ゼミ課題 proxemics（ゼミ生To-To-To）

proxemics
Summery and personal opinion　
　When you communicate, surprisingly, a person’s social and personal distance during communication is a significant aspect. Proxemics is the study about how people communicate and perceive each other in terms of personal space. A communicator’s emotional state and the environment or situations in which communicators are participating in determines one’s size of psychological bubble and how much it changes. For instance, normally, even though you won’t mind if stranger lean on you when you are in packed train, it is uncomfortable for you to get pressed from someone when you are at bus station. In addition, culture is closely related to proxemics due to the fact that lifestyle is varied depends on where they are from. Therefore, distances where people communicate and how often they touch differentiates between cultures. From the terms of proexmics, there are two types of cultures: contact culture and noncontact culture. Needless to say, people from contact culture prefer more contact. For example, it is very common to do arm linking between people from contact cultures.
　Proxemics makes you understand the culture in terms of distances, and there are four types of spatial needs: intimate, personal, social, and public. Intimate distance which is used for our private actions such as cuddling lovers is ranged from direct physical contact to eighteen inches. Personal distance covers from eighteen inches to four feet. Sometimes it is called as the comfortable bubble since most of the time people apply this distance and consider this as comfortable. Social distance, a four- to twelve foot zone, is used at business and casual social interaction. Public distance covers over 12 feets. It is used in the classroom by the professors.
　Even though I had known these main facts before going to America, I realized that I cannot say I have experienced differences between Americans and Japanese in the point of personal distance. Mainly this is because, according to Communicating, we, American and Japanese, belong to same non contact culture. Therefore, it was natural for me not to feel uncomfortable when the time of interaction between Americans. Knowing deep information about personal distances makes me curious to know how Europeans communicate in the terms of personal distances.