15.4 Differences in Language: Directness vs. Indirectness

One of the differences Hofstede has observed is the preference for explicit, direct communication versus indirect communication, which he called the “Uncertainty Avoidance” dimension. (Note: discussing this dimension gets potentially confusing due to the double negative — you might think a culture that scores high on uncertainty avoidance is “indirect” because the language features a lot of uncertain terms, but it’s actually “direct” because of the word “avoidance.” That’s why I’ll use different terms than Hofstede for this one — which in itself is a signal that I come from a “low uncertainty avoidance” culture.)

Do you equate “good communication” with clear, unambiguous, and explicit communication? When my students write papers that include a recommendation section, often the recommendation is that “communication should be open and honest” [LINK to 1.D.ii.] Because my students get frustrated with unclear directions or rules, over the years my syllabi and assignment descriptions have gotten longer and longer in the name of making sure that everything they need to know is spelled out in detail.

At the same time that I’m making my assignments ever more explicit, I like watching movies from places all over the world (including the UK) where subtlety and nuance are prized, and spelling everything out feels crass and unnecessary. In many areas, hinting is preferred over explicitness, which is why the ice cream seller in Susannah Rigg’s story seemed “embarrassed” when she flat out asked him when the chocolate ice cream would arrive. This is related to concepts such as tolerance for ambiguity: do ambiguous or paradoxical situations cause anxiety, or is that the normal state of life? In many cultures, predicting the future seems foolish and shows a lack of faith in the divine, so people are hesitant to pinpoint deadlines or make firm promises.

Take the example of shopping in a foreign country: do items being sold have price tags? In areas that favor explicitness, price tags are seen as a requirement, along with the assumption that “the price is the price” — it shouldn’t vary depending on who the customer is or what’s going on in their life. In other areas, haggling is the norm: if the seller states a price, that’s just the starting point for a conversation about all of the variables that should go into the negotiation.

In many cultures that favor indirectness, there is a prohibition against flatly saying no to someone’s ideas or requests. This doesn’t mean people in those situations can’t disagree or refuse a request; it’s a question of how they do it, which should be just clear enough for the other party to “get the hint” while saving face. Sometimes the best way to say no without explicitly saying no is silence, leaving the listener to draw inferences from the context instead of the words. Picture a negotiator from Boston who flies to Tokyo to set up a business deal: the Bostonian hears the Japanese counterpart agree to the deal, so they go home assured that everything was worked out. Only later do they discover the deal wasn’t firm after all, and that when the counterpart said “maybe,” it didn’t mean “we can work out the details later; “maybe” meant “no.”

This overlaps with the concept of high context vs. low context cultures, first named by anthropologist Edward T. Hall. In low context cultures, the message takes priority, and should have the same meaning regardless of context. The goal is to remove the “it depends” factor, and state things in a way that works in all circumstances. High context cultures prefer communication that is less direct, more human, and more emotional; low context cultures prefer communication that is more direct and emotionally neutral. In high context cultures, the connotative level of communication {LINK TO CHAPTER 10.D] is more important than the denotative level.^[1]