Arabic Communication Patterns

Hassan Ajami

One's language strongly participates in forming one's communication patterns. People usually have distinct communication patterns because their native languages are different. This article attempts to clarify the role of languages in the construction of diverse communication methods.

Arabic Language and Information

Almost each word in Arabic contains an interesting set of inherited information. For example, the Arabic word "Sadeek", i.e. friend, is linguistically derived from "Sadaka", i.e. "he said the truth and/or he was truthful". Therefore, according to Arabic language, your friend is that who tells you the truth. In this sense, the Arabic word "Sadeek" possesses an interesting inherited information, namely that

Since almost each Arabic word contains very interesting inherited information, it follows that if someone is using Arabic language to communicate with others, then one does not need to be explicit and elaborate on the information one wants to transmit. In other words, given that Arabic language is a huge set of inherited information, it follows that when we use Arabic to communicate, we are already transmitting a lot of information, implied in Arabic language itself, even without mentioning detailed information. And hence, there is no need to be explicit and elaborative. This is why the Arab-Islamic communication patterns are high-context, implicit and deductive, such that most Arabs and Muslims don't transmit maximum amount of explicit information when they communicate. All of this shows that Arabic language forms the Arab-Islamic communication patterns, and that when one's language possesses a huge amount of inherited information then one's communication patterns are high-context, implicit and

In other words, since English language has less inherited information than some other languages, one should provide detailed information when one uses English to communicate. If one is using a language which contains a huge amount of inherited information, then one doesn't need to provide detailed information and be explicit, given that one's language already possesses a lot of interesting inherited information. But English language does not have a huge amount of inherited information. This is why if someone uses English to communicate, then one is forced to be explicit and elaborate on the information one wants to express. And thus, one's communication patterns will become low-context, explicit and inductive, exactly as they are in the English-speaking cultures. This shows that the fact that English language lacks a maximum amount of inherited information led the communication patterns in English-speaking cultures to be low-context, explicit and inductive, such that people in English-speaking cultures tend to present detailed examples and elaborate on the relevant information when they communicate. All of this proves that one's language