The two passages of Yifu Tuan are really interesting. Before reading these, I have never thought how a place was shaped. However, now, I carefully examined his theory by my own experience. Surprisingly, I found out that all his words are right and enlightening. I began to thought about how my friends’ and my words gradually changed how I build and decorate my place. I figured out many detailed experience that really make me change my place step by step and finally make my place how it looks now.
“Language and the Making of Place: A Narrative-Descriptive Approach” states a gist that words and speech are a vital force to shape and construct a place. According to Tuan, words have the force to impart experiences behind to change place into being. Storytelling can transform objects “nature” which seems irrelevant to you into a “home place” which you are very familiar. These words strengthen the relation between people and place. A place is also carries the experience of ancestors. Altered from woods to village, a place takes time to undertake long-term process of physical transformation. Tuan then illustrates the importance of name and naming. A name of a landscape already include a certain character, while a specific name will significantly enhance its distinctiveness which will clearly separate a particular place from others. And normally, a change of name will only occur while there is a sociopolitical revolution, which means a wipe out of history and a new start. Tacitly, friends’ words may effect how you maintain a place. These words are private and unique and are what make a place different from another. Some of the stories can be told generations by generations and finally become a public realm. And fictional literary works can deeply infect real world construction. People will build one place according to the literary imagination though it is merely a magical idea. Talking languages create a moral dimension for people to construct and maintain a place as if it is expected.
“Verbal language, such as words, names and speech has an important power to construct and maintain a place with distinctive features. ”
In “Space and Place”, Yifu Tuan introduces how space differs from space. Compared to space, which is more abstract, place involves a sense of more private and personal. According to ethological studies, nonhuman animals also have different senses of place and space, that “space are marked off and defended against intruders,” while places contains feeling of biological needs be satisfied. However, people have more complicated feelings toward space and place. Culture, which is uniquely belongs to human beings, is a key factor, which affect human attitudes to space and place. In chapter 2, professor Tuan specifically explains the relation between experience and place. According to him, experience consists of feeling and thought. Among the five senses, sight and touch are the most basic ones that give us the sense of space, and other senses “greatly enrich our apprehension of the world’s spatial and geometrical character.” Tactile perception can differentiate characteristics such as hard or soft on spatio-geometric evidence. Sounds can convey a strong sense of size and of distance, especially for blind people. And sounds itself contain spatial impressions. Human beings are capable of discern geometric patterns in nature and create abstract spaces in mind. Meanwhile, we embody our feelings, images and thoughts in tangible material. In Tuan’s theory, place is a type of object, and places and objects define space, giving it a geometry identity.
“It is human being’s experience and feeling that give an abstract space the value and meaning that make it a place.”
Both essays articulate Yi-Fu Tuan’s theory of place and space. He believes that place is an object that involves space and people’s experience and feelings. But in different articles, he explains the construction of place from different aspects. In “Space and Place”, he focused on a more biological side. He suggested how human beings are different from nonhuman animals on the feeling of place. He also articulates how sight generates basic sense of space and how other four senses help. However, in the other passage, “Language and the Making of Place: A Narrative-Descriptive Approach”, apparently he demonstrates how verbal language gives people tacit impact on construct and maintain places. He clarifies that words is a force that can help tells a place’s history, meaning and culture. Words create a moral dimension for people to depict and feel a place.
“The construction of place includes experience from both biological senses and linguistic factors. Both of them give a place its distinctive character. ”
In Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Rhode Island”, obviously, before moving to Rhode Island, Rhode Island is only a imaginary space which means nothing for her. However, after living in Rhode Island for years, Rhode Island became a place where she had experience and emotional bonds. Rhode Island is no longer an indifference place, it became distinctive and of private importance for Lahiri and her family. That is how experience shape and maintain a place for people.
“Language and the Making of Place: A Narrative-Descriptive Approach” states a gist that words and speech are a vital force to shape and construct a place. According to Tuan, words have the force to impart experiences behind to change place into being. Storytelling can transform objects “nature” which seems irrelevant to you into a “home place” which you are very familiar. These words strengthen the relation between people and place. A place is also carries the experience of ancestors. Altered from woods to village, a place takes time to undertake long-term process of physical transformation. Tuan then illustrates the importance of name and naming. A name of a landscape already include a certain character, while a specific name will significantly enhance its distinctiveness which will clearly separate a particular place from others. And normally, a change of name will only occur while there is a sociopolitical revolution, which means a wipe out of history and a new start. Tacitly, friends’ words may effect how you maintain a place. These words are private and unique and are what make a place different from another. Some of the stories can be told generations by generations and finally become a public realm. And fictional literary works can deeply infect real world construction. People will build one place according to the literary imagination though it is merely a magical idea. Talking languages create a moral dimension for people to construct and maintain a place as if it is expected.
“Verbal language, such as words, names and speech has an important power to construct and maintain a place with distinctive features. ”
In “Space and Place”, Yifu Tuan introduces how space differs from space. Compared to space, which is more abstract, place involves a sense of more private and personal. According to ethological studies, nonhuman animals also have different senses of place and space, that “space are marked off and defended against intruders,” while places contains feeling of biological needs be satisfied. However, people have more complicated feelings toward space and place. Culture, which is uniquely belongs to human beings, is a key factor, which affect human attitudes to space and place. In chapter 2, professor Tuan specifically explains the relation between experience and place. According to him, experience consists of feeling and thought. Among the five senses, sight and touch are the most basic ones that give us the sense of space, and other senses “greatly enrich our apprehension of the world’s spatial and geometrical character.” Tactile perception can differentiate characteristics such as hard or soft on spatio-geometric evidence. Sounds can convey a strong sense of size and of distance, especially for blind people. And sounds itself contain spatial impressions. Human beings are capable of discern geometric patterns in nature and create abstract spaces in mind. Meanwhile, we embody our feelings, images and thoughts in tangible material. In Tuan’s theory, place is a type of object, and places and objects define space, giving it a geometry identity.
“It is human being’s experience and feeling that give an abstract space the value and meaning that make it a place.”
Both essays articulate Yi-Fu Tuan’s theory of place and space. He believes that place is an object that involves space and people’s experience and feelings. But in different articles, he explains the construction of place from different aspects. In “Space and Place”, he focused on a more biological side. He suggested how human beings are different from nonhuman animals on the feeling of place. He also articulates how sight generates basic sense of space and how other four senses help. However, in the other passage, “Language and the Making of Place: A Narrative-Descriptive Approach”, apparently he demonstrates how verbal language gives people tacit impact on construct and maintain places. He clarifies that words is a force that can help tells a place’s history, meaning and culture. Words create a moral dimension for people to depict and feel a place.
“The construction of place includes experience from both biological senses and linguistic factors. Both of them give a place its distinctive character. ”
In Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Rhode Island”, obviously, before moving to Rhode Island, Rhode Island is only a imaginary space which means nothing for her. However, after living in Rhode Island for years, Rhode Island became a place where she had experience and emotional bonds. Rhode Island is no longer an indifference place, it became distinctive and of private importance for Lahiri and her family. That is how experience shape and maintain a place for people.