Cross- cultural Communication This page intentionally left blank

Details and suggestions communicators
Some societies, in particular the Chinese and the Japanese, believe that it is 
important to go into great detail so that everything is clearly understood and 
that there can be no misunderstanding. People in these societies will want high 

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8 Cross-Cultural Communication
degrees of, for example, technical specifications and will ask many questions to 
gain clarification. Such an approach is often perceived by sugges tions communi-
cators as time- consuming and overly complicated. Suggestions communicators 
like to leave room for interpretation and initiative and may prefer to be more 
general in their approach. They may prefer to hint or make suggestions either 
to allow the recipient the opportunity to interpret what has been said in his 
or her own way or because they assume that the recipient will understand the 
context in which they are speaking. However, such an approach can be seen by 
detailed communicators as rather too general and lacking in clarity.
What/why – why/what
This is a re- statement of Edward T. Hall’s concise/expressive communication 
paradigm, which is discussed in more detail in Chapter 2. A what/why culture 
corresponds to Hall’s concise mode of expression. People say what they want 
and then why they want it. Tomalin and Nicks (2010) call this group ‘the 
What/Why communicators’. The North European culture cluster will nor-
mally prefer this mode of communication. People tend to get to the point 
quickly and then provide explanations and context afterwards. A why/what 
culture corresponds to Hall’s expressive mode and is exactly the opposite. An 
expressive communicator will prefer to provide the context and background 
before saying what he or she wants. He or she focuses on context first and 
comes to the point at the end. The rationale is: ‘How can you possibly under-
stand what I want unless I have explained the background first?’
Once again, perceptions play a part in miscommunication. What/why 
concise communicators tend to feel that why/what expressive communica-
tors waste time in coming to the point. Why/what communicators become 
frustrated because they receive too little information from what/why 
communicators. They often feel they are being given orders and need more 
background information to understand what is required. Once again, simple 
linguistic strategies can resolve tensions. A why/what communicator who 
needs a little more patience from his or her counterpart simply has to say 
‘I’ll answer your question, but I do need to give a bit of background first’.