Cultural context
Hall (1984, p. 197) once brought forward two concepts: high context communication and low context communication. High-context communication refers to that, in communication, most information is kept in material context or internalized in individuals, little information exists in the communicated information which is coded clearly. On the contrary, in low-context communication, a lot of information is kept in clear encoding.
Chinese culture is a high-context culture, it often expresses implicitly by hidden words. It should be based on the prevailing circumstances, as well as other non-verbal cues (such as tone of voice, facial expressions, movements) to speculate on the true meaning behind words (Michael, p. 466). And Dutch culture belongs to a low context culture and it is totally different from Chinese culture that in communication, it stresses communicate straightforward, all information needing to be communicated is conveyed by unambiguous language and text which can be encoded, usually, there is no hidden meaning (Arslan & Zhaohua, 2017, pp. 8-21).
In daily communication and business negotiations, Chinese people’s mode of thinking has an overall orientation, forming the process which solves problems from the whole to the part, from the important to the less important, from the general to the specific. At the same time, in order to save face of both sides in communication, Chinese people make a frequent use of ambiguous, indirect language. Even if they do not agree with other people, they rarely reject or refute directly but state their views politely or hesitate (Michael, p. 469). While influenced by linear thinking and way of thinking of analysis, Dutch people attach more importance to the logical relationship between things, they stress the specific more than the whole. In selection and use of language, the Dutch use a outward-oriented communication, they use a simple, straightforward and frank way to express their ideas and there is little ambiguous, vague expression. In addition, Dutch people prefer arguing and their language shows a confrontational tone categorically. They believe that arguing is not only a person’s right to express his personal opinions but also helps with solving problems, different views will not affect interpersonal relationships (Arslan & Zhaohua, 2017, pp. 8-21).
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