Catherine Montgomery; Language, Culture, and Communication

Comment On The Theories Of Edward Twitchell Hall

Born in Missouri 1914, Edward Twitchell Hall would grow to become one of
the most influential figures in the previously intangible subject of
Anthropology of Space.
Hall first began developing his pioneering theories of culture specific
proxemics when he served in the Philippines during WWII, and as
subsequent director of the Foreign Service Institute (FSI). Constantly
exposed to the problematic task of intercultural communication, and its
inevitable failure, Hall concluded that there must be some underlying,
culture specific factor that induced such poor cross-cultural conveyance
rates.
Hall focused his analysis on proxemics, that is, the human use of space in
relation to the context of culture. In 1966, Hall accumulated his thoughts
and theories in the highly regarded book The Hidden Dimension. In his
book, he states the basic premise of his proxemic theory, he acknowledges
that all humans have a basic universal perception of reality, but that this
view is further developed in accordance with culture specific protocol. In
this second form of reality perception, Hall proposes that these proxemic
constraints soon become conditioned and internalized and that it is this
inability to understand different cultural conventions that leads to failed
communication.
Halls most profound innovation was probably his subsequent definition of
space and its, now widely accepted, three classifications:

Intimate Space: A sphere of personal space that surrounds a

person, where access is limited to close friends and intimates.
Social and Consultative Space: Comfort when conducting routine
social interactions with acquaintances and strangers.
Public Space: A mutual, cultural agreement relating to acceptable
behaviour in impersonal and anonymous interactions.

In practice, Halls somewhat revolutionary theories highlighted some very

informative cultural difference s in proxemic conventions. For instance,
Hall noted that Americans expected at least 4-7 between speaker sin a
conversation, whilst in Europe it was nearly half that. By acknowledging
such incompatibilities in cross-cultural communication we can strive to

Luke Thoburn 14/10/06

Catherine Montgomery; Language, Culture, and Communication

better our approach to intercultural communications, thus improving the
accuracy of the conversation.
However, no matter how profound or innovative E.T Halls theories appear,
they are not without fault. One criticism of Halls theories is that their
very foundation is based upon a preconception of cultural conformity. Hall
works on a basis of majorities and averages, that most of the members of
any given culture will behaviour in a certain manner in a certain situation.
This approach of course fails to acknowledge the presumed minority, or
non-conformists, and which, if any, conventions they abide by or even
further develop.
Another factor that could potentially hinder the validity of Halls theory is
his limited sampling method. Hall only really compares the customs of
Americans and, mainly central, Europeans. Aside from the obvious social
limitations of using Americans compared to Europeans, both mainly
Caucasian and western capitalist, Hall only details the instances of polarity
between America and Europe e.g. Americans do this whilst the French do
the complete opposite. This rather limited approach to proxemic
comparison could result in a narrow-viewed understanding of true
intercultural communications.

References
Sorrells, K (1998) The Edge: The E-Journal of Intercultural Relations,
Summer 1998, Vol. 1(3) Posted 10/11/98

Luke Thoburn 14/10/06