In order to analyze how important culture is in communication, it would be first interesting to define the word culture. After this short introduction, it would be easier to understand why it is a key point in communication.
Culture is a simple and complex subject. It is a group of people sharing the same identity about something. They share experiences, they build a common history, and they establish rules and way to think. Culture makes people socialized. The concept is also complex because several cultures can mix together in a same person. For instance, I work in a company with a specific culture. But at the same time, I am citizen in a country with a different one and my family gets another one too. That is why I need to adapt my communication according to people I talk to in order to make them perfectly understand my message. If people meet and have to live together, they bring with them a special culture, so communication will be quite difficult at the beginning. However, if they spend time together, they will create their own group culture and communication will be easier at the end. So culture is the key of communication. Some countries, such as Finland, have no word to say “please”, which can be perceived by foreigners as a lack of politeness. For Chinese businessmen, there is a long time before negotiating to meet people we want to deal with. Anthropologists invented the “context” concept: a high context means you do not need a lot of words information; a low context means you need a lot of information and details. If you know the cultural trend, you will have a better communication because you will know that, for examples, Germans are low-context, such as Americans, Swiss and Northern Europeans. For instance, Germans strongly insists on historical context at the beginning of books or talks. At the opposite, Arabs, Japanese and Mediterranean people are high-context. High-context people don’t like to receive a lot of useless information from the