Malik, Abinta (author) and Kalleder, Sandra (author)
Format:
Book chapter
Publication Date:
1996
Published:
Pakistan
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D00557
Notes:
Pages 21-43 in Marilyn Carr, Martha Chen and Renana Jhabvala (eds.) Speaking out: women's economic empowerment in South Asia. Intermediate Technology Publications, London, UK. On behalf of Aga Khan Foundation Canada and United Nations Development Fund for Women. 238 pages.
9 pages., via online journal., A large body of research documents cross-cultural differences in manual and non-manual pointing. These findings have often been explained as being due to pragmatic, linguistic, cultural, and bodily constraints. The current study narrowed the plausible range of candidates for explaining the pointing preferences, focusing specifically on manual availability. We examined pointing preferences by administering a referential communication task in two types of communities which share a national identity, geographic environment, ethnicity, cultural background, and language and yet vary in their degree of hand availability: farming and herding communities in southwestern China. Our findings show that farmers, who emphasize the use of manual labour in intensive subsistence farming, were more likely to use non-manual pointing in the task than herders, who demonstrate a higher degree of manual availability in the rearing of animals. This research has implications for how the availability of the hands in economic activities may have lasting consequences on cultural pointing practices.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 183 Document Number: C37340
Notes:
See C37280 for original, Page 61 in Fred Myers, Running the gamut: writings of Fred Myers, journalist and 50-year members, American Agricultural Editors' Association. Fred Myers, publishers, Florence, Alabama. 125 pages.
