Communication Differences Across Cultures: A Contextual Perspective

The current thesis is a contrastive study of cross-cultural communication from a contextual aspect of culture. As briefly mentioned in Introduction, miscommunication is on ascendance with increasing intercultural communications. Ignorance of the cultural difference in context usage is one of the many reasons for such communication failures. Consequently, the issue of the contextual aspect of culture deserves the length of an entire thesis and the analysis is carried out in the following four parts.In the first part, culture and communication are defined and their relationship is discussed. Omnipresence is an outstanding feature of culture. It follows that the influence of culture is also extended to both the form and nature of human communication. World cultures are also diverse. People of a certain culture will naturally and inevitably follow their specific set of cultural rules. Any difference between cultures will thus differentiate their members' communication, especially communication patterns discussed in the current thesis.The focal point of the second part is the concept of context and its main functions. Context here is categorized following the tradition of Edward T. Hall's internal-external duality. Then an analysis is conducted on how context helps to determine word meanings and to obtain the metamessage. According to their different reliance on explicitly transmitted information or contextually embedded information, cultures as well as communications can be labeled as high-context and low-context. They arebriefly mentioned before the second part is concluded.The Chinese culture is placed on the high end of the context scale in the second part. The author tries to find its reason in the third part, by comparing the Chinese culture with those that are termed as low-context. The author approaches the issue from the geographical, academic and Confucian value perspectives and their implications for verbalism and context. The first perspective examines the geographical root and its influence on the interpersonal relationship of a culture; the second examines the great thoughts and teachings of a culture; and the third studies the enduring impact of Confucian values on social relationships and social structure of Chinese society as compared to individualism in the western world.The high versus low context distinction of cultures differentiates, and is conversely mirrored in their members' communication patterns. The fourth part is focused on the analysis of three pairs of the differences in communication style between high-context cultures and low-context cultures: receiver-centered communication and sender-centered communication; inductive and deductive communication; and talk-oriented versus silence oriented communication.Communication is essentially a conduct of man, the result of which may be swayed by people's subjectivity. Therefore proper attitude of people in intercultural settings is accentuated in Conclusion. Correct attitude may also guarantee that cultural studies, including the current thesis, may be taken seriously and be of certain practical significance for intercultural communications.