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World View
Reading Review
Unit: SSK12
Week: 5 (in Week 6)
Date: 09 October 2009Book title: Communication Between Cultures
Chapter title: World View
Author: Larry A. Samovar and Richard E. Porter
Publication Date: 2004Thesis:
Samovar and Porter immediately aim to acknowledge the importance of worldviews and to illustrate how worldviews are fundamental to way we perceive the world; how it is “colored, shaped, arranged according to personal cultural perceptions” (2004, 85).Main points:
1. A definition of worldview
2. The importance of worldviews in shaping our understanding and our perception of the world.
3. A recognition that worldviews are so fundamental to our perception that people cannot see any other way of thinking when they are unaware of the concept of worldview.
4. A series of examples illustrating how understanding the worldview of culture can help to understand the perceptions of the world for that culture why members of that culture think or act the way they do.Review:
There are entire books dedicated to the concept of worldviews. In one chapter, Samovar and Porter are able to give a compact and concise treatise of the importance worldviews have on our perceptions of the world. They use examples of worldviews generally associated to different cultures in order to demonstrate how they affect the way members of that culture think and behave. Their work is easy to read and follow, with ample support from experts in the field of worldviews and sociology.Reference:
Samovar, Larry A., and Richard E. Porter. 2004. World View. In Communication Between Cultures. 5th ed. 85-86. Belmont, California: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.