Page 114 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

chapter 5

Performance and perceptions of silence

An empirical view

5.1 Introduction

In this chapter, I will explore the interface between the actual performance and
perceptions of silence in intercultural communication through an analysis of
classroom interaction and interview comments in three case studies. The research
questions I address in this chapter are as follows:

1. Are Japanese students silent in their classroom performances?
and if so,
2. How are the Japanese students’ silences constructed, in perceptions and in
performance?

To address these questions, I found that a combination of observations, inter-
views and a detailed analysis of naturally occurring classroom interaction provid-
ed the most appropriate source of data. This combination of data provided both
perceptions and performance surrounding the issue of silence at the micro-level
of classroom interaction. Erickson (1996) calls this type of approach “microeth-
nography” or “ethnographic microanalysis” (p. 283), and argues that in order to
understand the subtle aspects of interaction which are often socially organised
(Hymes 1972, 1974a, 1974b), it is necessary to directly analyse interaction in de-
tail. According to Erickson (2004), his approach, “microethnography,” has been
influenced by streams of work such as ethnography of communication (Hymes
1972, 1974a, 1974b; Saville-Troike 1984), conversation analysis (traced back to
early works by Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson, for example, 1974), Goffman’s work
on ‘face’ (e.g. Goffman 1955) and interactional sociolinguistics which is repre-
1
sented by Gumperz (1982). The importance of including interaction analysis in
studies of multicultural classrooms is also supported by Gumperz (1981):

1. Erickson’s approach has recently shifted slightly towards incorporating the historical and
socio-political contexts and their impact on negotiation of power in discourse. Although I