Culture as Mediatization: Edward T. Hall’s Ecological Approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18861/ic.2016.11.11.2627Keywords:
Edward T. Hall, linguistic relativism, cultural materialism, intercultural communication, cultural ecologyAbstract
This article aims to present a review of Edward T. Hall’s ethnographic and anthropological research to critically look at mediatization as a complex cultural process. This implies an explicit support of linguistic relativism and cultural materialism. Hall’s belief in linguistic relativism led him to further research the communication processes by relying on a meditation that directly resulted from the anthropological research conducted by Sapir and Whorf in line with Boas’ tradition. Hall realized that the principles defined in relation with the study of languages and interpersonal communication could be applied with equally good results to the study of human behavior in general or to the entirety of cultural facts and culture in general.
Moreover, he develops his concept of culture from a strictly ecological perspective or the idea that it results from the special connection between man and his environment. Hall’s approach combines and mixes within a systemic view of culture both the cultural materialism advocated by Harris and White and the cognitivist tradition founded by Boas.
This article shows the essence of Hall’s ecological approach according to which culture is conceived as a whole: a dynamic system, a coherent process of mediatization within which all the elements are deeply connected and therefore co-dependent.
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