Page 110 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 4. Perceptions of silence 97

4.5 Intentional and unintentional silence

Before concluding this chapter, I will introduce one other dimension of silence
which I find important. This is to do with the intentionality of silence. Kurzon
(1997) identifies intentional and unintentional silences, referring to the former
as silence intentionally used as a strategy, while referring to the latter as silence
caused unintentionally due to extreme anxiety, embarrassment or panic. Con-
sciously avoiding voluntarily participation to avoid loss of face may be consid-
ered as intentional silence, while a state of extreme second language anxiety when
surrounded by native speaker peers may be considered as unintentional silence.
The effort to overcome silence by making special arrangements with lecturers, or
students’ references to ‘difficulty’ in participating, suggests there is a sense of in-
ability, and thus unintentionality. It appears, though, that inability is not the only
aspect of withdrawal from participation. Some students indicated that they did
not like participating or asking questions in class. For example, some Japanese
students spoke of their preference to take a seat in the classroom in which they
were less likely to get attention from the lecturer or the tutor. This is clearly an
avoidance strategy. One of the Japanese students said in interview that she was
going to skip a tutorial because it was too small, and she would be expected to
speak more often than in a larger class. These strategies appear to be used in order
to avoid situations in which silence is not tolerated. In other words, with these
strategies, these Japanese students seem to resist the pressure to participate. Thus,
not only inability but also resistance can be observed in Japanese student silences.
In these cases, silence was chosen intentionally, in contrast with unintentional
silence due to inability, whether it be linguistic, cognitive or socio-psychological.
The problem is, however, that, due to the ambiguous nature of silence, it is
often difficult to discern the intentionality of silence (Jaworski 1993). In some of
the comments by Japanese students, it is possible to find what could be called ‘risk
assessment time’:

(56) I often hesitate like “Shall I speak, or not.” While I am doing this, other people
will say this and that, so there is nothing more I can say. But it looks Aussies
don’t have that kind of hesitation I have. [30:82 F7]

The risk is assessed of saying something irrelevant, being silenced or interrupted
or, if the speaker struggles, of losing the floor or producing a long silent pause.
This risk seems to be carefully assessed, and the chance of participation can be
lost because of this hesitation caused by careful assessment. It can also be dropped
intentionally if the risk is found too high. Thus, this type of withdrawal from
participation can have an unintentional element as well as an intentional element.
Nevertheless, it is important to consider the assessment of silences whether they