These five dimensions help categorize cultures into "high-context and low- context cultures. According to Hofstede (2006), the dimensions of power distance and individualismare the most important dimensions among five to play the leading role in categorizing cultures into high-context or low-context cultures.
The cultures with an emphasis on power distance and towards collectivism e.g. the Thai culture aloftede 2006), are grouped to be high context cultures; while the cultures with small or no emphasis on power distance and towards individualism, e.g. the British culture (Hofstede 2006), are categorized as low context ures. However, the other three dimensions should not to be overlooked, because they are related and dominate one another as mentioned above. The main properties of high and low context cultures ve cultural dimensions of Hofstede (1984; 1991:2001) and according to the Hofstede and Hofstede (2005) can be summed up in the following table. Table 2.2 The division of types of cultures according to cultural dimensions proposed by Hofstede (1984; 1991:2001) and Hofstede 02005) Dimensions of Cultures Types of Individualism T Masculinity Uncertainty Long-term Power Cultures Distance Avoidance orientation Large/High Collectivism Femininity strong Long-term Low British small Low Tindividualism Masculinity Weak Short-term context These five dimensions in categorizing cultures proposed by Hofstede are known as "Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory. The present study is based on the cultural division into high- and low-context by Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory so English is categorized as a low-context culture and Thai is categorized as a high- context culture. Also, based on Hall's (1976) concepts of high- and low-contexts, the present study hypothesizes that in the speech act of directives, rejections, and inquiries, the direct linguistic forms are found more in the English texts than in the Thai- translated texts, while the indirect linguistic forms are found more in the Thai- translated texts than in the English texts and the linguistic forms in Thai are governed more by interpersonal and affective factors than in English. The translation of the three speech acts from English into Thai, therefore, would be more indirect.