A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Advertisements from High-Context Cultures and Low-Context Cultures

Abstract

With the development of economy and the change of social culture, advertisements have penetrated our life slowly and done a lot to the commercial markets. Advertisements have often been analyzed in a stylistic way for its unique language style. But language is an important part, as well as a carrier, of culture. Advertising language, as other kinds of languages, is also a significant component of culture and is a comprehensive collection of different aspects of culture. In turn, it reflects culture in its own way. A cultural pattern, put forward by Edward T. Hall and called “high context” and “low context” communication, will be focused on to analyze different advertisements from these two cultures.