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.
Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
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 end 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.
adespoton@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
So… the theory itself is low context?