6.3.5 Time
(This topic may appear under the heading of chronemics in some texts.)
Examples of the importance of time are all around us. In business we are expected to turn up on time and to keep an account of the time spent (some professions charge by the hour such as lawyers or accountants). Travellers become upset because of a late arrival or departure of a bus, plane or train. Transport schedules include departure and arrival times, stating them as precisely as 9.02am. People place clocks in virtually any place. Do you have a watch on at the moment? We have expectations about the length of time various activities will take. People, for instance, expect movies of no longer than two hours; we talk about lunch hours, even when they're not; lectures are for an hour, even when they're not. Indeed, the treatment of time introduces another important non-verbal element: the higher the status of a worker, the later one appears to be able to arrive for a scheduled beginning time.
It is important to understand a culture's concept of time to understand a culture and the concepts are many and varied. In the western world, artificial time as displayed on a clock face has become a directive force in the way we live, but for tribal people the directive is 'natural' time - the seasons and the passage of the sun during the day.
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