Edward T. Hall | |
|---|---|
 Hall in 1966 | |
| Born | Edward Twitchell Hall, Jr. (1914-05-16)May 16, 1914 Webster Groves,Missouri, United States |
| Died | July 20, 2009(2009-07-20) (aged 95) Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Known for | Proxemics,High-context and low-context cultures,monochronic andpolychronic time |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Anthropology |
| Institutions | United States Army,University of Denver,Bennington College,Harvard Business School,Illinois Institute of Technology,Northwestern University,United States Department of State |
Edward Twitchell Hall Jr. (May 16, 1914 – July 20, 2009) was an Americananthropologist and cross-cultural researcher. He is remembered for developing the concept ofproxemics and exploring cultural andsocial cohesion, and describing how people behave and react in different types of culturally definedpersonal space. Hall was an influential colleague ofMarshall McLuhan andBuckminster Fuller.[1]
Hall was born inWebster Groves, Missouri, the son ofPurina Mills executive Edward T. Hall and painter Jessie Gilroy Hall. His parents divorced when he was twelve, and his mother married German-born sculptorHeinz Warneke. Hall stayed with his father, and his five-year-old sister Priscilla went with his mother.
Hall taught at theUniversity of Denver,Colorado;Bennington College inVermont;Harvard Business School;Illinois Institute of Technology;Northwestern University inIllinois and others. The foundation for his lifelong research on culturalperceptions of space was laid duringWorld War II, when he served in theU.S. Army in Europe and thePhilippines.
From 1933 through 1937, Hall lived and worked with theNavajo and theHopi on Native Americanreservations in northeasternArizona, the subject of his autobiographicalWest of the Thirties. He received his Ph.D. fromColumbia University in 1942 and continued withfield work and direct experience throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. During the 1950s he worked for theUnited States State Department, at theForeign Service Institute (FSI), teaching inter-cultural communications skills to foreign service personnel, developed the concepts ofhigh-context and low-context cultures, and wrote several popular practical books on dealing with cross-cultural issues in theory and practice[2]. He is considered a founding father ofintercultural communication as an academic area of study.[3][4]
Throughout his career, Hall introduced a number of new concepts, includingproxemics,monochronic time,polychronic time, andhigh-context and low-context cultures.In his second book,The Hidden Dimension (1966), he describes the culturally specific temporal and spatial dimensions that surround each of us, such as the physical distances people maintain in different contexts.
InThe Silent Language (1959), Hall coined the term "polychronic" to describe the ability to attend to multiple events simultaneously, as opposed to "monochronic" individuals and cultures who tend to handle events sequentially.
In the 1960s, Hall published his theory ofproxemics, the study of the human use of space, creating a new field of research investigating the nature of personal and public space, and how it may differ between cultures.[5]
In 1976, he released his third book,Beyond Culture, which is notable for having developed the idea ofextension transference; by an extension, he simply means any technological item, from clothes to laptops. He brings to our attention the fact that these 'extensions' only help us perform certain functions, but they as extensions will never quite be able to carry out these functions by themselves (for example, think about computers, airplanes, etc. We can fly with airplanes, but we can't on our own and nor can airplanes fly 'on their own'). His biggest claim is that culture itself is an extension of man. Extensions also exist in their own evolutionary realm, as well. That is, they evolve on their own and do not directly influence human evolution.[citation needed]
The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time (1983) describes different types of time in a provocative cross-cultural exploration of how time varies across cultures. Hall develops a classification system of nine different types of time. Particularly interesting are his ideas about how rhythms and music structure cultural interaction in different cultures.[6]
The 'transference' of 'extension transference' is a term he coined to describe when people regard a symbol to actually be its referent. The clearest example of this would be language; like when people do not realize that words are merely symbolic to their referents. For example, there is nothing inherently watery about the physical objectwater, at least in terms of the symbolic acoustic properties that are produced when someone utterswater. Evidence for this would be the fact that across languages there are thousands of unique words that all refer to water. Culture, as an extension, is also a good example; extension transference of culture happens naturally when people are unaware of the extent to which culture shapes how they perceive time and space, or that culture shapes their perception of them at all. Time and space are the two prominent aspects that Hall in particular focuses on in many of his works.
He died at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico on July 20, 2009.[7]
According to Nina Brown, the work of Hall was so groundbreaking that it created a multitude of other areas for research. One of the most widely sought after topics of anthropology is an idea that was first introduced by Edward Hall: Anthropology of Space. Brown goes on to mention that the Anthropology of Space has essentially opened the door to dozens of new topics.[8] Along with influencing the Anthropology of Space, Hall's research had a substantial influence on the development of intercultural communication as a research topic. Since at least 1990, he has been acknowledged frequently for his role in introducing nonverbal aspects of communication, specifically proxemics, the study of the social uses of space, the investigation of communication between members of different cultures.[4] For example,Robert Shuter, a well-known intercultural communication researcher, commented: "Edward Hall's research reflects the regimen and passion of an anthropologist: a deep regard for culture explored principally by descriptive, qualitative methods... The challenge for intercultural communication... is to develop a research direction and teaching agenda that returns culture to preeminence and reflects the roots of the field as represented in Edward Hall's early research."[9]
What was particularly innovative about Hall's early work is that instead of focusing on a single culture at a time, or cross-cultural comparison, as was typical in 1950s’ anthropology, he responded to the needs of his students at theForeign Service Institute of theDepartment of State to help them understand interactions between members of different cultures.[10] Hall points out that the only environment in which classroom dialogue is encountered is simply in the classroom, ergo it served the students little use when actually in the foreign country of interest. At the same time, and in response to the same students, he narrowed his focus from an entire culture, as was then standard within anthropology, to smaller moments of interaction.[10] Colleagues working with him at FSI at the time included Henry Lee Smith,George L. Trager,Charles F. Hockett, andRay Birdwhistell. Between them, they useddescriptive linguistics as a model for not only proxemics but alsokinesics andparalanguage.
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