The 7 Keys to Communicating in Mexico: An Intercultural Approach by Olivia Hernández-Pozas, Orlando R. Kelm and David A. Victor

Abstract

Reviewed by: The 7 Keys to Communicating in Mexico: An Intercultural Approach by Olivia Hernández-Pozas, Orlando R. Kelm and David A. Victor Sarah Kersten Albrecht Hernández-Pozas, Olivia, Orlando R. Kelm, and David A. Victor. The 7 Keys to Communicating in Mexico: An Intercultural Approach. Georgetown UP, 2020. Pp. 250. ISBN 978-1-62616-722-3. The 7 Keys to Communicating in Mexico: An Intercultural Approach is third in a series of books designed to facilitate intercultural communication. Two of the authors, Kelm and Victor, have collaborated on each book, while Hernández-Pozas has joined with expertise from Mexico. All are professors specializing in intercultural business. The book’s stated purpose is to help a variety of audiences, including students, academics, and business people, recognize issues in cross-cultural communication. Additionally, secondary or postsecondary world language teachers would benefit from evaluating Victor’s original LESCANT model of cultural understanding and selectively utilizing the text’s content. LESCANT refers to language, environment and technology, social organization, contexting, authority conception, nonverbal behavior, and time conception. The book’s introduction explains the authors’ decision to use American and North American to refer only to the United States and Canada, then details the book’s organization into eight chapters according to the LESCANT model and one case study. Each chapter ends with a table that summarizes its content, and several chapters include figures and tables to illustrate key information. The book incorporates extensive black and white photos; these are generally useful but at times the subject of the photo is hard to discern. Extensive endnotes cite scholarly and non-scholarly sources and include further explanation of information in the body of the text. Chapter 1 begins with the relation of language to culture. It includes strategies English and Spanish speakers can use to understand speakers of the other language and how the two languages convey emphasis or emotion differently, which can send incorrect messages in translation. Some of the topics are sensitive, such as the use of heritage Spanish in Mexico, face-saving situations when claimed language ability falls short, and choosing the appropriate language to use in different business environments. These scenarios are specifically tied to business, yet the cultural care required is universal. Chapter 2, a broad examination of how the environment shapes culture and vice versa, ranges from Mexico’s population size and density, topography, and climate; to crime, architecture and technology; and sense of time and space. At times the reader seems left to connect descriptions of the physical environment to cultural understanding, but other explanations, such as how to perceive closed doors at work and how to interpret precautions against crime, are very helpful. Chapter 3 engages in an important discussion about the complexity of social organization. To contrast views on multiculturalism, the authors characterize Mexican multiculturalism in terms of Indigenous and European mestizaje, the United States in terms of the assimilative melting pot, and Canada in terms of the non-assimilative cultural mosaic. The authors also note collective family organization, wealth distribution, gender roles, religion and history, and regional differences as factors in social organization and recommend attending to differences in views on multiculturalism and to observing and respecting what is valued in different sectors of society. In chapter 4, the authors apply Hall’s (1959) high and low context model of communication, with Mexico being high and the United States and Canada being low context cultures. High-context cultures rely on listener interpretation, while low-context cultures rely on speaker explanation. The authors effectively discuss low-context cultural elements from Mexico such as indirectness in discussion; the varying and subtle effects of diminutives, including a unique discussion of Náhuatl agglutinatives; and the use of proverbs to obliquely convey messages. They end the chapter with useful recommendations for how members of both low- and high-context cultures can work effectively together. Chapter 5 compares authority conception in Mexico to that of Canada and the United States, noting the connection of power perception to culture. The authors frame authority conception in Mexico through graduated spheres and note that its function is seen as a buffer [End Page 317] against corruption. Each sphere is based...