Languages and cultures are fused in fundamental ways. Language is the set of symbols that members of a culture create to communicate their thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and values with one another. Once created, a language is used to bolster a sense of cultural identity and connectedness (Whorf, 1952). Thus, languages both reflect the cultures that created them and enable people to perpetuate those cultures, while also sustaining a sense of collective identity—for example, “We are Japanese” or “We are Kenyans.”

Moreover, people use language differently depending on the extent to which they assume that others share their cultural beliefs, attitudes, and values. Recall from Chapter 5 that some cultures are high-context cultures, in which people presume that listeners share extensive knowledge in common with them. As a result, they don’t feel a need to provide a lot of explicit information to gain listeners’ understanding. In contrast, in low-context cultures, people tend not to presume that listeners share their beliefs, attitudes, and values, so they tailor their verbal communication to be informative, clear, and direct (Hall & Hall, 1987). Consider how this dichotomy affected a friend of mine, communication professor Naomi Kagawa, when she first came to the United States from Japan. In Japan (a high-context culture), when undesirable requests are received, respondents often reject them using words equivalent to “OK” or “sure,” accompanied by subtle vocal tones that imply “no.” Requesters and rejecters—informed by their shared knowledge of Japanese customs—recognize that such seeming assents are actually rejections. In the United States (a low-context culture), people typically don’t presume that others share similar knowledge and beliefs, so they “spell things out” much more explicitly. When people reject requests, they may come right out and say “no,” then provide an explanation of why they can’t grant the request. Needless to say, Naomi—and those with whom she interacted upon first arriving in the States—experienced much confusion. She rejected unwanted requests by saying “OK,” only to find that people thought she was consenting rather than refusing!