High and Low Context Cultures, Essay Example

In high-context cultures, there are often many opportunities for social and cultural context to explain speech, which reduces the need for words in all instances. Meanwhile, in low-context cultures, more explicit speech is needed in order to allow the listener to fully understand the message. With this regard, America culture is a low-context culture and Saudi Arabian culture can be considered a high-context culture (Hope College). In the United States, there are many words used to mean many different things and the individuals who live there come from distinct cultural backgrounds and may not necessarily understand unspoken context between these different groups. As a consequence, words must be used descriptively to allow the listener to understand the complete meaning of what is said. However, the people of Saudi Arabia are a close knit group that all understand one another’s cultural heritage and background. Therefore, the words spoken do not need to be as concise to allow the listener to understand what is said.

In Saudi Arabia, facial expressions and body motions, in addition to silence are high context factors that people use to convey language. Such communication is not possible between people in the United States because silence and different facial expressions can mean varying things for different individuals. Furthermore, paralanguage is used to convey meaning (Dpuadweb). The tone, pitch inflection, and emphasis of words are used among Saudi Arabian people in a manner that is consistent with particular meanings. This does not occur among speakers in the United States, as a majority of the words are said with slight inflection, but the pitch or the emphasis on words do not change significantly while these individuals speak English.

Works Cited

Dpuadweb. Communication. N.D. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://dpuadweb.depauw.edu/$1~mkfinney/teaching/Com227/culturalPortfolios/Saudi_Arabia/Communication.htm>

Hope College. High and Low Context Cultures. N.D. Web. 12 May 2015. <http://hopeinterculturalcomm.weebly.com/high-and-low-context-cultures.html>