The Peace Corps Workbook, Culture Matters, includes a chapter discussing styles of communication. I found this chapter interesting, primarily because it focuses on a concept that I hadn’t previously considered. A style of communication is the manner in which one member of a group contributes his or her thoughts to another. While words that this person is saying guide the conversation during an everyday encounter, their style of communication is more focused on the directness, context, and subject that they choose to speak about. Style of communication varies wildly from culture to culture. The words spoken in a discussion in Denmark about taking the kids out to the park could be different from the words spoken in the United States, but both conversations would produce the same understanding between the two people in the discussion. Likewise, if two people do not share the same style of communication, they will walk away from a conversation with less information than what the other person intended. It is important to define and understand style of communication when discussing relations between two cultures.
Culture Matters breaks a culture’s style of communication into four categories. These are degree of directness, role of context, importance of face, and task vs. person. Degree of directness focuses on whether a person means what they are saying. If I am indirect, instead of telling someone that they are doing something wrong, I might ask them to try it another way. This avoids conflict, something that may be valued in one culture, or frowned upon in another. Role of context is how much preconceived information about the other person is brought to a conversation. In countries like Thailand, “people carry within them highly developed and refined notions of how most interactions will unfold” [1]. This is completely different from the United States, where people tend to be more individual, and therefore do not assume much about the other person. Importance of face is a culture’s emphasis on preserving politeness in a conversation. For example, a culture with low importance of face values facts and efficiency of words over the harmony of the exchange. Task vs. person is the degree of connection between business and personal matters in conversation. While it is acceptable to discuss the two together in the United States, people in other cultures might find it rather offensive to bring up family during a discussion about business.
Culture Matters emphasizes that individuals of a given background tend to share a similar style of communication with others from the same background. What is the extent to which this remains true? In personal experience, a stranger who has grown up in the same hometown as me can still identify with a completely different style of communication. I consider myself indirect and low context, but have met many people who are just the opposite. What degree of variance do individual cases introduce when binding a style of communication to a culture? Does this variance, in itself, vary with culture? Having lived in a close proximity to my home for my entire life, I am not yet able to answer these questions using generalizations about whole cultures. However, contemplating them prepares me for any future encounters with people that do not share my style of communication.
As an engineering student preparing to embark on a trip to another country with a completely different culture than the one that I am accustomed to, it is important to keep style of communication in mind. In The Globally Competent Engineer, Gary Lee Downy mentions that “engineering increasingly involves working alongside engineers from different backgrounds” [2]. In order to accurately invoke a technical, detail oriented idea into the mind of a person who does not share my background, I must bend my style of communication towards what he or she is more comfortable with. To do this, I must first identify the style of communication in the host country, which is the part that will take the most time and effort. While I am slightly afraid of offending a host or local to the country that I am visiting, I’m sure that if they have cognition of the fact that I do not share the same background as them, the offense will be dampened and we can laugh about it. Instead, I’m more interested in making my conversations with the locals meaningful. I would like to take away as much knowledge of another culture as I can. Altering my style of communication during conversation will add to my knowledge because the efficiency of the exchange will increase.
Style of communication is an inheritance to most, but can also be used as a tool to gain additional insight into the minds of others. It is a subcategory of a culture that is more or less present in every member. It takes an encounter between two cultures to become aware of it, and I hope that having knowledge of it serves to my benefit in my travels.
Works Cited
[1]"Styles of Communication." Culture Matters. Washington D.C.: Peace Corps Information Collection and Exchange. 75-108. Print.
[2] Downey, GL, JC Lucena, BM Moskal, T Bigley, C Hays, BK Jesiek, L Kelly, J Miller, S Ruff, JL Leer, and A Nichols-Belo, 2006. The Globally Competent Engineer: Working Effectively with People Who Define Problems Differently. Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 95, No. 2, p. 107-122.
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