Our culture strongly affects how direct we are in our use of language and how much we rely on other, nonverbal ways to communicate. Individuals in high-context cultures (including Japan, Korea, China, and many Latin American and African countries) use contextual cues—such as time, place, relationship, and situation—to interpret meaning and send subtle messages (Hall, 1976; Hall & Hall, 1990). A Japanese person who disagrees with someone, for example, may say something indirect, such as “Maybe” or “I’ll think about it,” or she may not say anything at all. The communication partner must understand the message solely from clues of disagreement in the context, such as the fact that the person is silent (or hesitates to speak). People from a high-context culture also tend to attribute a communication partner’s behavior to factors related to the situation rather than to an individual’s personality. For instance, instead of assuming that someone who remains silent is rude, they might think that the individual didn’t respond because the situation called for restraint and politeness.

A low-context culture, by contrast, uses very direct language and relies less on situational factors to communicate. The United States, Canada, Australia, and many northern European countries tend to have a low-context style. In the United States or Germany, for example, it would seem normal for someone to disagree by saying openly, “That’s not right” or “I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with what you are saying.” Although people from high-context cultures would likely think such directness disrespectful, people from low-context cultures tend to believe it is rude to be unclear about what you think. In fact, researchers have found that Americans often find indirectness very confusing and may even interpret Japanese silence or a response like “I’ll think about it” as agreement (Kobayshi & Viswat, 2010). Table 5.1 compares high-and low-context styles.