Page 141 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

128 Silence in Intercultural Communication

85 I’ll apologise and I say sorry even if
86 that’s- even in fact it’s not- me who did
87 it.
88 ?: Mm.=
-> 89 Bill: =In Japanese is the- you have a sorry- w'd
90 that be a- w'd that be a similar um
91 situ[ation?]
92 Miki: [if : ] if (0.4) you are not the one
93 who really caused [it
94 Bill: [You didn’t. ↑Yeah=
95 Miki: =[Yeah.
96 Bill: [You didn’t cause it,=for example someone
97 might um (0.4) knock over this.(0.4) I- I-
98 I oh sorr- I could actually say so:rry in
99 English. to them. (0.6) At the same time
100 they’d say sorry.
-> 101 (1.2)
102 Gary: ( ) So in a car crash, Japanese say
103 sorry ( )=
104 Molly: =But I think that’s just somebody trying to:
105 get something out of someone else who:
106 didn’ qui[te understa:]nd.
Here, another inter-turn pause greater than one second is seen as a signal for
the Australian participants to take over. Because of the participation of Gary and
Molly here, the focus shifted towards the motivation behind the English word
“sorry” in Bill’s example, rather than to what Japanese speakers would do in the
situation being discussed. The excerpt below shows a later section of the same dis-
cussion, in which Miki asks Molly about her example of a situation where “sorry”
might be used. The lecturer reintroduces Bill’s example of knocking someone’s
drink over (lines 182 and 184). This brings the focus of the discussion back to
Bill’s original question (example 18 above) about Japanese reactions. Bill picks
up the cue, describing the situation again in lines 186–188. There is a pause of
1.2 seconds within Bill’s turn (line 187), where his eye-gaze is directed towards
Miki, but she does not take a turn here, which leads to his elaboration. This pro-
vides another opportunity for Miki to respond, but instead, there is a pause of 0.8
seconds (line 189). Again, Molly takes a turn, providing an interpretation of the
“sorry” in question.