Communication Across Culture Vs. High Context: A Case Study

Different social, professional and cultural contexts may affect relationships and the way people communicate due to of a lack of understanding or knowledge of one another’s background and culture. This could be through their race, religion, ethnicity or where they come from. Each one of these can have similar or very different ways to communicate. For example

I’m sensitive to contexts of communication. I recognize that changes in physical, cultural, social– psychological, and temporal contexts will alter meaning.

Effective communication is important as verbal interaction is needed to integrate as this allows people to hear tone of voice, see their body language, and whether or not they maintain eye contact. All of these things help us to see if what has been said to someone or asked whether or not it has been understood or respected. Also, a person’s body language and eye contact can tell us how they feel about us when we ask them to do something. Our style of speech needs to be adjusted depending upon the age of the person we are talking to, as we can’t talk to adults as we would children as this would be seen as disrespectful. We also need to actively listen so that we can build trust within all groups. This is so that if any safeguarding or any

Communication is important because it allows us to verbalize what is inside us and enables it

Communication competence is choosing the type of communication that is appropriate for any situation. It is possible to teach and learn competence; we do that every day in schools, work, and sports. No, people aren’t born competent communicators, we learn throughout our lives to become competent communicators by the people around us. Yes, people with extrovert personalities have the characteristic more people with introvert personalities. If you’re outgoing and outspoken you’re more successful with communicating than a shy and reserved person. Yes, communication competence is defined or perceived differently in other cultures. All cultures are different; we do not communicate the same. The culture in boxing is not identical to the culture in

I’m sensitive to contexts of communication. I recognize that changes in physical, cultural, social– psychological and temporal contexts will alter meaning.

In the first approach, Hall explains the highly correlation between context and meaning, same expressions,

Both Ian and Tula feels awkward in each other family and could not express themselves freely. The most apparent example was when Ian’s parent visiting Tula’s family for a dinner. Ian’s family were expecting small dinner between both families, but instead were welcomed with Tula’s whole family including her cousins. In response to that, it could be seen how Tula’s family were more adjusted to high context communication, whereas Ian’s family prefer low context communication. The practice of high context communication means heavily use of the voice tone, facial expression, gestures, and eye movement in communicating to create a more engaging conversation.

Communication is an ongoing process in which individuals exchange messages whose meanings are influenced by the history of the relationship and the experiences of the participants. (Adler, p.384) Communication depends on relationships between the people who are communicating, and on common basics between them. Problems in communications between people may arise due to differences in cultures, perceptions, values, and expectations from life.

The film Wah Do Dem focuses on Adapting Communication to Cultures, and how in a diverse cultural environment, the implementation of that process can either be positive or negative. When Max first got off the cruise ship, he was very naive and easily trusting; therefore, he was ready to immerse himself in the Jamaican culture for the day. He showcased the more positive aspects of Adapting to Cultural Diversity, such as tolerance, understanding, and respect. As the film progressed, Max faced a series of unfortunate events, such as having all his belonging stolen, missing the cruise ship, and essentially becoming homeless in a foreign country. This caused Max to deviate to a more negative take on the process and became somewhat resistant.

Learning how to communicate is often overlooked but its an essential skill for anyone. An example of how important this truly is would be a job interview. Everyone at some point will have to interview for a job to support themselves and their family. At most interviews, employers are looking for people who seem to communicate well with others and can present themselves by communicating their attributes. These communications skills that are necessary aren’t easy to come by. Although one may think it would be easy, many people wont be able to successfully land a job because of communication. One person may be the most qualified, but if you can not communicate well then it will not matter.

Communication is more than just the spoken word, we communicate far more than our words can say. For example, our tone of voice and our body language can convey a different message than our spoken word. I have told my children many times, it’s not what you say it’s how you say it that gets you in trouble. In the United States, we use a lower-context form of communication, we rely on written agreements or contracts to convey an agreement. We consider this a binding agreement. Some other countries use higher-context, where their social context surrounding the written agreement is of higher Importance (Lamberton and Minor, 2012).

Cultural Context-high implicit meaning contents during conversation is as important as the spoken word. Legend culture is important in understanding what is being said.

"We didn 't all come over on the same ship, but we 're all in the same boat."- Bernard Baruch

The differences in communication between people changes depending on the social and cultural context, which is referred to as semiotic systems (Angemuller, Maingueneau, Wodak, 2014; Kress, 2009). For example, spoken, written, images, gestures, sounds are all semiotic systems that help people create meaning of the language used during conversations (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014). The English language contains many different varieties (dialects) which reflect a person’s reality and are culturally influenced (Crystal, 2013) as well as an accent which refers to the sounds that are present. Giles, Coupland & Coupland’s (1991) accommodation theory states that people accommodate and adjust their language by either, converge (similar interaction), diverge (distance from interaction) or maintaining their style. The analysis of the context is broken down into; what is happening (field), who is taking part (tenor) and the symbolic organisation of the ‘text’ (mode), collectively constituting the “register” (Halliday, 1975). Technology advances today have created a dynamic and continually changing language. Regan (2014) discusses variations of language to reflect aspects of the speaker’s identity. Gee & Hayes (2011) state, the principles of children learning to speak are social, often imitating others through some variation of their own. For example, young women often abbreviate words originating from text messaging, social media, and the like in conversation, much to the confusion of an