Language is Culture is Language
In our day to day lives, we don’t likely give much thought to why we speak the way we do. Sometimes, we’ll say something in a different tone or with slightly different wording to get across a message that goes beyond the content of what we are saying. For example, have you ever received a text from a friend and thought, “they’re definitely mad at me,” even if they did not say it? What is your impression when you read each of the following texts?
Do they each give a different impression? How do they make you feel? Perhaps you don’t feel anything different between these examples, and that’s alright too. However, if you have felt this difference before, you already have a head start on our next topic.
High-Context Culture vs. Low-Context Culture
High-context culture (also frequently referred to as more indirect culture) typically values implicit communication where those receiving a message are expected to interpret the message based on a variety of factors (such as environment, relationship, tone, etc.).
On the other end of the scale, cultures using low-context communication (also frequently referred to as more direct culture) tend to favor more explicit communication that doesn’t require as much interpretation on the part of the receiver, (Afrouzi, 2021).
By being aware of the differences between high-context communication and low-context communication, we can communicate more effectively (both verbally, and non-verbally) in the target language.
Author’s Perspective:
When I was studying abroad in Japan, I used to walk around the house barefoot. This was exactly what I would do at home in the U.S. as well. A few times, my host mom would ask me things like: “aren’t your feet cold?” or “doesn’t the floor feel strange on your feet?”
After her asking questions like this frequently over a few weeks, I felt like something might be off, so I tried looking up if Japanese people walked around their house barefoot. The result? It wasn’t so positive. I had never studied this part of the culture. I learned that sometimes it can be considered rude or unclean to walk around with bare feet. It could also be that by not using the slippers my host family had dedicated for me, they may feel that I was rejecting part of them.
Because Japan is a high-context culture, without even saying what we were thinking, my host family and I were having a conversation of sorts. Because I was unfamiliar with the culture, much like how Dardashti shared in his video at the beginning of the chapter, I didn’t pick up on the cultural cues. This caused miscommunication between my host mom and I that may have led to some tension if I had not taken the time to investigate the potential cultural background differences that lead to our miscommunication.
Pragmatics
Have you ever had an inside joke with a good friend? Or is there a movie you quote often with your family? Or perhaps you’ve tried to tell a funny story, but you did not know quite how to explain it and end up saying, “You just had to be there.”
When this happened, you were part of an “in-group,” where your shared past experiences with certain members of that group contributed to the things you were talking about, and how you interacted with those around you both verbally and non-verbally. This doesn’t only occur on a small scale. This can be seen within cultures of a community, country, and everything in-between.
Pragmatics is “the study of how context affects meaning,” (Anderson et al., 2022). Pragmatics shows us that culture speaks. It is not voiceless, and it can influence language. High-context communication and low-context communication is one example. This is just one of the many areas that pragmatics influence.
Consider again the text message examples you read above. Depending on our cultural and individual experience, these could all give vastly different impressions. For many L1 English speakers, those texts will not feel the same. One may come across more understanding, while another might let us know that the person we are texting with is frustrated.
Though for many the difference may feel clear, those who are just learning U.S. English may not understand the subtle differences in each of these texts. It takes a strong pragmatic knowledge of both the English language, and the culture of the community, to take command of these linguistic tools.
Reflecting and Connecting: Is there a time you’ve experienced misunderstanding someone because of differences in pragmatic understanding? Misunderstandings like this can come from a variety of factors: social groups, age, life experiences, and more can impact how we interpret implied cues. Is there a time, looking back, that you may have run into this before?
Why Learn Pragmatics?
Being aware of pragmatic principles in any given language/culture can give the learner a stronger command of the language and the ability to communicate more effectively with members of its culture. The implication behind one’s actions and word choice communicate pragmatic meaning, whether the speaker intends it to or not.
Therefore, without understanding pragmatic implications it is easy to miscommunicate intention in a second language where one is unaware of pragmatic norms, such as how in the text messaging example above, saying “no worries” may indicate a different pragmatic meaning than “K.” If you weren’t familiar with this pragmatic difference, you could create a lot of distance between yourself and your friend unintentionally.
However, when we are aware, it can give us more confidence to interact with members of the language’s culture and ask questions respectfully. For example, in the context of my “author’s perspective” if I had been considering my host mom’s inquiries from a high-context perspective sooner, I might have felt more confident to ask her about it earlier and been able to save both of us from some of the awkward tension that I created by approaching the situation with the low-context perspective that I was used to. The importance of considering pragmatics and seeing things from a more high-context perspective was one of the (many) things I learned from that misunderstanding.