As a German I am a little bit confused about the statements and assumptions being made here.
No, Americans don’t communicate clearly, direct and context-free.
Quite the opposite in my experience.But also: No, Germany isn’t low context, despite very direct communication and being on the low-context-side of the graph shown.
Depending on region, there are a lot of implicit rules and customs you just have to know about.Imho it’s more complicated and not as black-and white as this theory wants to paint it.
So… the theory itself is low context?
The US has more than one culture, at least in terms of communication style. California is fairly low-context, and big cities in general tend to favor lower contexts, but more rural areas and smaller cities in the Midwest and South tend to have higher-context communication. I can’t compare it to Paris or Tokyo, of course.
It’s certainly been a problem for me, as a Midwesternern, when coastal colleagues and acquaintances don’t know what the hell I’m saying because they don’t bother to think about why I’m saying it, and where I think they’re shockingly rude by saying things bluntly like I’m an idiot child who can’t form any sort of theory of mind.
Almost any country has many different cultures to it
The NYC area is very low context and high volume. A lot of the rest of the Northeast is the same way.
I’ll agree with this. There are Midwestern “politeness” rules that defy communication.
For example, if you’re visiting a Midwesterner, they will offer you something, but it’s rude to take them up on it unless they insist 3 times. The exception to the rule being “I’m grabbing a ___, you want one?”
This doesn’t really defy the video though, as the Midwest is more homogenous than the coastal US.
Never heard of the concept of the have to offer three times. I’ve lived in Minnesota my entire life. I’ve never heard of this.
They’re right about the “I’m grabbing a ___, do you want one?” though.
Contrast with “I suppose I could grab a ___ for you next time I go to town” to which the correct response is “Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to put you to the trouble, I’m going into town soon myself anyway” because they’re not actually offering to do it, just trying to feel out how important it is to you.
The “three times” was an arbitrary number I made up. I don’t think there’s actually a defined number, but you ALWAYS decline the first offer.
I’ve never even heard of declining the first one.
I was raised if you offer something to someone and they say no. Then the answer is no. Don’t bug them.
I’m over fifty btw
It seems to be a real anthropology concept, and it kinda makes sense for my experience as french, i guess you could be in a relationship without saying “we are bf/gf”, though it seems odd to not talk about your feelings if the relationship goes on for multiple dates.
I don’t know what i think about this concept, partly because one justification is “countries with a very diverse population are more low context” and france is a mix of a lot of cultures, but i guess it’s true in some ways.Have heard that the USA is the lowest context culture in the world. Even as a british person, the way americans talk seems so vague.
EDIT: Oh and it came up in a seminar at University.
