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"E. T. Hall proposes two types of cultures, high-context cultures and low-context cultures. In a high-context culture or message, information is either in physical context or is internalized in a person, and very little is in the coded part of the message. Low-context culture, on the other hand, expresses most information in the explicit code. Japan is categorized as a high-context culture, where people read the atmosphere of the context and then thoughtfully verbalize their messages accordingly. Reading the context enables people to avoid carelessly uttering what is impolite or inappropriate. "
In interpersonal communication studies, the bywords are relationship and messages (Knapp. Miller, & Fudge, 1994). Zarefsky (1993) emphasizes that the concern in the discipline of communication is to explore "the relationship between messages and people." In the semantic-oriented viewpoint, communication is seen as the process of transmitting messages to another person, who then interprets those messages by attributing meanings to them. These messages may be sent intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously, and they include information about the content of the message and the relationship among the people communicating (Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967).
In modern-day Japanese people's attribution of meaning to their words, they sometimes feel as if a word itself has the power to make something happen. This concept is called kotodama, the superstitious folk belief that a soul dwelling in words has the supernatural power to make an idea in the human brain come true simply by verbalizing it. Kotodama literally refers to the mysterious power dwelling in words. In ancient times, it was believed that what words represented would be realized by the kotodama's supernatural power. To put it simply, koto means "the words," and dams, the origin of which is tama, means "the spirit or soul." It seems that the ancient Japanese might have marveled at the magical power of words by which they felt all things in the universe could be controlled. The belief in kotodama is the people's illusion about the words or messages, to which they give meanings superstitiously such as by praying for good fortune or for prevention of evil events. Therefore, they try to avoid verbalizing evil words and are careful to use appropriate expressions so that undesirable events do not occur.