Page 143 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

130 Silence in Intercultural Communication

-> 226 Miki: When-;
227 (0.5)
-> 228 Bill: I-in th[at [situ]ation].
-> 229 Molly: [You ]spill]ed (0.3) the-
-> 230 Miki: [I just ]
231 (0.4)
232 Gary: If someone spilt (.) your drink would you
233 say sorry to them?
-> 234 (1.2)
235 Miki: °Uh: yeh;° (1.2) Yeah, I would say s- (1.4)
236 sorry, I mean >sumimasen in Japanese=that-
237 means< sorry; because I put that- one (0.4)
238 there,
239 (0.2) ((students and lecturer nod))
Bill remarked on the problem as he perceived it, in his follow up interview:

(21) [Interview: Bill]
Bill: [...] when we got to a stage where she still required [the lecturer] to
rephrase it, I was there thinking well...that’s (awkward?) I think it may be
sli- ...not annoyance, but some slight....fractures coming in there [...]
According to Miki, she is aware of the markedness of her pause length, but she
requires the time to organise her thoughts:

(22) [Interview: Miki]
M: Mmmm. what can I say, it is already a lot of work for me to understand,
and I don’t get to the point where I offer my own opinions. Mm.
I: You mean to keep up with the talk?
M: So, when I am asked “What do you think?” I need some time to think
about it. I don’t come up with an idea straight away. So on balance,
something like, you can take your own time, for example letters or
email, for those things I can say quite a lot. Well perhaps because they are
one-way [communication].
This suggests that the longer pauses were required for cognitive processing rather
than produced as a norm. However, there are instances of overlaps and near-TRP
turn initiation, as seen in some sections of the excerpts above, where Miki shows
an orientation towards no-gap turn transition. Below is one example from an-
other Cross-cultural communication class, in which Miki has presented a talk on
backchanneling across cultures: