High- versus Low-Context Communications

Anthropology - I wish I'd studied anthropology. Unfortunately, I didn't know what it was in high school so it didn't occur to me to apply to study it in university. My studies took me in other directions: English lit., literature & technology (yeah, sci-fi), applied linguistics, teacher training, and now ed. tech. But, I always managed to find a way to incorporate anthropology into my life...mainly through dating anthropologists and now I'm married to one.

So, anthropologist Edward T. Hall (not someone I dated) wrote a book in the early seventies entitled 'Beyond Culture', a seminal work on intercultural communications which discusses High Context (HC)cultures in contrast with Low Context (LC) cultures and their communication patterns.

A High Context (HC) communication or message is one in which most of the information is either in the physical context or internalized in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit transmitted parts of the message. (Hall, 1976)

Jandt (2001), Anderson (1994), and Hecht, Anderson, & Ribeau (1989) all discuss the distinction between High and Low Context cultures, a distinction first made by Edward Hall. Anderson comments that “lifelong friends often use HC or implicit messages that are nearly impossible for an outsider to understand [because] the situation, a smile, a glance provides an implicit meaning that doesn’t need to be articulated” (Anderson, 1994). Countries such as China, Japan, Korea, most Latin cultures, and southern and eastern Mediterranean countries are given as examples of HC cultures.

By contrast, in Low Context (LC) cultures “most of the information is in the explicit code; LC messages must be elaborated, clearly communicated, and highly specific” (Anderson, 1994). Countries such as Switzerland, Germany, North America, and Scandinavia are reputedly LC cultures. Jandt (2001) makes use of a business axiom to illustrate the importance of the HC/LC distinction:

It is said that Westerners tend to rely on contracts; Asians on contacts (Jandt, 2001)

The HC/LC dimension has interesting links to deductive/inductive discourse patterns. In LC cultures, such as the US, ‘straight talking’ is favored, whereas in LC cultures, such as China, great importance is attached to building up a relationship before the negotiations take place. Scollon & Scollon (1995) make a distinction which is similar: in some business cultures (for example, the US), there is an acceptance and expectation of ‘straight talking’, of ‘putting one’s cards on the table’, of dealing directly with the issues. This discourse pattern is termed deductive and it contrasts with an inductive pattern where ‘side issues’, and relationship building topics are favoured as supporting arguments preceding main points.

This brings me to my own work with Chinese EFL teachers and their observations on how technology is changing the very way their students communicate and interact. Scollon & Scollon’s (1995) terminology has further implications for Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in Chinese educational contexts. There are many potential problems for HC <--> LC interpersonal communications where Chinese teachers who are accustomed to HC behavior are becoming increasingly at odds with their students who are conducting themselves more and more in their adopted LC ways. For example, there may be discrepancies in:

i) the amount of talk (LC more than HC), especially in the learner-centered class

ii) the meaning attributed to talk – ‘talkativeness’, ‘directness’, ‘disruptiveness’ (HC verdict on LC) and ‘inscrutability’, ‘observation of status relationships’, ‘conservatism’ (LC verdict on HC)

iii) the ability to ‘read’ nonverbal communication (HC are supposedly better prepared than LC cultures), and the maintenance/decline of public face (especially within the domain of online communications, for example email, where LC are purportedly more comfortable with self-disclosure than HC cultures (Baron, 2003; Robert H. Woods & Baker, 2004)).

Baron in her article entitled, Why Email Looks like Speech: Proofreading, Pedagogy, and Public Face, asks:

But so what? Does it matter whether writing is formal or informal, edited or unedited, reflective or blurted out, reserved or candid? (Baron, 2003)

Regardless of what we think it does matter whether written English is accurate and formal in Chinese ELT contexts. This is due to the continuation of high-stakes written examinations which determine the success and social standing of teachers as well as their students by reinforcing the concept of long-term, traditional orientation (LTO) (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005) in Chinese culture.

Interestingly, China’s youth are becoming increasingly exposed to communicative media such as the Internet and communicative educational methodologies like CLT. As these up-and-coming generations prepare for China’s unprecedented success in the global market, where English for the time being is still lingua franca, we will most likely see an increase in LC communications and observable LC behavior. This is creating an unusual tension between the different generations in China as external influences from the West are brought into question.

Suggested Reading:

Anderson, P. (1994). Explaining intercultural differences in nonverbal communication. In L. Samovar & R. Porter (Eds.), Intercultural communication (pp. 229-240). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Baron, N. S. (Ed.). (2003). Why Email Looks Like Speech: Proofreading, Pedagogy, and Public Face. London:: Routledge,.

Hall, E. (1976). Beyond Culture. New York: Doubleday.

Hecht, M. L., Andersen, P. A., & Ribeau, S. A. (1989 ). The cultural dimensions of nonverbal communication. In M. K. Asante & W. B. Gudykunst (Eds.), Handbook of International and intercultural communication (pp. 163-185 ). Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Hofstede, G., & Hofstede, G. J. (2005). Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind

Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. W. (1995). Intercultural communication: a discourse approach. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell publishers Ltd.

Woods, J., & Baker, J. D. (2004). Interaction and Immediacy in Online Learning, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning.