Page 62 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

Selected Topics in Intercultural Communication 47

compared with the amount of explanation, clarification, and reit-
eration needed by opposing lawyers presenting their case in court.
Hall says that “The level of context determines everything about
the nature of the communication and is the foundation on which
all subsequent behavior rests.…” (Hall 1976, 92). He also observes,
“A high-context (HC) communication or message is one in which
most of the information is either in the physical context or inter-
nalized in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicit,
transmitted part of the message” (91). “In high-context cultures,”
Hall says elsewhere, “interpersonal contact takes precedence over
everything else...information flows freely.” (Hall and Hall 23). Con-
versely, people in low-context cultures “…compartmentalize their
personal relationships, their work, and many aspects of day-to-
day life” (7). When they communicate, “most of the information
must be in the transmitted message in order to make up for what
is missing in the context” (Hall 1976, 101).
Clearly, American Deaf culture would be placed on the high-
context end of the continuum, while mainstream American cul-
ture would be found on the low-context side. As the student work-
book for the acclaimed ASL course, Signing Naturally, explains,
“Among Deaf people there is a great deal of shared knowledge,
common experiences, goals and beliefs, common friends and
acquaintances, a common way of talking; that is, their lives share
a common context” (Smith, Lentz, and Mikos 1988, 79). We can
also appreciate the characteristic way Deaf discourse describes
certain events in great detail with another observation from Hall:
In general, HC communication, in contrast to LC, is eco-
nomical, fast, efficient, and satisfying; however time
must be devoted to programming. If this programming does
not take place, the communication is incomplete [italics
added]. (Hall 1976, 101)
If we return to our eavesdropping example (and put aside the
commonality that both cultures consider such behavior rude), we
can see how the basic difference between high and low context
affects our perceptions on various levels. On the grammatical level,
English fits the mold of a low-context language by its redundancy
in comparison with high-context ASL. Every verb in an English
sentence shows its tense, while, in ASL, tense may be set at the
beginning of an utterance and then carried implicitly until a change
in tense is noted. English repeats the subject throughout the con-

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