The Silent Language Summary

Edward T. Hall thoroughly examines the many situations and their influences that we face every day in our lives in “The Silent Language”. He clearly explains how these influences have strong impact on our development, our relationships in todays’ global economy. Hall mentions how the American business people were inexperienced and unfamiliar with the rest of people of other countries. The author strongly feels that one should cross the cultural gap between two participating countries in order to achieve the success in a global economy. The author tries to describe five aspects that are responsible for disastrous results that lead to any country to fail in international business if a firm is not aware about it. They are:

LANGUAGE OF TIME:

The author tries to say similar to the spoken languages there exists different languages of time. Typical Americans would hate to wait for someone even though the meeting plays a crucial role in their business. Here, American gives priority to the time instead of the meeting. The author clearly explains how time plays a crucial role for Indians, Japanese, and Americans in the communication and their differences.

LANGUAGE OF SPACE:

Both time and space are not interchangeable. The reason behind this is, space not only provides basic sense but it provides virtuosity to everything in our life. Similar to the language of time, language of space is different in various countries depends on their culture, where people follows the hidden rules that exists in their culture even though they are not aware about it. For example, it was violation of hospitality rules for Indians to discuss about the business by inviting the people to homes. LANGUAGE OF

In USA, mostly people often didn’t allow the involvement of their friends in making crucial decision in one’s personal life and also in business. However, the scenario is completely different in Middle-East countries, India and China. In India, people usually sense about the friend’s needs and desires even before he/she express about it which is a very surprising thing for an American.

LANGUAGE OF AGREEMENTS:

In any type of business agreement two countries plays a key role in success rate of an organization. If a firm, wants to start a business globally, it’s very important to learn about the practices, rules and regulations of a country and after that they have made an agreement with them, otherwise it leads to huge loses for a firm. There are mainly three types of principle that a company should be aware:

1. Rules

2. Formal Principles

3. Informal