Learning effective communicative strategies in the context of intercultural communication

will ensure one’s success in the many aspects of his or her personal and business life. Having
knowledge about the culture of the people you are communicating with will be very helpful
so that you would know the dos and don’ts while interacting with them.

How people communicate with one another varies wildly from culture to culture. In our fully
globalized times, it is more important than ever to understand these differences and where
they come from. One way to reach an understanding is through the high and low context
culture framework by Edward T. Hall.

In 1976, Hall proposed that cultures can be exist on a spectrum that ranges from high context
to low context. The higher it is on the spectrum of the Context Culture Framework, the more
its communication style is rooted in that country’s cultures and traditions, and the
assumptions that people who speak this language have equal footing socio-economically. The
lower it is, the more fundamental and basic their communication style has to be so that it is
easier for varying communities of that culture to understand one another.

— high context cultures —

Let’s start with high context cultures. High-context cultures will use communication that
focuses on underlying context, meaning, and tone in the message, and not just the words
themselves. This is reliant on the idea that a lot of references to culture will be made in
communication as it is embedded in the language.

In a high-context culture, similarity is an important characteristic. Majority of the population

in high context cultures typically have the same ethnicity, religion, history and level of
education. Because of this similarity, it is assumed that people in high context cultures have
shared experiences, so messages can be contextualized by assuming an audience will think in
the same way and understand the underlying message in the communication they receive.

High-context cultures prefer oral communication. Meetings and conversations are more usual
in a high context culture, and are laced with cultural context. This makes oral communication
are more efficient in bringing about action compared to written communication.

So the commercial we watched was a Filipino commercial. Filipino culture is considered pretty
high context, so our language and communication style is bound to be infested with
references to our own culture, values, and traditions: so in the commercial there’s singing
because we are established to be singing people — knowing cebuano history written by
magellan’s chronicler antonio pigafetta, he claimed the cebuano people sang as they spoke,
that kind of history that still continues today exists and is still reflected in our ads. i remember
a singaporean family friend who once said that when he travelled to cebu for vacation he felt
it was surreal watching tv and listening to the radio in taxi cabs bc all the ads showed people
singing and focused on creating catchy jingles. the nescafe ad for the philippines is highly
contextualized with the presence of farmers who are the backbone of our country’s gdp and
our pride as a tropical farming nation, and the jingle tells a double-edged story representing
our farmers and rural cultures, how despite having a pandemic, farmers still need to get up
to work because coffee keeps people going throughout the day and it’s also one of our
country’s exports. at the same time it’s an ad released during covid where the entire world’s
economy was forced to plunge, and the song tells a story about rising from it and continuing
on, just with some more coffee.

More extra info that you might like is that higher context cultures hate or avoid conflict and
are less confrontational. they are also very heavy on tradition. these are all to maintain social
order and to further the value of being community oriented. some cultures with no tones in
their spoken language use emojis and punctuation to provide tone while texting, and facial
expressions are important during f2f conversation to provide cultural insight and
understanding.

Ads are extra and exaggerated to provide context, can even tell a story. for example: thailand
commercials are like 5 mins long and can tell a story about poverty better than most filipino
dramas

— low context cultures —

Low-context cultures expect communication to be explicitly stated so that there’s no risk of

confusion, and if a message isn’t clear enough, it will slow down the process of
communication. In the most extreme cases, leaving any sort of wiggle room for interpretation
can be disastrous, like the german language, which is situated in one of the most extreme
areas of the context spectrum.

In low-context cultures people are usually diverse, and focus on the individual, instead of the
group. Since there are so many differences within a low-context culture, communication must
be basic enough to allow for as many people to understand it as possible and the way the
message or theme is expressed must transcend race religion socio economic standing and any
other lines dividing them.

When it comes to emails, texts, and online messaging, low-context cultures use it to fire off
quick, frequent messages. Low-context cultures also want these communications to revolve
around basic questions, like:
What’s happening?
Where’s it happening?
When’s it going to happen?
How’s it going to happen?

So the commercial we watched is Nescafe US’s commercial for covid. unlike the filipino
nescafe ad that presses our buttons of patriotism and national pride, this ad focuses on just
the concept of waking up and starting a new day despite living in a world where covid exists
and we find no reason to participate in it. it is so general and open that even high context
cultures can connect to it because it is so general, meeting the purpose of a low context
culture ad of being general and explicit enough that people will feel like they are the target
audience of that ad even if they arent even part of that culture.
more info thats not in the module but i think is interesting to know is that lower context
cultures, in contrast to high context cultures, really like dominating the conversation. they
argue and like to fight and stand by their own morals and principles, and dont like tradition.
sometimes tradition doesnt even exist in their culture. their ads also reflect their
communication style, they are straight to the point and put importance on the words used,
making sure they are explicit and clear with no coded meaning. idk if you guys have seen the
show glee, but i used to watch it while i was in junior high, and there was this scene in season
4 where one of the mean girls santana lands a commercial for a pill called yeast i stat that
prevents a vaginal yeast infection, and even if its a fictional commercial that was a very good
example of how ads and communication in the US works: the words she used were very literal
and gave out all the details needed for a person to know if they need to buy an anti-sti pill.
they are also very detailed in conversing and are individualistic, very me me me, that’s why
karens exist and are going viral for their lack of empathy.

——

Just as communication in general is different for high and low context cultures, the forms of
communication also change, including the types of media that they enjoy. In today’s fast-
paced digital age, these forms can shift, but underlying preferences stay the same.

so remember, high context cultures prefer oral communication and they dont ask basic
questions or small talk, they can get really deep as well but at the same time maintain the
poise required of their cultures. low context cultures prefer to put things in writing and
require communication to be easy and explicit so there is no room for misunderstanding. high
context cultures also expect their communications to respect their cultures, clearly
exemplified in the ads, while low context cultures prefer straight to the point information
with no drama or fluff to it.

Clearly, it’s important for a multinational organization to know the difference between high
and low context cultures. A full understanding of these differences will effectively improve
both outward, client-focused communication as well as inter-business relationships.

Will a company in Japan appreciate your attempts to get right to the point? Will a German
company become bored if you talk around a subject, instead of directly addressing it? Know
your audience and their cultural standing, and your message will never get lost.

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what have you learned today? open your canvas, i have put up a 15 min 10 pt quiz on the
questions on screen and a textbox for you to answer on. this doubles as your attendance.