Hall put forward the context theory and distinguished
high-context culture from low-context culture.
Such an oversimplified presentation of the
high-context culture does not take into account the cultures and languages of numerous minorities who live in the geographical space outlined by the author.
The above implies that advertising messages designed for a low-context culture will hardly work in a
high-context culture and vice versa.
In contrast, communication in a
high-context culture is indirect, implicit, internalized, or more dependent on physical and psychosocial contexts.
India has always been and still continues to be a collective,
high-context culture, while the United States is an individualistic, low-context culture.
In addition, Hall's work (1976), which first introduced the ideas of
high-context culture and low-context culture, also instigated widespread discussions concerning sociocultural differences in human behaviors, including the area of children's social competencies.
The United States and Finland are considered low-context cultures, while Chile is considered a
high-context culture (Chua and Gudykunst 1987; Koeszegi et al.
In a
high-context culture, the situation in which a word is used can have a big impact on its meaning.
Hall (1976) suggests that
high-context culture would convey messages in an abstract, implicit, and indirect manner, and that meanings are interpreted based on the intuition and contemplation of the audience.
In a
high-context culture such as Japan or China, communication relies more on body language and assumed knowledge, and the context can be implied rather than communicated directly.
Thus, for a
high-context culture, a long-standing relationship is a prerequisite to the successful conduct of business, while for a low-context culture it is not.
Too much information was presented in the resume, which reflects the findings that people from a
high-context culture tend to place more emphasis on nonverbal cues (Hall, 1989; Vida, 1999).
