Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Noun Phrase 130. The noun phrase today is
personal space. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. Personal space is the
physical space surrounding one's body. It is usually thought of as a circular area
of space about a foot or maybe even as much as a foot and a half. Maybe up to
about 18 inches around a person's body. If another person enters this space
without being invited or welcomed, it can cause someone to feel threatened or
uncomfortable. So this is what we talk about is somebody's personal space.
All right. Let's continue. The origin of this term, of the term personal space
comes from Edward T Hall, he was a cultural anthropologist. He also coined
the term proxemies which is defined as the study of human use of space and the
influence it has on behavior, communication, and social interaction of
people in a book called " The Hidden Dimension. "
All right. So of course , you probably nowadays though if you come across it
you might study this in psychology. Psychology class is where they might
cover some ideas about personal space and you know how people naturally react
to personal space. All right. Let's cover the examples and
we'll go over that with the examples I guess. All right. So let's look at number
one. Nobody likes one's personal space to be
invaded. That's what we usually say we usually say somebody invades your
personal space when it is uncalled for. When it's unnecessary. All right. However,
though there are a lot of situations where people will make exceptions just
to get along. Where space is tight. Everybody's got to be in one area. You
might make some exceptions to this rule, but generally if there's more than
enough space, you don't want somebody this area. There's also other cases too
where it feels weird. Like if there's lots of space around. Like say somebody
was on a train and there's like lots of empty spaces all around, but somebody
else comes and just for some reason they just want to sit right next to you when
there's a lot of free spaces around. That may make you feel a little uncomfortable
too because you might actually broaden your idea of personal space at this
point. Because there's so much around and it feels strange.
Now if the train started getting crowded and somebody sat next to you that's
quite normal, but if the... if the seats we're all still empty and they just want
to sit next to you and there's a lot of free seats around you might also feel
like somebody's entering your personal space. All right. Let's look at the second
one here. In a big city people often make exceptions and bear their personal space
to be invaded in you know, in crowded buses trains or elevators. So, so if
you're on a bus and or train and a lot of people got to squeeze their body very
close to you, everybody knows this is the way it has
to go. So even though people tend to get more silent in this sort of situation,
and they tend to kind of like just focus and look at a certain direction. You
notice this especially in an elevator. I mean actually to be honest with you
everybody usually faces towards the. the the exit of the elevator as it goes out.
If for example , for example a person turned in the elevator and just looked
the opposite way , everybody would think they were weird. And you know, they
would think what's wrong with this person ? Or maybe they might think more
about that, but people will make exceptions about their personal space.
Like I said they get more quiet and they just kind of go into a little bit for
stare when their personal space is invaded until you know probably just for
the temporary amount of time that it must be invaded.
You know, when the situation calls for it. All right and let's look at number three
here. I felt uncomfortable when he leaned too close and entered my personal space.
Yeah, especially if you didn't want the person
to and you felt that it you know, it wasn't really necessary for them to do it and
it wasn't an accident or something like that.
We'll make exceptions for for things like this. Okay. .Anyway, I hope you got
it I hope you found it to be informative. I hope it was food for thought.
Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.