the Summary of Intercultural Communication (5)

High-context and low-context cultures

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Q: What are High-context and low-context culture ?

A: Terms used to describe cultures based on how explicit the messages exchanged are and how much the context means in certain situations. (Introduced by the anthropologist Edward T.Hall in his 1976 book Beyond Culture.)

Context as a relativistic metric of culture

Higher-context culture ——————— Lower-context culture

• African ———————————– Australian
• Arabic ———————————— Dutch
• Brazilian ——————————— English Canadian
• Chinese ———————————- English
• French Canadian ———————– German
• French ———————————— New Zealand
• Greek ————————————- United States
• Hawaiian
• Indian
• Italian
• Irish
• Japanese
• Korean
• Latin
• Americans
• Russian
• Southern United States
• Spanish

How higher context relates to other cultural metrics

Diversity

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High-context:

1. common in the Asian cultures than in European.
2. common in countries with low racial diversity.
3. group/community is valued over the individual.
4. the in-groups and group reliance/support favor higher-context cultures.
5. coexisting subcultures conducive to higher-context situations, where the small group relies on their common background to explain the situation, rather than words.

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Low-context:
the need to accommodate individuals with a wide variety of backgrounds.

高语境文化	低语境文化
内隐，含蓄	外显，明了
暗码信息	明码信息
较多的非语言编码	较多的言语编码
反应很少外露	反应外露
圈内外有别	圈内外灵活
人际关系紧密	人际关系不密切
高承诺	低承诺
时间处理高度灵活	时间高度组织化

Language

Low-context:

• Explicit
• Verbose

Elaborated and Restricted Codes

Q: Where does the concept of elaborated and restricted codes come from ?
A: Sociologist Basil Bernstein in his book Class, Codes and Control.

Q: What is elaborated code ?
A: It indicates that the speaker is expressing his/her idea by phrasing from an abundant selection of alternatives without assuming the listener shares lots of common knowledge, which allows the speaker to explain their idea explicitly.

Q: What is restricted codes ?
A: They are phrased from more limited alternatives, usually with collapsed and shortened sentences, therefore it requires the listeners to share a great deal of common perspectives to understand the implicit meaning of the conversation.

Collectivism and Individualism

• Collectivism — High-context cultures
• Individualism — Low-context cultures

Stability and Durability of Tradition

High-context culture

Facial Expression

Q: What are the 6 basic emotions or universal language of emotion ?
A: Happy, surprise, fear, disgust, anger and sad.

Marketing perspective

Q: What is the difference between Japan and the US about the Mcdonalds advertising ?
A: Japanese version uses more colors, movements and sounds, while the American version is more straight forward.

Conclusion

High-context

• Collectivism
• Stable and durable tradition
• Strong sense of tradition and history
• Little change over time
• Native Americans over new comers
• Higher barrier for development
• Subtler facial expression
• Shared and taken-for-granted background knowledge

Low-context

• Individualism
• Fast change
• Generation gap
• Overload of information
• Exaggerated facial expression

Couse Notes

Higher context	Lower context
Implicit	Explicit
How is said is more important than what is said	Clear
Relational	Verbose
Collectivist
Intuitive
Contemplative

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