Low-Context Culture: Denmark And The Danish Constitutional Monarchy

Introduction Denmark is located in the continent of Europe with a population of 5,672, 235 people (European Union, 2015). Denmark experienced a much-needed and timely cultural revolution in the 19th century, and in June of 1849, the Danish Constitutional Monarchy was formed; governmental power returned to the people and the monarchy would now play a mostly symbolic role. Denmark is an egalitarian society, most Danes are modest about their own accomplishments and are more concerned about a group than their individual needs. Women are highly respected in business and generally receive equal pay. Greetings are casual and typical hand shakes. Additionally, the United States is considered a low-context culture in relation to the Denmark, “however,
In low context cultures, communication is direct by providing information explicitly. These groups of people are linear, logical, action-oriented, and individualistic. Decision-making is based on the fact rather than intuition. Danes typically speak in gentle tones, especially at formal business dinners; keeping conversations on a low context level. Danes dislike vague statements or openly shared opinions, too much diplomacy sometimes aggravate Danes and shows insincerity. Although the Danes are known for dry humor and sarcasm, it is considered a formality to remain modest take a low-key approach. The Danish language has various linguistic differences compared to the United States. One of the main differences between English and Danish is the alphabet. The Danish alphabet contains å, æ and ø, which are unfamiliar in the English language. However, for business purposes, the people of Denmark tend to use English as one of their main forms of communication. By using English as the main language, there are many issues in regards to pronunciation. The Danish language contains weakly pronounced consonants and difficult prosody, which makes pronouncing English words quite