Communication Differences: Koreans and American Cultures

High- vs. Low-Context Cultures

Research has shown that the degree of context and amount of information in a culture effectively differentiates between communication in Eastern cultures as opposed to Western cultures. In particular, Hall categorized cultures into high-context cultures (where the communication style in which most of the information is already shared by people in the society, leaving very little information in the explicit transmitted part of the message) and low-context cultures (where the communication style in which most of the information is incorporated into the message and detailed background information is needed in the interaction with others).

In high-context cultures, messages are indirect and are delivered in an abstract implicit manner because the message is actually highly dependent on the context. In contrast, in low-context cultures, communication is direct and explicit. Accordingly, in low-context cultures,a large amount of in-depth background information is needed, because people express messages directly with little need for context.

High-context cultures include Eastern cultures such as Korea, where people have widespread networks with family, friends, and organizations. Low-context cultures include the US,Germany, and other northern European individualistic cultures. Several intercultural communication researchers point out that Asian cultures have a strong orientation towards high-context information and that Asian languages reflect its high-context culture with an abundance of implicitness. Past research indicates that Koreans create ambiguous messages to obscure their meaning. Furthermore, Asians have been known to prefer indirect and ambiguous communication in contrast to the direct and clear communication preferred in low-context cultures. In addition,indirect communication is likely to appeal to Korean citizens because they tend to value Confucianism which emphasizes harmony and egalitarianism. Not taking a stand and obscuring one position on an issue that helps others save face and is, therefore, a preferred communication strategy for Koreans. For example, Jiang  found differences in journalists' request and refusal strategies in press conferences between Korea and the US to vary in that the journalists from the US used more direct requests and refusals to give information. However, the journalists from Korea, while they used requests,instead of refusals, they used more avoidance strategies or gave insufficient answers to questions they were uncomfortable with. With the present evidence in mind, the following hypotheses are posed:

In order to understand and update Korean and American communication orientations further, this study also assessed where both cultures stand in terms of their degrees of two divergent communication orientations (1) communication apprehension as an avoidance orientation and (2) nonverbal immediacy, and verbal aggressiveness as contrasting approach orientations). Cultural values such as Confucianism and self-construals relating to this communication will be described to promote greater cross-cultural understanding.