Page 308 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

286 Diana Eades

This use of silence contrasts with a common western reaction that silence in
a conversation, whether formal or informal, is an indication that something is
going wrong. Indeed many Conversation Analysis studies of English conver-
sations in western societies support Jefferson’s (1989) finding that the ‘standard
average maximum tolerance for silence’ is less than one second. By the time
that there has been a silence of one second, or less, in many western conver-
sations, participants are feeling uncomfortable, perhaps wondering if their in-
terlocutor is offended, or socially awkward, or a snob. And many potential si-
lences are filled well before the full one second time period. This is particularly
noticeable in interviews and meetings, and even if the person ‘filling the si-
lence’ is not ready to contribute anything of substance, people use verbal si-
lence-fillers, such as um, ah, let me see, and so on.
It is not only Aboriginal Australians who have quite a different use and in-
terpretation of silence compared to western speakers of English. There are some
parallels between Aboriginal Australians and Native Americans (see Basso
1970; Philips 1993; Gumperz 2001). Other sociocultural groups whose different
use of silence has been described include the Amish (Enninger 1987), Japanese
(Lebra 1987) and Chinese (Young 1994).
The different uses and interpretations of silence have particular significance
in interviews. The interview genre is typically a one-sided information ex-
change, where one party asks questions and the other provides answers. In in-
tercultural communication workshops that I conducted throughout the 1990s,
non-Aboriginal interviewers often reported that they experienced difficulty in
eliciting information from Aboriginal interviewees, while Aboriginal intervie-
wees often reported feeling rushed, pressured, and unable to take the time they
needed to answer questions properly.

2. Aboriginal silence in answer to lawyers’ questions

Although the interview is a speech event not typically found in Aboriginal so-
cieties, it is central to the western legal system. Indeed, a basic assumption
underlying the adversarial legal system is that repeated questions serve to elicit
‘facts’ or ‘the truth’. So what happens when Aboriginal English speakers are in-
terviewed in legal contexts?
The case of Robyn Kina in Brisbane shows how seriously the delivery of jus-
tice can be affected when Aboriginal silence in interviews is misinterpreted.
Robyn Kina was an Aboriginal woman from southeast Queensland, who was
found guilty in 1988 of the stabbing murder of her de facto husband in Brisbane,
and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In her trial, no evidence was given, by
Kina or by any other person, about the horrific circumstances which led to her
stabbing the victim in self-defense and reaction to provocation. In 1993 Kina