Differing norms about personal space can complicate intercultural communication. | Photo by Lynn Friedman, Flickr

Learning how to communicate across cultures involves more than just using your voice – non-verbal cues are just as important. Personal space is one of the many non-verbal nuances in intercultural communication that can be difficult to traverse.

According to anthropologist Edward T. Hall, an archetypal American male stands 18 to 20 inches away when talking to another man and slightly farther than that when talking to a woman. In contrast, Hall notes that in many parts of Latin America and the Middle East, people can only talk comfortably at distances that would have an almost sexual undertone in North America.

“If you are a Latin American, talking to a North American at the distance he insists on maintaining it’s like trying to talk across a room,” Hall writes.

Personal space and culture

Joenita Paulrajan, Centre for Intercultural Communication Program Manager. | Photo courtesy of Joenita Paulrajan

Joenita Paulrajan, program manager of the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Intercultural Communication, agrees that culture plays a major role in our everyday lives and that personal space is a part of everyday communication.

Paulrajan suggests that how we respond to each other’s personal space could be an indication of how well we know the other person.

“How we maintain and respect each others’ personal space does influence our relationship, whether it’s at work or at home,” she says.

For Monica King, who grew up in Vancouver and is currently teaching English in South Korea, her experiences with navigating personal space across different cultures consisted of trial and error until she and her co-workers achieved a balance that made everyone comfortable.

King says that in Korea, respect for elders is extremely important and there is also a greater separation between the genders. When greeting one another, there is no physical contact. Instead, Koreans greet each other by bowing.

But since King is originally from the Philippines, her students were initially confused about how to address her because she was a foreigner, but at the same time looked Asian and was not that much older than they were. Some students tried to be respectful and bowed to her, while others tried to be more westernized and shook her hand, or even gave her an outright hug.

By contrast, King says that the Filipino culture is very “huggy” and often drops the formal respect directed towards strangers, because no one is ever really a complete stranger.

“I always find out later that we’re related somehow, or they know someone I know and we’re suddenly friends,” says King.

Monica King, Filipino-Canadian ESL teacher in Korea. | Photo courtesy of Monica King

King describes the other Canadians she’s met in Korea as “huggers” as well, and it’s easy to see why people would think Canadians are friendly. But, she notes that even though Canadians are friendly, they are smart enough to know who to keep as a friend, and that is why it might be hard to get past being ‘casual’ friends to becoming ‘real’ friends.

“I think there’s many ways to think about it – you can say it’s a gender difference, you can say it’s a generation difference, [or] culture difference,” King says.

Individual perceptions of personal space

Paulrajan concurs that culture has to be perceived holistically and that we need to focus on individuals and how they interact rather than generalizing about broad cultural differences.

“When we look at culture, it’s not just your ethnic culture, but it’s also very broad…it could be age, it could be gender,” she says.

“I think we need to create a space for folks to come and dialogue with each other and find out how best to work with each other.”

According to Paulrajan, there are many levels to people’s personal space, and it doesn’t just relate to physical space and comfort but to how people communicate and interact. How people give or react to personal space affects relationships, something Paulrajan suggests should not be overlooked just because it’s not easily identifiable or understood.