The Mirage of Pervasive Sets: The Silent Language (Review Part Four)

The Mirage of Pervasive Sets: The Silent Language (Review Part Four)
The Silent Language (Edward T. Hall) 1959

Hall first defines that sets are groups of two or more components, set apart from chains or cycles of events. He reviews sets as they relate to collections of material objects, periods of time, measurements, and words. It is the perception of sets which makes them relevant to cultural comparatives. However on a technical basis of interpretation, sets do not exist independently of highly specific circumstances. Thus they do not technically exist in isolation from various context justifications for their groupings.

Dr. Hall posits that the first readily identifiable sets in cross-cultural comparisons exist on the formal level, quite simply as they are readily observable and highly structured. One often gains from introductory knowledge of comparative cultural normatives a perspective similar to the realisation that there is a fully observable form of an iceberg on the surface of an ocean of understanding. But knowing that fully 9/10ths of its volume is invisible to the naked eye is a reasonable application of personal perceptions of cross-cultural experience. Hall determines early that one usually has an illusion of significant understanding in cross-cultural comparisons. That true knowledge of a foreign culture requires much more than a cursory understanding of its most apparent formal sets, but also a thorough understanding of its patterns, and independent isolates, is discussed.

This would be particularly relevant for second-language learners, and meets a pet peeve of mine. Canadian culture is not identical to American culture. While the mainstream language may be similar, and the culture itself, too, may prove similar, Canadian culture is distinctly different from American culture particularly in its regional diversity. That students quickly seem to overlook such claims, with little depth of experience, particularly on the levels of patterns and isolates recognition, it is a forgivable stereotypical over-generalisation being made on the observance of formal cultural sets. Insistence that there are quite wide cultural differences are made, usually by Canadian teachers singularly, but are also fully supported by all evidence gained through thorough review of cross-cultural research which at the graduate level costs tens of thousands of luxurious dollars, be they Canadian or American.

The author determines, as an illustration of the sound fractals of infinity, that sets exist in as many variations as infinity allows in cultural programming. While sets are easy to evaluate and analyze, the revealing patterns they may contain are more difficult to identify. Furthermore, patterns can be discerned without great knowledge of component sets. Thus individuals may only possibly gain an ability in patterns recognition inherently if sets are readily recognizable. Hall concludes that sets are not uniformly arranged across various cultures and that one culture's set, often determined roughly through analysis of language, may be another culture's disorder, or non-set.

This is exemplified specifically with the research of Franz Boas, one of the first to evaluate deep categorization of sets arrangements through study of Inuit terminologies related to what is commonly called "snow" in English. The Inuit were known to consider snow through the use of dozens of nouns. Hall sums up with a determination that there are basically three ways to order cultural "sets":

1. Formal arrangement of traditional valuations and ranking orders.

(As in the Table of Elements)

2. Informal arrangements according to individual preferences.

(As in the cooking of steaks)

3. On a technical level as pattern determinants.

(As in market prices on commodities which fluctuate)

Proof that Franz Boas is not Walt Whitman: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22franz+boas%22

In closing, Hall reminds a reader that the only meaning assigned to sets may be termed "demonstrational" through exemplification, behaviour, or material valuation, as one would term this object or another with a particular vocabulary word. He reveals that sets only take on any meaning or complexity through patterns with much research of this area in linguistic semantics or the meanings of words within specific contexts. However Hall reveals the flaw of patterns analysis as being that their existence presupposes easy interpretation of their meanings.