Page 44 - Reading Between the Sign Intercultural Communication for Sign Language Interpreters

The Study of Culture 29

everyday English.” We may unknowingly, however, be sending a
message of contempt to a foreigner who simply speaks compe-
tent English with a heavy accent.
Volume. People from certain cultures are notoriously soft-spo-
ken to our American ears. Although it happens to be their way of
showing respect, we may find it frustrating to have to strain to
hear them. Americans often speak loudly to get someone’s atten-
tion or be heard above the din, but a loud volume may serve other
functions as well.
Loud-talking in the black community is used deliber-
ately and publicly to divulge personal information that
other individuals would not want to have known. The
purpose of such loud-talking is usually to try to get such
individuals to do something they have resisted or would
in all likelihood not be inclined to do. Thus a young
black woman, bothered by the persistence of an older
man at a party, loud-talked him…by saying, “Mr. Wil-
liams, you are old enough to be my father. You ought to
be ashamed of yourself”.… By loud-talking him, she
hoped to use the public embarrassment produced as
additional leverage to force him to leave her alone.
(Kochman 1981, 101–102)
Silence. In America, skill at speaking is respected. We often
judge our politicians by their speeches and relish our celebrities’
talk-show revelations. To our ears, silence is just empty space, a
waste of time, or it may be considered awkward or embarrassing.
In many other cultures, by contrast, silence has a positive conno-
tation and is seen as an awareness of being in the moment. In
Japan, for example, talkativeness is mistrusted and seen as a symp-
tom of a shallow character. As a Japanese proverb says, “One treats
one’s mouth as a guarded jar.”
Even in our own culture, with its relatively low tolerance for
quiet moments, we observe the silence associated with certain
locations such as places of worship, libraries, courtrooms, and
hospitals. Silence is also appropriate for events such as funerals,
patriotic observances, appreciating nature, or a moment of inti-
macy. During conversation, we may use short silences to empha-
size the words just spoken or about to be spoken, to signal our
emotional reaction (by refusing to respond to an insult), to give us
a moment to think, or to demonstrate our ignorance (by not an-
swering a question).

02 MINDESS PMKR 29 10/18/04, 11:22 AM