Low Context Culture

A context refers to the „circumstances in which an event, situation, or idea is understood.“ (cf. Oxford Dictionary 2018) The word comes from Latin and means „to patch together“ or „to make a connection“ (Kittler et al. 2005, 67). This is where the term Low Context Culture derives from. It refers to a culture that tends to require little background information to understand in order to behave appropriately. In other words, it is a culture in which connections can easily be made between information. Low Context Culture is closely related to the term High Context Culture.

Background: Language and mental concepts

The concept of Low Context Culture was coined by Edward Hall. He starts from language as a ‚mediation path‘ between humans and the outside world. Since people take in a great deal of different information on a daily basis, they have to make use of certain mental systems which they have acquired in the course of their childhood and further life through their parental home and the environment. This is important in order to be able to absorb, categorize and interpret as much information as quickly as possible in daily interactions. The already existing knowledge is always linked with new information. The embedding in the already existing knowledge is to be understood as contextualization. Hofstede and Hofstede also speak in this context of a „software of the mind“ – a mental program that shapes one’s own patterns of thought, feeling and action (cf. Hofstede/ Hofstede 2005, 3).

The transmission of mental concepts can also be described as a code. If a culture has a very distinctive code in which much must be internalized in order to understand the context, it is referred to as a high context culture. This includes, for example, the cultures of China and Japan, since a certain knowledge of history and nature, as well as the phonetics of words, is required just to understand and recognize the written language.

In a Low Context Culture, on the other hand, such as is found in the USA, Germany, and Scandinavia, far more explicit communication takes place (cf. Hall 1976, 91 f.). The languages there are more flexible and changeable in phonetics, vocabulary, and syntax, and therefore far more adaptable. This makes it easier for people who are less elaborate in that language and culture to understand and use it for communication purposes. Thus, the responsibility for successful communication is more distributed among individuals. However, Low Context Cultures are also less economical as a result, since it takes longer to express things (cf. Hall 1976, 113 f.).

Culture as a selection process

In his work Beyond Culture Hall says about this: „One of the functions of culture is to provide a highly selective screen between man and the outside world.“ (Hall 1976, 85) For Hall, a culture is thus the selection of things to which we direct our attention processes, but which we also (consciously or unconsciously) block out or ignore on the other hand. How our attentional processes are directed depends on the subject or activity, the situation, one’s status in the social system, past experiences, and the general culture (cf. Hall 1976, 87). The more important the context is in understanding a culture, the higher the awareness of these selective choice processes.

The concept of culture is used today primarily for social cultivation and refers, for example, to areas such as education, literature, and art. If culture is thought of as a mental software, however, it also particularly involves the mental concepts of thinking, feeling and behavior (cf. Hofstede/ Hofstede 2005, 3). This includes, for example, smaller typical behaviors such as greetings, eating habits or hygiene standards, but also the ability to feel and express various emotions such as shame, love, joy, sadness, etc. (cf. Hofstede/ Hofstede 2005, 4 f.).

Culture as a collective phenomenon

According to Hofstede and Hofstede, the four aspects of symbols, heroes, rituals and values are the most crucial for a particular culture. These include categories such as nation, religion, gender, generation, and social class. They are manifested at an early age and continue to reproduce themselves from generation to generation (cf. Hofstede/ Hofstede 2005, 9 f.): „Culture is always a collective phenomenon, because it is at least partly shared with people who live or lived within the same social environment rather than from one’s genes.“  (German: „Culture is always a collective phenomenon, because it is at least partly shared with people who live or lived within the same social environment rather than from one’s genes.“) (Hofstede/ Hofstede 2005, 4) Culture is thus dependent on the external environment and not on heredity.

Hall’s division into High and Low Context Culture has received criticism, especially recently. Criticisms include bipolarization, overgeneralization, and a low level of empirical evidence. Moreover, the concept has been criticized in some quarters as outdated, given that we are in an increasingly globalized and rapidly changing age (cf. Kittler et al. 2005, 67).

Literature

Hall, Edward T. (1976): Beyond Culture. New York: Anchor Books.

Hofstede, Geert/ Hofstede, Gert Jan (2005): Cultures and Organizations. Software of the Mind: Intercultural Cooperation and its Importance for Survival. New York: Mc Graw-Hill.

Kittler, Markus G./ Rygl, David/ Mackinnon, Alex (2011): Beyond Culture or Beyond Control? Reviewing the Use of Hall’s High-/Low-Context Concept. In: International Journal of Cross Cultural Management 11 (1). Stirling/ Erlangen-Nürnberg, 67. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470595811398797?journalCode=ccma [28.06.2018].

Oxford Dictionary. „Culture.“ https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/culture [25 Jun. 2018].