High context culture and the contrasting "low context culture" are terms presented by the anthropologist Edward T. Hall in his 1976 book Beyond Culture. It refers to a culture's tendency to use high context messages over low context messages in routine communication. This choice of communication styles translates into a culture that will cater to in-groups, an in-group being a group that has similar experiences and expectations, from which inferences are drawn. In a high context culture, many things are left unsaid, letting the culture explain. Words and word choice become very important in higher context communication, since a few words can communicate a complex message very effectively to an in-group (but less effectively outside that group), while in a lower context culture, the communicator needs to be much more explicit and the value of a single word is less important.
Read more about High Context Culture: Context As A Relativistic Metric of Culture
Famous quotes containing the words high, context and/or culture:
“The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places how are the
mighty fallen!
Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon;”
—Bible: Hebrew Second Samuel (l. I, 19–20)
“Among the most valuable but least appreciated experiences parenthood can provide are the opportunities it offers for exploring, reliving, and resolving one’s own childhood problems in the context of one’s relation to one’s child.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)