Hendriks et al. – Does style matter? A cross-cultural study into the influence of differences in style
dimensions on the persuasiveness of business newsletters in great Britain and the Netherlands.
Introduction
Content, structure and style are important factors in determining the persuasiveness of a text. For
international text writers might need to adapt to the preferred communication style.
A central theme in studying culture and language relationship is whether language influence culture
and vice versa. Matsumoto states that the relationship manifests itself at the level of the lexicon and
level of language use. However, it has not been investigated often.
Studies that have investigated style dimensions in particular, have shown that there are cultural
differences in the appreciation of readers in terms of verbal communication styles.
Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey:
1. Direct (formulate his or her goals, intentions and wishes explicitly) vs. indirect (more implicit
phrasing of those).
2. Instrumental (goal oriented and sender-oriented) vs. affective (receiver-oriented and process-
oriented).
3. Personal (expression of the sender’s identity through the use of personal pronouns and
adverbs of place and time) vs. contextual (focus on the group, most is not formulated
explicitly, but can be deduced from the context).
4. Succinct (understatements, pauses, and silences; quantity of talk that is valued) vs. elaborate
(the speakers contribution contains neither more nor less information than is required).
Most studies have looked at the direct-indirect style dimension and have found that cultural
differences on this style dimension may give rise to communicative misunderstandings. Less research
is done to the other style dimensions.
Mulac et al. did a research to see whether men and women used different communication styles.
There tool for operationalizing communicative styles linguistically is useful to research differences in
communication style between national cultures and if these lead to differences in effectiveness of
documents.
The focus of this study is on elaborate vs. succinct, because:
1. The dimension has been the topic of very few studies to date.
2. Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey make predictions about the relation between communication
styles and Hofstede’s dimensions. According to them this style is linked to uncertainty
avoidance, known as ‘the extent to which members of a culture feel threatened by uncertain
or unknown situations’.
It is said that people with high scores on uncertainty avoidance prefer succinct communication style,
and moderate scores prefer elaborate style. Low scores prefer an exacting communication style.
If differences in the use of succinct or elaborate communication style are indeed related to
differences on the dimension uncertainty avoidance, then it is quite likely that there are differences
between Great Britain and the Netherlands with respect to a preference for communication style.
RQ: The question is whether the persuasiveness of a business document is in any way dependent on
the extent to which the communication style of the document is adjusted to the preferred
communication style of the culture in question.
Method: A persuasive text was designed which is used in Britian and NL, and which was long enough
for the style to be manipulated. It was decided to use business newsletters since these documents
have a clear persuasive goal in that they try to persuade readers to order goods. Two different
newsletters were developed; one elaborate, one succinct. The texts were English and manipulated to
dimensions on the persuasiveness of business newsletters in great Britain and the Netherlands.
Introduction
Content, structure and style are important factors in determining the persuasiveness of a text. For
international text writers might need to adapt to the preferred communication style.
A central theme in studying culture and language relationship is whether language influence culture
and vice versa. Matsumoto states that the relationship manifests itself at the level of the lexicon and
level of language use. However, it has not been investigated often.
Studies that have investigated style dimensions in particular, have shown that there are cultural
differences in the appreciation of readers in terms of verbal communication styles.
Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey:
1. Direct (formulate his or her goals, intentions and wishes explicitly) vs. indirect (more implicit
phrasing of those).
2. Instrumental (goal oriented and sender-oriented) vs. affective (receiver-oriented and process-
oriented).
3. Personal (expression of the sender’s identity through the use of personal pronouns and
adverbs of place and time) vs. contextual (focus on the group, most is not formulated
explicitly, but can be deduced from the context).
4. Succinct (understatements, pauses, and silences; quantity of talk that is valued) vs. elaborate
(the speakers contribution contains neither more nor less information than is required).
Most studies have looked at the direct-indirect style dimension and have found that cultural
differences on this style dimension may give rise to communicative misunderstandings. Less research
is done to the other style dimensions.
Mulac et al. did a research to see whether men and women used different communication styles.
There tool for operationalizing communicative styles linguistically is useful to research differences in
communication style between national cultures and if these lead to differences in effectiveness of
documents.
The focus of this study is on elaborate vs. succinct, because:
1. The dimension has been the topic of very few studies to date.
2. Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey make predictions about the relation between communication
styles and Hofstede’s dimensions. According to them this style is linked to uncertainty
avoidance, known as ‘the extent to which members of a culture feel threatened by uncertain
or unknown situations’.
It is said that people with high scores on uncertainty avoidance prefer succinct communication style,
and moderate scores prefer elaborate style. Low scores prefer an exacting communication style.
If differences in the use of succinct or elaborate communication style are indeed related to
differences on the dimension uncertainty avoidance, then it is quite likely that there are differences
between Great Britain and the Netherlands with respect to a preference for communication style.
RQ: The question is whether the persuasiveness of a business document is in any way dependent on
the extent to which the communication style of the document is adjusted to the preferred
communication style of the culture in question.
Method: A persuasive text was designed which is used in Britian and NL, and which was long enough
for the style to be manipulated. It was decided to use business newsletters since these documents
have a clear persuasive goal in that they try to persuade readers to order goods. Two different
newsletters were developed; one elaborate, one succinct. The texts were English and manipulated to
