High-Context and Low-Context Cultures

Dr. Edward Hall Comparison of Characteristics The Joy Luck Club Connections

Dr. Edward Hall

Anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher Distinguished cultures on the basis of the role of context in communication Context: the whole situation, background, or environment connected to an event, a situation, or an individual. It was taken out of context: without the words or circumstances and so not fully understandable.

Contexts: High and Low

Low-Context High-Context

Information and meaning Individual internalizes are explicitly stated in the meaning and information, message so that less is explicitly stated
Values Individualism Values Group Sense

Values direct verbal interaction and is less able to read nonverbal expressions

Values indirect verbal interaction and is more able to read nonverbal expressions

Contexts: High and Low

Low-Context Tends to use logic to present ideas High-Context Tends to use more feeling in expressions

Tends to emphasize Tends to give simple, highly structured ambiguous, nonmessages, give details, contexting messages and place great stress on words Emphasizes linear logic Emphasizes spiral logic

Low-Context Ideas

In a low-context culture, Hall argues, Most of the information must be in the transmitted message in order to make up for what is missing in the context. To members of a low-context culture, speakers in a high-context culture seem to talk around a subject and never get to the point.

Clash or Low and High in The Joy Luck Club

Mothers expect daughters to learn from and obey their elders (as they did). Mothers do not feel they need to explain. Mothers fears, warnings, instructions or examples are not fully supported by the context of American culture, and so the daughters have difficulty understanding. Daughters feel they do not understand their mothers because information is omitted; mothers think information can be inferred and does not need explanation.

Journal: Context Problems

Brainstorm examples of this conflict between high and low-context cultures in The Joy Luck Club. You may: 1. Focus on one Mother / Daughter relationship

2. Start with a quote from a mother or daughter, and then explain how this fits into the high or low.
3. Think about how the important themes relate to this conflict.