ABSTRACT
In this opening chapter, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz documents the contribution of Edward T. Hall and the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the U.S. Department of State to the establishment of the intercultural communication field. She first explicates the significance of Hall’s work in defining and developing intercultural communication as a field of study and then examines the historical context of the FSI as it shaped the theoretical contours of contemporary intercultural communication research. According to Leeds-Hurwitz, it was the demands of U.S. diplomats and the practical mission of the FSI that led Hall and his distinguished colleagues (1) to shift macro-level cultural profiling to micro-level cultural analysis for the purpose of studying everyday interactions, (2) to investigate nonverbal messages such as proxemics, time, paralanguage, and kinesics, (3) to adopt the linguistic model in intercultural education and training, and (4) to prioritize patterns and practices of communication in the study of culture and society.
