Wrapping Culture

Politeness, Presentation, and Power in Japan and Other Societies

Bibliographic Data

ID6081645
AuthorsWilliam W Kelly (corresponding author)
Year1994
Volume20
Issue2
Pages595
Publication date1994-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeREVIEW
Review ofWrapping culture: Politeness, presentation, and power in Japan and other societies, Joy Hendry, 1993
VenueJournal of Japanese Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0095-6848 • E-ISSN: 1549-4721
PublisherUniversity of California Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2307/133228
OpenAlexW2009185338
LanguageEN

Wrapping Culture is concerned with problems of intercultural communication and the possibilities for misinterpretation of the familiar in an unfamiliar context. Starting with an examination of gift-wrapping, Joy Hendry demonstrates how our expectations are often influenced by cultural factors which may blind us to an appreciation of underlying intent. She then extends this approach to the study of polite language as the wrapping of thoughts and intentions, garments as body wrappings, constructions and gardens as wrapping of space, and even to the ways in which people may be wrapped in seating arrangements, or meetings and drinking customs may be constrained by temporal versions of wrapping. Throughout the book, Dr Hendry considers ways in which groups of people use such symbolic forms to impress and manipulate one another, and points out a Western tendency to underestimate such non-verbal communication, or reject it as mere decoration. The ideas she presents should be valid in any intercultural encounter and demonstrate that Japanese culture, so often thought of as a special case, can supply a model through which we can formulate general theories about human behaviour

Linguistics · Politeness · Power (physics · Presentation (obstetrics · Sociology · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Medicine · Philosophy

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