Chronemics
study of the role of time in communication
Chronemics is an anthropological, philosophical, and linguistic subdiscipline that describes how time is perceived, coded, and communicated across a given culture. It is one of several subcategories to emerge from the study of nonverbal communication.
According to the Encyclopedia of Special Education, "Chronemics includes time orientation, understanding and organisation, the use of and reaction to time pressures, the innate and learned awareness of time, by physically wearing or not wearing a watch, arriving, starting, and ending late or on time." A person's perception and values placed on time plays a considerable role in their communication process.
The use of time can affect lifestyles, personal relationships, and professional life. Across cultures, people usually have different time perceptions, and this can result in tension or friction between individuals. Time perceptions include punctuality, interactions, and willingness to wait.
Definition
Chronemics is the study of the use of time in nonverbal communication, though it carries implications for verbal communication as well. Time perceptions include punctuality, willingness to wait, and interactions. The use of time can affect lifestyles, daily agendas, speed of speech, movements, and how long people are willing to listen.
Fernando Poyatos, Professor Emeritus at the University of New Brunswick, coined the term chronemics in 1972.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2018606. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chronemics” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.