不同東方文化下的認知差異:台灣與日本的比較

Abstract

由 Richard Nisbett引領的跨文化認知差異研究提出了許多證據，支持這樣的主張:東西方人因為文化的不同而有不同的認知表現。這些研究將中國、台灣、日本、韓國皆籠統地歸類於東方文化圈裡，但是這些國家之間仍有其迥異的文化特性，他們的人民是否也會表現出不同的認知行為呢？本研究比較台灣和日本兩種文化的差異，以之預測台灣人和日本人可能存在的認知差異，並進而以作業的方式驗證此預測。Hofstede ( 1981 ) 提出五個文化構面，其中的「不確定性規避」指數，日本比台灣高，表現日本社會需要許多細節規則來穩定，對於環境週遭需要更多的關注，而台灣則相對之下，比較不重週遭的細節，可以輕易的將個體與環境區隔開來。黃若筑 ( 2011 ) 依據其異國婚姻研究得出台灣與日本有顯著的文化差異，日本文化需要「讀空氣」，來揣摩對方說話者的心態以及想法，重視環境氛圍，溝通上也相對台灣來得含蓄婉轉，相反的，台灣人在表達方面，相對日本來說較直接，也較不會揣摩對方的想法和期許，阮美惠 ( 2002 ) 指出台灣社會從八零年代開始強調自我的主體性以及社會的多元性。這兩種文化的差別，一種重視環境氛圍、一種強調自我主體性，反映在認知上可以說是重視環境背景與重視個別性的差異，日本人比較重視群體團隊精神，台灣人則相對比較能展現個別性。本研究的認知作業發現，這種文化上的差異的確會反映在認知行為上： ( 1 ) 如果多數圖案中有幾個少數獨特圖案，日本人偏向選擇多數圖案，台灣人則會選擇少數獨特的圖案；( 2 )如果做喜好的排序，台灣人會比日本人更願意將獨特圖案排在喜好程度大的位置； ( 3 ) 在觀看有前景人物、動物，背景有房子、場景的圖片或影片時，日本人會比台灣人更容易將注意力分散於背景和整體場景上。此研究結果說明了，同屬東方文化的台灣與日本仍有明顯的文化以及認知差異，此情況值得重視。 這樣的研究發現，對華語教學領域的幫助上有兩部分。第一在教材方面，日本學習者使用的教材可以以主題式呈現，或每大題均需明顯區隔開來，以減少日本學習者的焦點模糊。第二教學過程上，黑板書寫順序以教學順序相同，講授時，也多提醒目前的重點或說明此段學習的主要概念，並且多鼓勵日本學習者發言或是表達自我意見，增加日本學習者在他國學習者中的學習效率。In his book “The Geography of Thought”, Nisbett pointed out that the East and the West have developed different cultures due to the influence of geography on living habits, and thus subsequently created differences in the recognition of events and objects. He believes that the Eastern culture lean towards group life, and so it emphasizes on harmony and group in terms of recognition and the background of events and location. On the other hand, Western people believe in individualism which praises personal characteristics and the pursuit of personal future, and so they emphasize uniqueness and foreground objects. Therefore, easterner’s way of thinking lean towards comprehensive subjective thinking, whereas westerners have a more objective analytical way of thinking that systematically sort events and objects by categories or properties. Nisbett backed up his theory by using daily examples. For instance, on a same case, easterners uses the surrounding life and others as factors and reasoning for analyzing the main character, but westerners focus more on the main character’s characteristics and properties for reasoning. In light of Nisbett’s theory of cultural differences lead to differences in recognition, this research continued to use this model of thinking on the comparison of Japan and Taiwan in order to show whether the significant cultural differences of the two eastern cultures also lead to differences in recognition. This research uses “uniqueness” versus “harmony” and visual “foreground” versus “background” detections to discuss whether the Japanese harmonic group culture and the diversity of Taiwanese can also create differences in recognition. The current research discovered that, if were asked to choose a pattern from a picture consisting a small number of pattern existing in a majority of another pattern, Japanese tend to choose the pattern of the majority, whereas Taiwanese chooses the rarer one. In terms of preference ranking, Taiwanese are more likely to give a higher ranking to the more unique pattern. In pictures or videos of people and animal in the foreground with buildings and settings in the background, Japanese span its attention to the background and overall setting more than Taiwanese. Combining the experimental results, this research discovered that Japanese emphasizes on the background environmental factors more than Taiwanese. Applying this finding to Mandarin education, materials designed for Japanese learners can be categorized by topics or have clear separation between chapters in order to avoid lost of focus for Japanese learners. In the process of teaching, board writing should align with the order of teaching. Teacher should remind its students the main concept or key point of a chapter more often and encourages Japanese learners to speak-up or express personal opinions to increase the efficiency of learning foreign languages for Japanese learners.