The anthropologist Hall (1976) was the first to introduce the concepts of high and
low-context cultures. Hall presented the cultural description of using high-context
messages over low-context messages during the communication process. In a high context
culture, many things are unsaid and indirect, letting the culture explain the
meaning. Word choice becomes implicit in higher-context communication, since a few
words can communicate a complex message effectively, while in a lower-context culture,
the communicator needs to be much more explicit and the value of a single word is not as
important (Hall, 1976).