过季节，也通过年、月、周、日、小时、分钟、秒甚至是微秒来计算进度。我们发现将过去的时间命名为“文艺复兴”或者“古典时代”这样的有名字的时间段是很有用的。我们对时间的口头描述也会影响我们生活的其他方面。例如，学校的文学教育是按照时间段来分的——或者是按照时间周期来分的——而不是以跨越时间段的专题的方式对待的。
伦敦火灾Although our perceptions of time em natural to us, we must not assume that other cultuunique什么意思
res operate on the same time system. For instance, why should we assume that a Hopi raid in the Hopi culture would have the same intuitions about time that we have? In Hopi history, if records had been written, we would find a different t of cultural and environmental influences working together. The Hopi people are a peaceful agricultural society isolated by geographic features and nomad enemies in a land of little rainfall. Their agriculture is successful only by the greatest perverance. Extensive preparations are needed to ensure crop growth. Thus the Hopi value persistence and repetition in activity. They have a n of the cumulative value of numerous, small, repeated movements, for to them such movements are not wasted but are stored up to make changes in later events. The Hopi have no intuition of time as motion, as a smooth flowing line on which everything in the univer proceeds at an equal rate away from a past, through a prent, into a foreeable future. Long and careful study of the Hopi language has revealed that it contains no words, grammatical forms, constructions, or expressions that refer to what we call time - the past, prent, or future - or to the duration or lasting aspect of time. To the Hopi, "time" is a "getting later" of everything that
减少的英文has been done, so that past and prent merge together. The Hopi do not speak, as we do in English, of a "new day" or "another day" coming every twenty-four hours; among the Hopi, the return of the day is like the return of a person, a little older but with all the characteristics of yesterday. This Hopi conception, with its emphasis on the repetitive aspect of time rather than its onward flow, may be clearly en in their ritual dances for rain and good crops, in which the basic step is a short, quick stamping of the foot repeated thousands of times, hour after hour.
虽然我们的时间观念对我们来说是很自然的，我们不能假定其他文化和我们基于同样的时间系统。例如，为什么我们要假设在霍皮语文化下成长的霍皮人和我们有相同的时间观念？如果记录被写在霍皮人的历史上，我们会发现一组完全不同的文化和环境影响一同运作。霍皮人生活在和平的农业社会，因为孤立的地理特性和游牧的敌人在少雨的土地被孤立。他们只有靠不懈的努力才能获得农业上的成功。他们需要大量的准备工作来确保作物生长。因此，霍皮人重视活动的持久性和重复性。他们对大量的、小的、重复的活动的累计价值有很强的感觉，对他们而言这些活动不是浪费时间而是为了以后的改变做好储备。霍皮人没有对时间运动的直觉，就好像一个光滑的流线。在这根流线上宇宙万物从过去，
通过现在，到可见的未来以相同的速率越来越远。对霍皮人语言的长久和仔细的研究反映，这种语言没有单词、语法、结构或者表达指代我们所称的时间—过去，现在，或者是将来—或者指代时间持续的时间。对霍皮人而言，“时间”是所有做完事情的“后面”，所以过去和现在混合在一起。霍皮人不会讲我们英语中每24 个小时会来临的“新的一天”或者“另一天”；在霍皮人眼中，一天的来临就像是一个人的回归，有点老但保留昨天所有的特点。霍皮人的这种观念，强调时间的重复性而不是向前流动性，可以在他们祈雨和丰收的舞蹈中清楚看到，它的基本舞步是不断重复、持续不断的短、快的踮脚。
Of cour, the American conception of time is significantly different from that of the Hopi. Americans' understanding of time is typical of Western cultures in general and industrialized societies in particular. Americans view time as a commodity, as a "thing" that can be saved, spent, or wasted. We budget our time as we budget our money. We even say, "Time is money. " We are concerned in America with being "on time"; we don't like to "waste" time by waiting for someone who is late or by repeating information; and we like to "spend" time wily by keeping busy. The statements all sound natural to a North American. In fact, we think, how could it be otherwi? It is difficult for us not to be i
rritated by the apparent carelessness about time in other cultures. For example, individuals in other countries frequently turn up an hour or more late for an appointment - although "being late" is at least within our cultural framework. For instance, how can we begin to enter the cultural world of the Sioux, in which there is no word for "late" or "waiting. " Of cour, the fact is that we have not had to enter the Sioux culture; the Sioux have had to enter ours. It is only when we participate in other cultures on their terms that we can begin to e the cultural patterning of time.
>国庆节国旗下讲话
