High context and

low context cultures

Siti Nur’Aini
High context cultures

• High-context cultures are those that

communicate in ways that are implicit and rely
heavily on context
• Features:
• Exhibit less-direct verbal and nonverbal
communication
• Utilise small communication gestures
• Reading more meaning into these less-direct messages
Low-context cultures

• Low-context cultures are those that communicate

information in direct, explicit, and precise ways
• People are highly individualised and little involvement
with others
• Relationships are not viewed as important figures to
identity. People within low-context cultures see their
relationships much looser and the lines between
networks of people are more flexibly drawn
Practice

• Watch one of the movies below:

• My big fat Greek wedding (2002) | for students
with odd ID student number
• The farewell (2019) | for students with even ID
student number
Practice

• Observe the cultural clash in those movies

• What are the values you can draw from them?
• Write the low and high contexts cultural features in both movies
• Compare the culture to one another (Greek culture with Anglo-saxon
culture) and Chinese culture with American culture.
• Make an analysis on one of the movie based on your point of view as an
Indonesian person.
• Submit your work to my email: sitinuraini@upgris.ac.id on Friday, 13
November 2020.