Contrstive Studies On High-Context And Low-Context Cultures Between Chinese And Americans

The notion of high- and low-context is firstly proposed by Edward. T. Hall (1976), an American anthropologist. Later, it was widely recognized as one dimension of cultural variability utilized in the study of culture and communication. Hall's descriptions of two styles of communication provide a general characterization of American and Chinese styles of communication, respectively. Nowadays, more and more scholars come to realize its importance in perceiving intercultural difference. Although the notion is occasionally mentioned in the field of intercultural communication, the systematic contrastive studies on high- and low-context cultures between Americans and Chinese are rarely found. In this thesis, the author attempts to analyze, in a logical and profound way, cultural differences between Chinese and Americans from intercultural perspectives in terms of high context and low context. Moreover, from the sociocultural perspective, the author approaches the deep structure of high- and low-context cultures in order to clarify the roots of forming them.To be specific, the thesis consists of the following aspects:First, the author makes a brief survey of the high-context and low-context theory, including the definitions, interdependent relationships among culture, context and communication.Second, the author compares the difference between China (representative of high-context culture) and America (representative of low-context culture) in terms of verbal communication patterns, in which, the author argues that low-context communication emphasizes directness,...