dust cover information:
Anthropologist Edward T. Hall received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1942 and has done fieldwork with the Navajo, Hopi, Spanish-American, and the Trukese. During the crucial years of the foreign aid program in the 1950s he was Director of the State Department's Point IV Training Program. From 1959 to 1963 he directed a communications research project at the Washington School of Psychiatry. He has taught at the University of Denver, Bennington College, the Harvard Business School, the Illinois Institute of Technology. and Northwestern University. Dr. Hall is a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology, and a former member of the Building Research Advisory Board of the National Academy of Sciences. His The Hidden Dimension is a study of the importance of "space" in man's environment; his most recent book, Beyond Culture, explores culture as an unconscious mechanism---and how human beings can transcend the limits of individual cultures.
THE SILENT LANGUAGE was originally published in hardcover
by Doubleday & Company, Inc. in 1959Anchor Books Edition: 1973 CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
chapter one---THE VOICES OF TIME
chapter two---WHAT IS CULTURE?E
chapter three---THE VOCABULARY OF CULTUREE
chapter four---THE MAJOR TRIADE
chapter five---CULTURE IS COMMUNICATIONE
chapter six---THE PERVASIVE SETE
chapter seven---THE ILLUSIVE ISOLATEE
chapter eight---THE ORGANIZING PATTERNE
chapter nine---TIME TALKS: AMERICAN ACCENTSE
chapter ten---SPACE SPEAKSE
chapter eleven---LOOSENING THE GRIPEAPPENDIX I: SCHEMA FOR SOCIAL SCIENTISTSE
APPENDIX II: A MAP OF CULTUREE
APPENDIX III: THREE EXAMPLES OF CHANGEE
APPENDIX IV: SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION Over twenty years have elapsed since The Silent Language first appeared. In this interval, many things happened to validate the basic tenets of this book. However, when it was published I was so closely involved in my own work that I failed to fully appreciate the magnitude of the need for cross-cultural insights and observations.
Actually, The Silent Language is a translation not from one language to another, but from a series of complex, nonverbal, contexting communications into words. The title summarizes not only the content of the book, but one of the great paradoxes of culture. It isn't just that people "talk" to each other without the use of words, but that there is an entire universe of behavior that is unexplored, unexamined, and very much taken for granted. It functions outside conscious awareness and in juxtaposition to words. Those of us of European heritage live in a "word world" which we think is real, but just because we talk doesn't mean the rest of what we communicate with our behavior is not equally important. While there can be no doubt that language molds thinking in particularly subtle ways, mankind must eventually come to grips with the. reality of other cultural systems and the pervasive effect these other systems exert on how the world is perceived, how the self is experienced, and how life itself is organized. We must also accustom ourselves to the fact that messages on the word level can mean one thing and that sometimes something quite different is being communicated on another level. Twenty years is not enough time to make these points; certainly much more time is needed before all their implications are realized.
The link between language and gestures is much closer than between language and the other cultural systems herein described---time and space, for example. A gesture and a word may be interchangeable, but this is not true for time or space. Space, which is the subject of a later book, The Hidden Dimension, not only communicates in the most basic sense, but it also organizes virtually everything in life. It is easier to see how space can organize activities and institutions than to recognize the subtle manner in which language organizes thought. What is most difficult to accept is the fact that our own cultural patterns are literally unique, and therefore they are not universal. It is this difficulty that human beings have in getting outside their own cultural skins that motivated me to commit my observations and conceptual models to writing.
One of the advantages of having written a book which survives the temporary whims of fashion is that one gets feedback from readers---not only words of encouragement but validation with examples. I wish to express my deep appreciation to those who have written to me from all over the world. The book has been translated into Chinese, Dutch, Polish, French, Italian, and Serbo-Croatian.
For many years I have been involved with the selection and training of Americans working in foreign countries for both government and business. I remain convinced that much of our difficulty with people in other countries stems from the fact that so little is known about cross-cultural communication. Because of this, most of the good will and great efforts of our nation have been wasted in our foreign aid programs. When Americans are sent abroad to deal with foreigners, they should first be carefully selected for their suitability. Then for their own comfort and to insure their effectiveness, they should be taught to speak and read the language of the country, and thoroughly informed about the culture. All of this takes time and costs money. However, unless we are willing to select, and train personnel, we simply waste our time and money overseas.
Formal training in language, history, government, and customs is only a first step. Of equal importance is an introduction to the nonverbal language of the country. Most Americans are only dimly aware of this silent language even though they use it every day. They are not conscious of the elaborate patterning of behavior which prescribes the handling of time, spatial relationships, attitudes towards work, play, and learning. In addition to our verbal language, we are constantly communicating our real feelings in the language of behavior.
Difficulties in intercultural communication are seldom seen for what they are. When it becomes apparent to people of different countries that they are not understanding one another, each tends to blame "those foreigners," for their stupidity, deceit, or craziness as the following example illustrates.
Despite a host of favorable auspices, an American aid mission in Greece was having great difficulty working out an agreement. Efforts to negotiate met with resistance and suspicion on the part of the Greeks, and consequently the Americans were unable to conclude the agreements. A later analysis of this exasperating situation revealed two unsuspected reasons for the stalemate: First, Americans pride themselves on being outspoken and forthright, while these same qualities are regarded as a liability by the Greeks. Forthrightness indicates a lack of finesse which the Greeks deplore. Second, the unspoken rule for meetings in the United States is to limit the length of the meeting according to schedule and to reach agreements on general principles first, delegating the drafting of details to subordinates. The Greeks regarded this practice as a device to pull the wool over their eyes. Greek custom calls for working out details in front of all concerned, which necessitates continuing meetings for as long as necessary and not being bound by a schedule. The result of this misunderstanding was a series of unproductive meetings with each side deploring the other's behavior. American behavior said to the Greeks: "Not only do these fellows act like peasants lacking finesse, but by devious scheduling and tricks, they try to pull the wool over our eyes."
It is essential that we understand how other people read our behavior (not our words, but our behavior). If this book does nothing more than plant this idea, it will have served its purpose. However, I have a more ambitious goal. This book was written for those who are committed to the improvement of the human situation and who want to learn more about the cultural unconscious. Those persons who are at times perplexed by life, who feel driven by forces they do not understand, who may see others doing things that genuinely mystify them at home and overseas should find some solace in these pages. I hope to show the reader that behind the apparent mystery, confusion, and disorganization of life there is order. This understanding will perhaps lead him to re-examine human behavior in the world around him. I hope too that it will also interest the reader in the subject of culture and lead him to follow his own intuition and make his own observations.
In my research on culture, I initially received invaluable collaboration from my colleague, George L. Trager. Trager is an anthropologically trained linguist who has made important contributions to the study of language. Trager and I developed a theory of culture based on a communications model which is contained in this book and which provides its theoretical underpinning.
The pages that follow have been arranged to lead the reader gradually from the known to the unknown. It will be helpful if the reader thinks of culture as analogous to music: a) If another person hasn't heard a particular piece of music, it is impossible to describe. b) Before the days of written scores, people had to learn informally by imitation. c) People were able to exploit the potential of music only when they started writing musical scores. This is what must be done for culture, and this book represents the cultural analogue of a musical primer.
The non-American reader as well as members of many American subcultures should remember that this book was written primarily as a message to the author's own group in an effort to increase their understanding of their own unconscious culture. Because outsiders make poor spokesmen and seldom really master another culture, one would hope that similar volumes will eventually be written by the Spanish groups, the Native Americans, and the ethnic blacks. I hope the study of unconscious culture (micro-culture) will be carried on and encouraged elsewhere in the world, because the future of the human race lies in maintaining its diversity and turning that diversity to its advantage.
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