Use of Chronemics: Ethical Considerations of the Process of Communication in the Family

Abstract

Appearing for a one out of seven codes of non verbal signals, ‘chronemics, represents the use of time as a message system such as punctuality, amount of time spent with another and waiting time. As it is a component which is accountable to the quality of the process of communication, the use of ‘chronemics’ is substantially liable upon the emergence of ethics in the society. In an any social situation, one’s communication is massively influenced by related family. In this context, considering the process of communication in the family, this study aimed two objectives as the major one was to identify a common code of ethics in use of ‘chronemics’ and the other specific one was to identify attributed values of the use of chronemics. The mixed research methodology was applied though qualitative data were cared prominent. Interviews were used as the main instrument of data collection while the observation was present too. Only for this study, the families were categorized into five groups under a simple socio-economic criterion; by names the families represent ancient folk, rural elites’ ancestry, modern middle class, modern rural folk, and modern town folk. Allowing five families to belong to each group, sum of twenty five families in Kurunegala district were randomly selected as the sample. Two indicators of ‘chronemics’ namely ‘spending time with another’ and ‘waiting time’ were concerned. Likewise the both indicators equally proclaimed the extra ordinary complexity of the use of chronemics, they revealed that there’s an identifiable difference between the particular use within family members and with aliens. ‘Spending time with another’ is more effectively applicable when communicating with an alien but it creates ethical issues if use against the family members. Although ‘the waiting time’ for a family member is various due to intra family kinship, the lowest ‘waiting time’ in it is obviously higher than the ‘waiting time’ kept for any outsider. Both indicators show some variations in practice according to the family category but more families revealed even attitudes about the particular use of ‘chronemics’ though the practice doesn’t represent it properly. Conclusion made by the attitudes of the sample families as a qualitative analysis was done stating that there are more common ethics in the use of ‘chronemics’ where in the process of communication in the family