mydihighs {& ~lows}

yesimeech elohiem kesarah rivka, racheel weleeah moge g d je zegenen als sara, rebekka, racheel & leea {oermoeders}

What does 'high context' mean? The term was coined by anthropologist Edward Hall in his book Beyond Culture. It is one end of a continuum of cultural attitude, opposite low context. Communication in a high context culture expresses much information in the physical context of the situation or is already internalized in the person. Low context, in con-trast, conveys most information as explicit statements & little is conveyed by relationships or internalization. The US is often considered to have a [very] low context culture. Japan is often described as a high context culture. Those genera-lizations are still useful illustrations of the range of possibilities in perception & communication across cultures.

Thus high context has lots of implications for design, organizational development, & communication in general!

High context cultu-re and the contrasting low context culture refer 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 & expectations, from which inferences are drawn.

In a high context culture, many things are left unsaid, letting the culture explain. Thus our words and word choice become very important in higher context communication, since a few words can communicate a complex message very effecti-vely to an in-group {but less effectively outside that group}, while in a lower context culture, the communicator needs to be much more explicit & the value of a single word is less important. A cultural context does not rank as "high" or "low" in an absolute sense, but rather, each message can be presented on a continuum from high to low. Likewise, a culture [f.i. French Canadian] may be of a higher context than one [English Canadian] but lower conrext than another [Spanish or French]?

Likewise, a stereotypical individual from Texas [a higher context culture] may communicate more with a few words or use of a prolonged silence, than a stereotypical New Yorker who is being very explicit, despite both being part of a culture which is overall of lower-context.

Ik denk dat zo dus ook de 'mainrift' tussen al die 'heiliglanders' loopt de afgelopen duizenden jaren: met alle extreme gevolgen van dien ...