How Cowboy Proxemics Differ from Standard American Proxemics - Essay Example

Hall proposed that for Americans there are four kinds of proximally relevant personal spaces. They are intimate zone ranging from zero to eighteen inches for loved ones, personal zone ranging from one and one half to four inches, social zone ranging from four to twelve feet while public space was anything over twelve feet. Among cowboys, on the other hand, those who do no know each other well, the usual speaking distance is six to eight feet. The ways people use space differs from culture to culture and subculture to subculture.

This is so because proxemic research is based on the concept of territoriality or the behavior by which an organism typically lays claim to an area and defends it against members of its own and other species. This is the basis of the study of animal behavior. Non-verbal communication or the process of transmitting messages also plays a role in the study of proxemics (Ottenheimer Harriet, 157). It comprises of body language, gestures, facial expressions, and even gaze. While Americans believe in maintaining an eye-contact during the course of a conversation, the cowboys neither stares not scan the eye of the partner in a regular manner.

Since proxemics is in a way study of cultural anthropologists have argued that intercultural communication, occupation, cultivation, preservation, and utilization of space is also taken into consideration and this could be the reason for differences between subcultures of the same culture. Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer in her book, the Anthropology of Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology states that as cowboys were frequently seated in horses there developed differences in their need for personal spaces.

Thus, for the personal space ranges from six to eight feet roughly this is the space they need if two horses were standing nose-to-nose. However, their side-by-side personal space ranges from zero to eighteen inches, suggesting that if their horses are side by side their feet might touch. Famous adage goes-old habits die hard. Anthropologists argue that as cowboys spent most of their time on their horses, they carried the same proxemics system in non-mounted situations as well. So cowboys at social gatherings like a campfire tend to place themselves facing each other across the room and make sure they are six to eight feet apart also while placing themselves side by side close together on one side of the room.

In Kansas, pickup trucks pulled off the road are parked side by side while their drivers can have a chat while seated on the trucks. As we are living in a global village, cowboy proxemics will go through a change due to influences from other cultures and subcultures. As proxemics is part of the culture and is guided by culture transmission, anthropologists.