High/Low-Context Communication Problems

In this age of globalization, interaction between high- and low-context cul­tures has become more frequent than ever before. International business transactions, for example, may suffer because of communication difficulties between cultures.

In general, a low-context individual often becomes puzzled and frustrated when interacting with other people who have a high-context culture. Their messages seem incomplete and ambiguous. A U.S. professor of communica­tion, teaching at a Japanese university, tells of the endless faculty meetings that he endured. Decisions were made by consensus, a process that required a great deal of discussion in a high-context and collectivistic culture like Japan. It was considered inappropriate to ask direct questions in these dis­cussions, and often the progress of the faculty conversations drifted in what seemed to be aimless directions. Careful statements would be made by the professors, which only seemed to deal with the topic of discussion in a very oblique way. Individuals would hide their feelings to avoid hurting someone else's feelings with whom they might disagree. The U.S. professor could not even be sure as to who disagreed with whom. Faculty meetings would often continue for five or six hours, and some stretched to seven or eight hours, only ending when everyone was completely exhausted. Many faculty meetings ended without any decision being made.

Communication problems between people of high- and low-context cul­tures are so common that the occupation of translator extends far beyond transcription of speeches. Chen is a translator in a New York city hospital. She facilitates physician/patient communication for Chinese patients. The European American doctors continually demand that Grace get to the point of an exchange with a patient more quickly. Their time is valuable, and they are thinking about the other patients in their wait­ing room. But Grace's high-context patients insist on describing their medi­cal problems in a spiral of widely scattered details, without actually stating what their illness is. Translating between such high-context patients and low-context doctors is very difficult. Grace is not just translating from one language to another. She is mediating between two different types of cultures. Low-context people become impatient and irritated when high-context people insist on giving them information they feel that they do not need.

Lower Context Cultures: German, Scandinavian, American, English, Irish, English Canadian, Australian, New Zealander.

Higher context Cultures: French Canadian, French, Finnish, Hungarian, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Latin Americans, Greek, Arab, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipinos, Indian, Brazilian, Thai.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11