Chapter 8: Communication, American Style

Overview

Every country has its own way of saying things. The important point is that which lies behind people s words.
” Freya Stark, The Journey s Echo

The noted interculturalist Edward T. Hall has said that culture is communication. What he meant is not so much that culture and communication are one and the same, but that since so much of behavior involves communication of one kind or another ” and since culture is such a fundamental influence on all behavior ” it s difficult to say where one stops and the other begins.

Workplace behavior is a case in point. One way or another almost everything that happens in the workplace involves some kind of communication, the sending or receiving of messages. Whether it s face to face, over the telephone, or via e-mail, whether it s written, verbal, or nonverbal , whether it s one-on-one or in groups, most work gets done through the exchange of various kinds of information. To the extent that culture influences how people send and interpret messages, to work effectively with people from another culture you have to understand its communication style. If you don t understand the messages Americans are sending and if they don t understand the messages you re sending, how can you expect anything you do together to be very successful?

Communication is a very big piece of the cross-cultural puzzle ” and it is also the piece about which it is the most difficult to make any useful generalizations . Of all the behaviors humans engage in, surely communication is among the most context-driven; what people say and how they say it almost always depends on the situation or the circumstances. To generalize about communication, therefore, to make statements that by definition ignore the circumstances, is something of a fool s errand. The exceptions to almost any general cultural observation about communication start piling up even before you ve finished making the observation. But while communication itself may defy categorization, it may be possible to generalize about communication style, and it is certainly possible to compare communication styles across cultures.

Straight Talk

It may not be possible to generalize about communication, but that hasn t stopped people from trying, and one of the most frequent observations made about Americans is that they are direct. Direct is in the eye of the beholder, of course ” Americans don t seem particularly direct to each other, and especially not to people from even more direct cultures, such as the Germans, the Israelis, or the Dutch ” but on balance Americans are relatively more direct than people in many other cultures. Consider, by way of evidence, all the expressions Americans have for how they like their conversations to go. They want people to get to the point, tell it like it is, face the facts, let the chips fall where they may, and put their cards on the table. And they don t like it when people mince their words, beat around the bush, pull their punches, or hold back. They like the unvarnished truth, plain speech, straight talk.

Straight talk is probably the best way to characterize American-style directness, but what exactly does it mean to talk straight? It s easier, in a way, to say what straight talk is not; by and large, straight talkers don t imply, hint, or intimate what they mean; nor, as the phrase itself suggests, do they go around or somehow sneak up on the topic. On the contrary, straight talkers make a beeline for the topic. Straight talk is generally thought to be spontaneous , natural, and uncontrived; it comes from the heart, not the head. Straight talk is the emotions speaking, as close to unfiltered feelings as you can get in speech. The often- heard expression, Say what s on your mind, captures perfectly the essence of straight talk. American speech is remarkably straightforward, Stephanie Faul has noted. They tell it as it is, even when it s not a particularly good idea to do so. Linguistic subtlety, innuendo, and irony that other nations find delightful puzzle Americans, who take all statements at face value. . . . (1999, 61).

This literalness, or taking words at their face value, is another important feature of American-style directness. Americans have great faith in words, regarding them as the primary carrier of meaning, and they quite literally take people at their word. They try very hard to match their words as closely as possible to their thoughts or feelings, so that what a person says is truly what he or she means, that is, what he or she is actually thinking or feeling. In classic straight talk there should never be any need to have to interpret what a speaker means; speakers will say what they mean.

This is how Americans expect their words to be taken and also how they interpret the words of others. They do not expect listeners to read between the lines of what they say ” in direct speech, there is nothing there ” and they are notoriously inept at reading between the lines of what other people say. After all, people who go to great lengths to put what they mean in the lines, in the words they use, have no experience with having to look elsewhere for meaning, and they are not very good at it. Almost nothing bothers Americans more than people who say one thing and actually mean another ” it s not only confusing, it s dishonest ” and the practice has been enshrined in the decidedly pejorative expression of speaking with a forked tongue.

The forked tongue approach, incidentally, is alive and well in the speech of some politicians , which probably explains why politics is one of the most reviled professions in America. Not only do politicians typically not speak from the heart, they don t even speak from the head, preferring, rather, to speak from the heads of other people, most notably those of their advisors, pollsters, and other political pulse takers. It was his refusal to ignore this political norm and insist on speaking plainly that got Harry Truman into so much trouble ” with other politicians, that is; the masses loved him for it. Fittingly, Plain-Speaking was the title of his oral autobiography. We might note, in passing, how an especially egregious lapse from plain speech, egregious even for a politician, that is, got Bill Clinton into a pile of trouble ( It depends on what the meaning of is is. ) and has already become one of the most famous moments of his presidency.

Finally, we have recent word from another seasoned politician, Al Gore, that failing to speak plainly is a mistake he will not repeat if he ever runs again for elective office:

Former vice-president Al Gore conceded today that his 2000 presidential campaign was too heavily influenced by polls , consultants and tactical maneuvering, telling key supporters that if he runs in 2004, he will let it rip and let the chips fall where they may.

If I had it to do over again . . . I would spend more time speaking from the heart. . . . To hell with the polls, tactics and all the rest. ( The Washington Post, June 30, 2002, A4)

Even if they don t often practice it, politicians are smart enough to know that letting it rip and speaking from the heart are much admired by Americans. But enough about politicians. If we ve gone on about them, it s not for the pleasure of dragging them through the mud but to illustrate how much Americans value unvarnished, unadorned, straight talk, honored in the breach in the case of some politicians rather than in the observance.

The Origins of Straight Talk

Many of the themes we have been tracking in these pages come together to create the American habit of speaking plainly, beginning with the ideal of egalitarianism. In a culture where people are believed to be inherently equal, there is no need ” hence no tradition ” of editing what one says to suit the rank or status of the listener vis-  -vis one s own. If all listeners are equal, then the only conversational imperative is to be honest, to choose words that most accurately convey what one thinks about the matter under discussion.

Americans are quite proud of the fact that they talk the same way to everyone. One of the worst mistakes you can make with Americans is to talk down to them, to talk to other people as if you are somehow superior to them. Similarly, Americans are very suspicious of and uncomfortable with anyone who appears to be talking up to them, speaking to them in a fawning, obsequious, or servile manner. This is so unnatural for most Americans that they tend to assume that anyone who behaves in this way has ulterior motives and is not sincere.

Self- reliance and individualism also go hand in hand with being direct. If you answer only to yourself, if you do not depend on the indulgence and sufferance of others for your success or well-being, then you can say what you think without fear of the consequences. In a sense, being direct is not simply a habit for Americans but practically a badge of honor ; the right to say what you think, to anyone anytime , is the ultimate expression of individual liberty. The self, after all, is supreme in individualistic societies , and self-expression, by extension, is therefore a fundamental right.

This doesn t mean that Americans are deliberately rude or uncivil, but they do instinctively chafe at any suggestion of having to muzzle their feelings or adjust their opinions to suit the occasion. When they err, they tend to err on the side of too much self-expression, not too little. They believe in the end, as I have observed elsewhere, that any unfortunate consequences of too much self-expression are still preferable to the consequences of excessive self-restraint (Storti 2001, 37). As one 19th century English visitor noted, Civility cannot be purchased from Americans on any terms. They seem to think it is incompatible with freedom.

Being direct is also efficient, and efficiency, as we ve seen repeatedly, is high on the list of American values. The more direct someone is, the less chance there is of being misinterpreted or misunderstood, and misunderstandings are practically the pinnacle of inefficiency. Being direct also saves a lot of time, the time it would take to find out what the person really means.

American directness may also be a function of the fact that for many immigrants English was a foreign language. People who don t know a language very well, who are struggling merely to make themselves understood , do not have the luxury of choosing their words carefully or otherwise engaging in nuance or subtlety. They re obliged, rather, to use the few words and limited structures they know, and their speech can accordingly sound quite primitive.

High and Low Context

Ultimately, communication style comes down to what people in a particular culture see as the purpose of communication. For Americans, the primary purpose of communication is to exchange information, and being direct is surely the fastest , most efficient way to do that. But for many other cultures, information exchange is not the primary purpose of communication, and in these societies the need to be direct is neither understood nor appreciated. Nor, for that matter, is the communication style in these other cultures understood or appreciated by Americans. The differences between these two styles of communication, often referred to as low context and high context, account for so much cross- cultural confusion and bad feeling ” they are at the root of so much misunderstanding and so many cross-cultural incidents ” that it be- hooves us to spend a few minutes on this topic.

The United States is what is considered a low-context culture, context meaning the knowledge or experience one member of a group has in common with other members of that group, a measure, in short, of the degree to which the lives of group members are interconnected . In low- context societies, where people tend to have a more individualist as opposed to a more collectivist mentality , people live relatively independent lives, associating with others more as a matter of choice than of circumstances. Americans are not antisocial , but they do have a well-developed sense of privacy, guarding their own privacy and respecting that of others, and they tend to err on the side of leaving each other alone. Being by themselves (with one or two family members or close friends ) is the natural or default mode for most Americans, requiring little or no effort; only if they want to be in the company of others do Americans have to exert themselves.

In leading such relatively independent, separate lives, Americans are not particularly knowledgeable about or attuned to what is happening in the lives of the people around them, including those with whom they have regular contact. They don t know what has happened to these people since they last saw them, what has changed in their lives, what decisions they ve made, what they re concerned with or thinking about. The relative lack of shared knowledge Americans have about each other s lives makes the exchange of information the first order of business when people meet. Several expressions Americans often use at such moments make this function of conversation quite explicit, such as, I ve got to fill you in, We ve got to catch up, or I need to get you up to speed (or bring you up to date) on this. Not surprisingly, it is content or substance ” what we might call raw information ” that is the priority in such conversations, while style or form, the manner of speaking, occupies a much lesser place. The style of these exchanges, in short, is decidedly stripped down and unadorned; in other words, it is our old friend straight talk.

In a fluid, ever-shifting society of people who were mostly strangers to one another, the English writer Jonathan Raban has observed about American culture, nothing was tacit, nothing could be assumed in the way of prior knowledge or experience. Everything had to be stated plainly and underlined . Irony was out ( The Washington Post, December 20, 2003, C4).

The American low-context mentality not only makes straight talk necessary, it also makes it quite acceptable. If people are not attuned to the inner lives of each other, not privy to each other s feelings, insecurities, fears, and doubts , then it can hardly be expected that they will take these things into account in conversation, choosing their words carefully, for example, so as not to hurt another person s feelings or cause them to lose face. If you cannot be expected to know another person s feelings, then how can you be criticized for hurting them? Americans are not deliberately insensitive, of course, but the fact is that ultimately they have much less to be sensitive about than people from some other cultures. In low-context societies, therefore, straight talk is not likely to cause much offense. And even if it does, the consequences of causing offense, of upsetting or embarrassing someone else, are necessarily less in individualist cultures, where people do not rely so much on each other for their survival or well-being.

Now compare, for a moment, life in high-context cultures, where the primary unit of survival is the group, not the individual, and where the well-being of the group takes precedence over ” and ultimately guarantees ” the survival of the individual. In such cultures, the lives of group members (usually extended families and a few close friends) are completely intertwined, and privacy is neither sought nor expected. Virtually everything that happens to one group member is known by the rest of the group; indeed, since the group spends so much time together, most of what happens to one member of the group happens to them all. The people who live in high-context cultures, in short, have a great deal of shared experience and typically don t need to exchange information when they get together; they are together so often, either physically or by other means, that they already know those things about each other s lives, which people in low-context cultures have to explain when they get together.

For high-context people, therefore, the purpose of conversation is not so much to exchange information ” so much is already known or intuitively understood ” but to strengthen and deepen personal bonds and relationships, to make the group that everyone depends on even more cohesive and unified. The greatest good in such cultures, the glue that keeps the group together, is harmony, and the greatest sin is to do or say anything that disturbs that harmony. Filipinos grow up with ultra - sensitive feelers for hints of impending personal storms, Alfredo and Grace Roces write in their book on Philippine culture,

feelers a Westerner does not have. At the faintest indication of conflict, someone within the group is always ready to bury the symptoms beneath the surface. Direct confrontation is frowned upon and regarded in the worst light. . . . Public conflict is taboo because someone is bound to lose face and this would lead to wider trouble. (1994, 8)

When people from such cultures speak, the primary goal is not to say anything that will upset another group member or somehow cause him or her to lose face, and the secondary goal is to send a message. Thus, people are very careful about what they say and even more careful about how they say it, especially when the message is not what the other person wants to hear. As the reader can imagine, the people in such cultures are almost never direct.

Nor do they ever have to be explicit, that is, to come out and say what they mean. The people in high-context cultures are so in tune with each other, so mutually aware, that they have to say very little in order to be understood. They can suggest, imply, or hint at what they mean, and that is usually enough. In many cases words are not necessary at all; the message comes in the form of what is not said ” or, very often, in the form of nonverbal communication, which is relied on much more in such cultures.

Relatively Speaking

It s entirely possible that a lot of Americans will not recognize themselves in the previous pages. Some would even refute the characterization made of them as straight-talking truth seekers, citing all manner of situations where they regularly pull their punches, hold their tongues , and otherwise amend the naked truth for fear of causing offense. In a word, while other people tend to find Americans quite direct, they don t necessarily see themselves that way. Since non-Americans are quite likely to come across Americans who are in denial about their communication style, it s important to address the subject.

Actually, it s not very complicated; most people don t see themselves the way others see them (the phenomenon that makes books like these possible and necessary), and Americans aren t any exception. Most people see themselves from the inside, as it were, from the perspective of their own culture; theirs is an absolutist point of view rather than a relative or comparative one. Every culture, therefore, has an entire range of all types of individuals as judged by the norms or standards of that culture. So-called indirect cultures, therefore, like the Japanese, have their version of indirect, direct, and blunt communicators ; so-called direct cultures, like the United States, likewise have indirect, direct, and blunt speakers. Americans are direct compared to the Japanese, and the Japanese are indirect compared to Americans, but not in any absolute sense. To put it all another way, it s entirely possible to be forthright and blunt in Japan, and likewise, it s entirely possible to be vague and subtle in the United States. It s all a matter of degree.

There are, incidentally, some countries where people are even more direct than Americans. Pride of place probably goes to Israel, followed closely by the Germans, the Dutch, and perhaps the Scandinavians. People from these cultures do not find Americans especially direct or abrupt and may even see them as insincere and vague; they perceive Americans, in short, the same way Americans perceive the Japanese or people from southeast Asia.

Americans tend to think of themselves as very direct and to the point, Greg Nees has written.

Compared with many cultures they are. Compared with Germans they are less so, although this depends on the situation and the particular speech act. . . . [I]n terms of stating facts, offering criticism, and issuing direct commands, Germans are generally more direct, leading to perceptions of them as opinionated, blunt, and brusque know-it- alls . (2000, 72)

In a fair fight, Israelis would normally win the straight-talking competition. They prefer the direct, confrontational, no-frills style of communication, Lucy Shahar and David Kurz have observed, a style they compare to sandpaper, which is similarly rough, grating, and devoid of a smooth finish. Americans will frequently use the phrase, I m going to tell you the unvarnished truth when they are about to communicate something painful. . . . But the American unvarnished truth is considerably smoother than Israeli truth delivered sandpaper style (1995, 78, 79).

With these caveats and qualifiers in mind, let s visit the workplace and see how these low-context Yanks actually communicate at the office.