Culture Matters

Chapter 5

Edward Hall: High-Context versus Low-Context Intercultural Communication

Introduction

As an anthropologist, Edward T. Hall (1976) examined the factors that influence intercultural understanding and thus enhance or impede communication between individuals from different cultural backgrounds. His work led him to formulate a cultural dimension called context. Context explains the way people evaluate and interpret the meaning of information that they receive. Hall stipulates that context comprises a system of meaning for information. It provides a model that enables people to comprehend communication forms ranging from the purely nonverbal (such as hand gestures, body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice) to the purely verbal ...