Basic Communication Styles

Direct communication: Communication that comes to the point and lacks ambiguity.

Formal communication: Communication that acknowledges rank, titles, and ceremony in prescribed social
interaction.

Verbal Communication Styles

1. Context is information that surrounds a communication and helps convey the message
2. Context plays a key role in explaining many communication differences
• Messages often highly coded and implicit in high-context society (e.g., Japan, many Arab
countries)
• Messages often explicit and speaker says precisely what s/he means in low context society
(e.g., U.S. And Canada)

High- and Low-Context Languages

• Low-context language: people state things directly and explicitly
- Most northern European languages including German, English, and the Scandinavian languages
• High-context language: people state things indirectly and implicitly
- Asian and Arabic languages