Home Styles

• As many things, housing too offersconsiderable variety even within a culture.

• In fact, people fantasize about their «dreamhouse» more then they do about food orclothing.

• In this presentation, we are going to have alook at how housing, a necessity, influencescultural patterns of communication.

• «First we shape our buildings and then theyshape us» Winston Churchill.

• We all are born into and influenced by a homewhich was shaped by our parents and thepeople who lived before us.

• Of course, the same can be said about thelanguage that we are born into or any aspectof culture for that matter.

• However, homes are both more personal andsubtly influential.

Two Styles of homes in the United States

• In this home style, there is a certain authorityfigure which serves as a standard in discussingimportant matters.

• This authority figure can be:

- a person (father, grandfather)

- a religion or religious book

- education or a symbol of that

- family buisness or family name

• Communication is centered around this figure.

• Generally, in this home stlye, there is a cleardistiction between family areas and guest areas.

• The family dines together. Children are expectedto be present at the dinner table. This is how thechildren are socialized into the family.

• There should be no secrets in the family.

• The parents’ bedroom is a setting for littleintimate communication, largely off-limits to thechildren. Even the father and the mother havedifferent areas in the room.

• According to the parents, outside of the home,the best place for a child to be is the school. Theparents assume that as long as the children is inschool, the control is maintained andcompetitive values of children are sharpened.

The nature of social interaction in the Middle East is reflected in the structure of the average home in the area. In urban or rural settings, a room is usually set aside for receiving and entertaining guests. That room is the pride of the family.

Valued heirlooms, pictures of the dear, living or dead, and cherished souvenirs are displayed in the salon, an Arabicized word from the French.

By the same token, the room's furnishing reflects the family’s degree of education, affluence, and modernity. The taste, the quality of furnishings and the degree of Westernization that the room reflects is a mirror of the family’s status and the light in which it likes to be viewed.

For example, the family that seats its guests on rugs and hassocks reflects a different structure of internal relationships from the family that seats its guests on sofas and armchairs. The message reflects an advertised measure of identification with the Western, the modern.

Although the “salon” is a very important room in the home, it is not the most frequently used. It is, paradoxically, both focal and peripheral. It is the center of the family's formal social interactions with visitors, while it is physically located on the periphery of the home.

• The salon is usually the room farthest away from all others and the closest to the door leading to the outside. Actually, in older buildings, the “majlis” or the salon or the guest room (which is a literal translation in certain Arabic dialects), a door leading to the outside opens directly into this room on one end and another door opens to the inside of the home.

• In such a layout the guest knocks at the door and is either led into the salon through the home or asked to please wait until the other door leading immediately to the "salon” is opened for him.

• The behavior reflects two of the primary cultural values of the area:

• The first is the preoccupation with the concept of face, facades, and appearances. The guest is exposed only to the most shining, formal, and stylized part of the home and gets to meet only the members whom the family intends for him to meet.

• On the other hand, relationships in the Middle East reflect contextual varieties of guest-host interactions with territorial expectations of welcome and hospitality on the part of the guest and situational obligations of maintaining the traditional image of an open house on the part of the host.

In receiving the guest in the most distinguished part of the home and in having him meet only the members of the family dressed for the occasion, the guest is honored and the family status is reflected.

Sitting RoomWith close association and the development of friendship, a guest comes to be accepted by the family and received in the family room or what is commonly referred to in the Middle East as the sitting room.

However, between the time a guest is received in the salon and the time he is accepted as “one of us,” a translation from the Arabic expression, certain social processes take place in terms of the guest's relationship to the family.

• The pace at which the guest meets the members of the opposite sex in the host family, and the length of the interaction reflect the internal sociocultural norms of the family.

For example, it is not unusual in the Middle East for two men to have known each other for a number of years without either of them having met the female members of the other’s family, even though they may know a lot about each other’s life. This is in contrast to a modern, Westernized family in which a guest may meet most of the members during his first visit.

Until a guest is accepted and received informally in the family until a guest is accepted and received informally in the family room his movement is usually restricted to the salon.

Unlike the custom, in the United States, for example, where a guest wanting to use the toilet just gets up and heads toward the bathroom perhaps mumbling an "excuse me" or perhaps not, in the Middle East, the guest asks for permission to go to the bathroom and for guidance to it.

The request allows the host to go out first and check to make sure that the way to the bathroom is clear.

That is, he makes sure that there are no family members that the host doesn't want to introduce to the guest, that those around are decent, and that the place is tidy and in agreement with the image that the host would like to create.

Consequently, because of all these little inconveniences, it is uncommon for a salon only guest to go to the bathroom in a host's house.

The situation is of course different in the case of a guest who is invited to a meal.

The most exclusive place in the Middle Eastern home is the kitchen. Its territory is the domain of the household members and mainly the females in the family. To that extent it is the most intimate place in the Middle Eastern home.

A guest, whether male or female, has to have achieved the highest degree of familiarity with a family to be admitted into their kitchen.

Depending upon the socioeconomic level of the family, the home may have a sitting room and a family room with one of them the equivalent of a North American den.

The use and functions, however, are different. In the Middle East, it is not too frequent that all members of

the family gather together in the sitting room.

In fact, when the older members are in the sitting room, the young may stay away in the “den" or in their bedrooms out of deference, unless there is something specific that they want to discuss with their parents or aunts or uncles.

In behavioral terms, deference is reflected in subduing physical noise or keeping it away from the ears of the elders in the family.

In the Middle East, however, the men usually congregate together in the early evening and night hours in indoor or outdoor cafes. Meanwhile, the women visit together, and the young have uninhibited access to all parts of the home, since it is usually the presence of the father or the elder male members in the family that regulates movement and noise in the home.

However, with the introduction of television, and the appeal of contemporary programs, family togetherness has begun to center around the television set.

Even popular cafes in the Mideast have had to acquire television sets to help maintain their appeal.

The allocation and use of private space in the Middle Eastern home reflect the value system and lines of authority within the family. In some homes, for example, only the elder male member of the family who might be alone in his room working, sulking, or visiting with a friend.

It is not unusual to find that only the mother has access to the father if he is alone in his room behind a closed door.

The Middle Eastern home, like others, reveals the authority system within the home, the roles and norms of behavior for each sex, and a culture’s outlook toward friends and neighbors.

The home is a miniature replica of its society and a propagator of many of its values and patterns of communication.

THE SOCIAL-CENTERED

HOME

THE SWAHILI HOME

President

Julius Nyerere

The Social

Program: «Ujamaa»

~Familyness

«Mgeni siku mbili;

siku ya tatu mpe

jembe.»

The German Home

Closed doors,hedges,fences,thick walls reflect the privacy of German life.

Yards and gardens take place in the back of home and are well shielded from neighbors by shrubbery.

Balconies are very common and well planned.

Most of German houses have entryways that lead visitors into the house without exposing them to specific rooms and a resultant loss of privacy for the family members.

Germans have a great love for the out-of-doors since the outside is a central part of the concept of an ideal home.

They eat meals or snacks outdoors at all hours of the day.

Homes are not used for entertaining guests.

Garden restaurants are among the most frequent settings for communication.

“Good fences make good neighbors.”

A good neighbor is likely to be one who is quiet,knows his place,doesn’t object when children make noise, and keeps his own sidewalk clean.

A lease will often specify who may use the garden or the yard in the back of the house.

If there are children in the family who are old enough to be quiet,they may be expected to appear immediately,greet the guests, and stay quietly for the length of the visit.

phone usage :

The morning is a good time to call a private house; calls should not be made around noon (since meals would be interrupted) and through the early afternoon (people might be napping); late afternoon is acceptable.

THE JAPANESE HOME

In the traditional Japanese home a single room can be used both living

room,dinner room and a bedroom contrary to western homes. Very little

furniture is used in the home and instead of beds there is futon (thick sleeping

mats with a comforter like top) and it is spread out when it is time to sleep.

Cushions rather than chairs are used for sitting and these are easily moved or

removed as requirred.

Western homes may have several tables (a coffee table a dining table study

table) in japanese home a single table may serve several of these purposes.

Lightness and sense of space are characteristics of japanese homes.

Doors of home are also lightweight sliding doors therefore a room may be made

to seem larger or smaller as needed by closing or removing these doors.

These sliding doors have no locks and one cannot go into his own room and lock

the door but windows and doors which open out onto the garden or street do

have locks and there is also an additional set of wooden doors (amado).

This aspect of home structure seems very consistent with contrasting values

japanese and western peoples. That is the family as a whole rather than the

individual is highly valued in Japan. Choices and decisions must be made

after a discussion within the family.

Japanese people don’t use the word of privacy ,speak of a private room,private

car while americans are likely to speak of my house in japanese it is the word

for house itself –uchi- they say our house or our car.

Japanese take care to distinguish the bath and toilet as the clean place and dirty

place. When it is time for a bath the ofuro or japanese bathtub is filled with

cold water, and a small stove is lit which heats the water. Preparing for a bath

at home thus requires as much as an hour just heating the water.

Bathing is generally regarded as relaxing and refreshing in japanese culture

rather than the – hurry up , i’m waiting to take a bath-attitude in western

families. Also there are thousands of bathing spas throughout the country

which are favorite meeting places for friends and social groups.

At home and away it is very unusual to telephone a japanese home and receive

no answer. Somebody is always at home it seems ; it is still very rare for a

wife to work. When the wife must go shopping or take a child to school her

mother-in-law will answer telephone.

So near, so far the japanese language contains many expressions for

organizations of houses. One has obligations toward the neighbors which

date back centuries. For example, giving gifts to families and neighbors on

either side of the house.

All of these observations may help to explain the puzzlement felt by foreign

visitors in japan when they find they are treated with generosity and kindness

but almost never are allowed to feel – at home -. Emotionally and quite

literally they must always be yoso no hito – people outside our house –

TURKISH HOME

• There is not a specific part for Turkish home style in the book but there are some similarities and differences with previous styles.

• Which of the styles is the most similar to Turkish style?

• Authority or social centered?

• Turkish home is similar to American authority centered home. Generally the father is the authority in Turkish families. Children are expected to be at dinner to have chat with their family members.

• Because of the authorized view of the parents, children have to be very open to the parents. They don’t have any secrets or private times for themselves.

• Like the middle eastern home Turkish home has formal relationships with the guests. There is hospitality towards guests which shown in special rooms in a house.

• To host guests there is special guest rooms in our houses. Generally the father decides who will meet the guests or who will serve for them.

• There is a room for each family member in houses but children cannot lock their doors because parents should have unlimited access to anywhere in the house.

• Can you talk about some other norms in Turkish home?

• Are there any changes in our lifestyles?