Description
Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language
The pecking order in a chicken yard, the intense competition on a school playground, and every subtle gesture—these are all part of what Dr. Hall calls the “silent language.” He explains that our concepts of space and time are powerful tools we use to communicate, often without even realizing it. For instance, our sense of space comes from an animal’s instinct to defend its territory and can be seen in human behavior, like an office worker fiercely protecting their desk or a Latin-American family guarding their walled patio. Similarly, our sense of time—whether it’s the precise scheduling of the West or the more flexible approach of the East—can be seen in a businessman deliberately keeping a client waiting or a South Pacific islander seeking revenge for a wrong suffered decades earlier.
