A Theorist Edward T. Hall - Literature review Example

A renowned cross-cultural researcher and anthropologist, Edward T. Hall is considered one of the foremost living experts on intercultural communications in our time. He is the author of several books on cross-cultural communication issues and methods, and his work has proved seminal in various fields, dramatically influencing the way we think of communication. His work is also very significant to the field of communication theory, inspiring a large body of further research in the field of communication. He has directly or indirectly influenced many scholars, among them the famous Marshall McLuhan who came out with the mantra, “ the medium is the message”, and with whom Hall had a long and fruitful correspondence. Hall is universally acknowledged to be the founding father of studies on intercultural communication, because it all started with his early work in the 1950s for the United States State Department in order to coach foreign service personnel survival skills in intercultural communication. He realized that a majority of the communication gaps between people from different cultures could be because of different perceptions they had about the same thing, based on their cultural background. In order to understand the contribution of Hall to intercultural communication it would be relevant to consider a working definition of the term: Intercultural communication is usually defined as any direct communicative interaction between individuals or groups of individuals belonging to different cultures. In other words, the term denotes interpersonal communication between "strangers" on the micro-level of face-to-face interaction. In a wider sense, however, the term is also but less frequently used to refer to direct or indirect interactions or contacts between ethnic groups, nations or cultures, thus denoting culture contact and cultural exchange on the meso- or macro-level. ( Roth, Klaus, 1999, p.206 ) The formal beginnings of intercultural communication are usually traced to the 1959 publication of “The Silent Language” by Hall. In this book, he defined culture as a concept, and described its role in setting expectations during the process of communication. He contradicted the prevalent natural assumption that communication styles and core values can be universal for all cultures. Instead, he proposed that a majority of human communication is actually non-verbal, mostly subconscious, and is determined to a large extent by cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In this book, he came up with the theory that not only does peoples cultural background act as a medium of communication, it also forms a subconscious part of the communication method.His method of “silent language”comprised of ten primary messaging systems: interaction, association, subsistence, bisexuality, territoriality, temporality, learning, play, defense and exploitation.This book also introduced the concepts of how space (in terms of actual physical space around a person) and time ( in terms of ability to do only one or a number of things at the same time) affect communication. But most significantly, it defined the formal, informal and technical aspects of culture as expressed by the ten primary messaging systems: the formal aspect comprises of tradition, custom, ritual, and values that belong to a group of people from a specific background. Formal culture banks on emotion and is passed on and taught from one generation to another through injunction, participation, and of course, by example. These definitely affect our ability to interact with people from a different backgrounds. Informal culture consists of what passes through the media today, and it is almost always absorbed by itself, and not taught. Technical culture is what facilitates informal culture, and it has a major role in its dissemination. All these three aspects of an individuals culture determine his or her ability to communicate with people from diffferent cultural backgrounds. Hall takes his theory on the role of physical space in intercultural communication a step further in his follow-up book, “The Hidden Dimension.”It intoduces us to the concept of proxemics, or how subjective distances surround a person, as a result of which one wants to keep a physical distance. This distance, despite having been derived by human sensory organs, are actually specifically dependent on cultural backgrounds and values. The amount of space a person needs to have around him or her to feel comfortable in an environment is totally up to the culture he or she has been brought up in, and a variety of factors which he spells out in his next book, “Beyond Culture”. [I]ntrusion distance (the distance one has to maintain from two people who are already talking in order to get attention but not intrude). How great this distance is and how long one must wait before moving in depends on: what is going on (activity), your status, your relationship in a social system (husband and wife or boss and subordinate), the emotional state of the parties, the urgency of needs of the individual who must intrude, etc." (Hall, Beyond Culture,p.98) Halls book depicts the way in which the amount of space (within the concept of culture) can be different for different cultures, and since the awareness of this space is subconcious, it can lead to major misunderstandings between members of different cultures. Hall talks about the intimate space, which is the tightest circle of space around a person to which only the most intimate of relatives and friends are welcome. This is enveloped in the social space, and the distance of its radius is the distance the person would want to keep for social interactions. And beyond the social space is the public space, in which all interations would be seen as anonymous and absolutely impersonal. In different nations and cultures, the lengths of these respective distances would vary. Unless one is aware of the amount of intimate, social and public spaces that are usual in a cultural context different from ones own, one would not be able to accurately communicate with a person from another culture. Hall studies the manner of life and interaction of people from various cultures like the French, German, English, Japanese, and the Arab and relates it to his study of animals and their need for space. Proxemics is a widely studied subject in the field of communication, and especially its role in the global business scenario. Hall carries his ideas on intercultural communication further in his next book, “Beyond Culture” in which he says: What is characteristically man--in fact, what gives man his identity no matter where he is born--is his culture, the total communication framework: words, actions, postures, gestures, tones of voice, facial expressions, the way he handles time, space, and materials, and the way he works, plays, makes love, and defends himself. All these things and more are complete communication systems with meanings that can be read correctly only if one is familiar with the behavior in its historical, social, and cultural context. (Hall, Beyond Culture, p. 37) This empahsizes his deep-seated belief that our understanding of human nature depends on the realization of context during communication. This context is something we take for granted: the linguistic patterns, the body rhythms, the dynamics of our personality and so on are all rooted in a cultural context, of which we are unaware, but which plays a big role during communication. Different contexts give different meaning to the same words, which is why translation cannot completely convey the meaning in one language to another because "the problem lies not in the linguistic code but in the context, which carries varrying proportions of the meaning. Without context, the code is incomplete since it encompasses only part of the message."(Hall, Beyond Culture, p86) Hall theorizes that the degree of context in a communication which carries implicit meanings, differs from one culture to another. This meaning is understood only by the member of the culture, even without being aware of the process of this understanding: The reason man does not experience his true cultural self is that until he experiences another self as valid, he has little basis for validating his own self. A way to experience another group is to understand and accept the way their minds work. This is not easy. In fact, it is extraordinarily difficult, but it is of the essence of cultural understanding. A by-product of such acceptance is a glimpse of the strengths and weaknesses of ones own system.( Hall, Beyond Culture, p. 213) Japanese culture is rich in implicit meanings, so when the the Japanese communicate, their communication is high in contextual content. They are a high-context people, as against North Europeans who explicitly say exactly what they mean and are thus a low-context culture. Hall goes on to state that even in the same culture, communication can be low or high-context, depending on the degree of intimacy and shared experience betweeen the communicating parties. If the degree of shared experience is high, communication often becomes high-context, because there is no need to explicitly convey most of the communication. Because of an intimate background, most of communication is made and understood at an implicit level. This is a part of the human evolutionary nature whereby maximum communication takes place with minimum effort, and here Hall introduces the notion of action chains or sequences of action in which several people participate, which are different for people from different cultures. For him, culture is participatory by nature, and being able to figure out the action chains within a culture can help can help an outsider communicate better with those on the inside. In this book Hall also briefly summarizes the concept of time and its importance to communication he introduced in the “The Silent Language”, in terms of mono chronic(doing one thing at a time) and polychronic(doing several things at a time) This concept of time and the significance of its varied perception by different cultures has a major role to play in intercultural communication according to Hall, as he expounds in his 1983 publication : “The Dance of Life, The Other Dimension of Time”. People from cultures that follow monochronic time like the Americans tend to be low-context, because they believe in explicit behavior, including planning and scheduling the activity: the emphasis is on getting things done within a specific time-frame. On the other hand, people who live in a culture of polychronic time like the French are high-context people who give more importance to human interaction, considering it superior to time and material things. Getting things done is important too, but they can get done in their own time. This could lead to serious miscommunication between the two parties from cultures with different contexts of time, like the French and the Americans, unless they understand the time perception in the respective cultures.Time is then an organizer, a messaging system and a communication device all its own that Hall commends to our understanding for better intercultural communication. Hall has studied various cultures and noted the pitfalls of communication for an American vis-a vis various other cultures, in his works titled, “ The Hidden Differences” in which he tackles the difference in culture between the Americans and the various other cultures they interact with: the Japanese, the German, the French and the Arabs. The work which highlights the differences between Japanese and American cultures are particularly interesting because of the stark differences between the high -context Japanese and the low-context Americans. These works offer insightful conclusions on why and how misunderstandings occur between personnel from different countries based on theories developed since “The Silent Language” and “The Hidden Dimension”. Also remarkable is the work “Understanding Cultural Differences” where Hall combines his experience and knowledge in intercultural communication to compile a book that is of great importance in the global nature of human resource management for multinationals. This book clarifies the contexts in which the members of a corporation in different countries like France, Germany and America work, and the resultant miscommunications, suggesting simple practical and effective ways to resolve such situations. Edward T. Hall is thus a theorist whose lifes work has given mankind original insights into intercultural interactions and communications. He has made us aware of our own subconcious cultural leanings and how that affects our communication with people of our own culture and those from a different one. Mostly he has given us a tolerance and understanding of other cultures in the process of communication, which has paved the way for research into various facets of communication theory. As Hall sums up a lifetime of his work, and the singular insight it has given us : We can grow, swell with pride, and breathe better for having so many remarkable talents. To do so, however, we must stop ranking both people and talents and accept the fact that there are many roads to truth and no culture has a corner on the path or is better equipped than others to search for it. Furthermore, no man can tell another how to conduct that search." (Hall, E., Beyond Culture, p.7) Bibliography : Hall, E. T. The Silent Language, New York: Doubleday, 1959 Hall, E. T.The Hidden Dimension, New York: Doubleday,1966 Hall, E. T.Beyond Culture, New York: Doubleday, 1976 Hall, E. T.The Dance of Life, The Other Dimension of Time, New York: Doubleday, 1983. Hall, E. T.Hidden Differences: Studies in International Communication, Hamburg: Grunder & Jahr, 1983, 1984, 1985. Hall, E. T.Hidden Differences: Doing Business with the Japanese, Garden City, NY, Anchor Press/ Doubleday, 1987. Hall, E. T.Understanding Cultural Differences, Germans, French and Americans, Yarmouth: Intercultural Press, 1990. Aykin,N. (ed.) Usability and Internationalization of Information Technology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 2005. Casmir, F.L.Communication in Eastern Europe: The Role of History, Culture, and Media in Contemporary Conflicts, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995 . Kikoski, C,K.Kikoski, J.F.Reflexive Communication in the Culturally Diverse Workplace Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1999. Madonik, B.G. I Hear What You Say, but What Are You Telling Me? The Strategic Use of Nonverbal Communication in Mediation, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001. Maynard, S.K. Japanese Communication: Language and Thought in Context. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1997. Mcluhan, M. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Routledge, 2001. Mcluhan, M. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962. Nolan, R.W.Communicating and Adapting across Cultures: Living and Working in the Global Village. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey. 1999. Smith, A.L.Transracial Communication.New York :Prentice-Hall, 1973. Varey, R.J.Marketing Communication: An Introduction to Contemporary Issues London: Routledge, 2001. Zaharna, R.S.“Intercultural Communication and International Public Relations: Exploring Parallels”Communication Quarterly, Vol. 48, 2000. Works Cited: Hall, E. T.Beyond Culture, New York: Doubleday, 1976 p.7, 37, 86,213 Klaus, Roth,J. “ Intercultural Communication as Applied Ethnology and Folklore”. Journal of Folklore Research. Volume: 36. Issue: 2/3. 1999. p.206. Read More