1

Alyssa Mitchell

Xiao Liang

21 October 2013

China

Through my interactions and interviews with my conversation partner, Xiao, I have

decided to explore the cultural pattern of high context vs. low context in the country of China.
High context culture is described as communication from which a person uses their knowledge
of the subject of the conversation, body language, and spoken language to form their own
conclusions while very little is in the coded, explicitly transmitted part of the message
(Qingxue, 2003, p. 23). High context cultures also value relationships differently. Relationships
in such countries are less permeable and they value the group over the individual. OHaraDevereaux and Johansen state in their article Transcending Cultural Barriers: Context,
Relationships, and Time, Thus in high-context cultures, verbal messages have little meaning
without the surrounding context, which includes the overall relationship between all the people
engaged in communication (Ohara-Devereaux & Johansen, 2000, para. 3).
In China, this cultural pattern of high-context is illustrated through the way people
communicate and how they interact with each other. This is also obvious in the way information
is shared in public places. The smallest town in the United States carefully labels every street
with a street sign and numbers the buildings consecutivelyYet very few streets in the huge city
of Tokyo are labeled or even have names, and building numbers are nonexistent or arranged in
random order(Hooker, 2008, para. 8). China closely resembles this example of Tokyo. The
Chinese also do not say exactly what they want. They imply it and in their culture, other people
understand it.

2
As I interviewed Xiao we discussed this cultural pattern and the differences between my
low-context culture and her high-context culture. I asked her to give me an example of
something that she thought was part of her high-context culture and she gave me the following
example. Xiao said Say I was to run to a friends dorm and when I got there I was very thirsty.
My friend offers me something to drink but I say no to her offer. I still expect her give me the
drink even though I said no. This seems a little strange to people from a low-context culture
because we usually need everything spelled out for us to understand clearly what is expected.
With this in mind, she also explained to me that body language is extremely important back
home in China. The Chinese people use their body more than their mouths to say what they need
to say.
Another example or topic she brought up under the concept of high-context culture was
the difference in how we use the phrase How are you?. Xiao shared with me how she was
shocked by the way we use this expression basically just in passing. The first time she was asked
this question by an American, she fully expected for that person to stop and listen to what was
going on in her life. Instead she was expected to say Im fine. How are you? and then that was
that. Xiaos exact words to me during our interview were Dont ask me How are you? if you
dont actually care. In this aspect of the culture, it actually makes a lot of sense the way they use
this expression. It is almost as if we over use it in America and we dont actually care when we
ask this question. In China, people expect a thoughtful answer and for that person to have full
conversation with that person.

3
The experiences and examples that Xiao has shared with me are extremely consistent
with my research and with our class material on this particular cultural pattern. Her examples and
explanations illustrate the value of a high-context culture to its fullest meaning.

Qingxue, L. (2003). Understanding different cultural patterns or orientations between east and
west.Investigationes Linguisticae, IX, 23. Retrieved from
http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~inveling/pdf/liu_quingxue_inve9.pdf
O'Hara-Devereaux, M., & Johansen, R. (2000, September 14). Transcending cultural barriers:
Context, relationships, and time. Retrieved from
http://www.csub.edu/TLC/options/resources/handouts/fac_dev/culturalbarries.html
Hooker, J. N. (2008). Cultural differences in business communication. (Master's thesis, Carnegie
Mellon University)Retrieved from http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1149&context=tepper