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Chronemics: A continuous source of conflict in intercultural communications Time talks. It speaks more plainly than words. The message it conveys comes through loud and clear. It can shout the truth where words lie. -- Edward T. Hall Chronemics is the element of non- verbal communication which is related to the way in which the different cultures deal with time. As Peter Andersen states in his article Cues of Culture: The Basis of Intercultural Differences in Nonverbal Communication, “the time frames of cultures differ so dramatically that if only chronemic differences existed, then intercultural misunderstanding would still be considerable” It is considerable, for example, the differences that lay in the view of history of Eastern and Western Cultures: while the last ones consider it as a linear progression from past to future, Eastern cultures consider present a reflection of the eternal, being the eternal residing in the present, as Young Yun Kim points out in Interpersonal Personhood: An Integration of Eastern and Western Perspectives. Other interesting difference is present in the way in which the different cultures deal with the knowledge of the deathly fate of its nature. While many of them create a separation of permanence and non-permanence, others create the myth of the eternal return, in which we have a birth-rebirth-birth, in a continuous cycle. But these are not obviously the most important factors of misunderstanding because of time unawareness in intercultural communication. For example it is more important the concept of cultural time organization, mainly referring to the formal or to the informal. The fact that not all the cultures refer to the time in the same way is commonly a source of strikes to those people who do not know it. Even in the same country we can see it. A person from Andalusia could be in a hurry if a Galician says him that he will do that by Saint Martin, as people from this region doe not use this kind of expression of formal time.
Approximate Word count = 1177
Approximate Pages = 4.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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