Page 16 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 1. Introduction 3

interaction may affect choice between talk and silence. The rich, detailed accounts
of silence derived from interviews and recorded classroom interaction also dem-
onstrate the complexity of intercultural communication where perceptions and
performance unique to intercultural contact situations are observed. The focus is
on how the negotiation of speech and silence takes place and what contextual fac-
tors interplay. It is not cross-cultural differences per se, but how silence and talk
are perceived and negotiated that I aim to demonstrate in this book.
Finally, I will also address an issue which runs through the whole investiga-
tion: what is silence? what do we mean by silence? what is its role in communica-
tion? Hence, my research also concerns the operationalisation and conceptualisa-
tion of ‘silence’ by exploring both universal and culturally-patterned meanings
and functions of silence in multicultural classroom settings.
At this point, the scope of ‘silence’ examined in this book needs to be clari-
fied. ‘Silence’ discussed in this book takes the following forms: inter-and intra-
turn pauses, general non-participation or lack of participation in conversation,
lack of speech on specific topics/matters, or lack of speech specific to interactive
situations. In addition, the term ‘silence’ may also be used as a verb when refer-
ring to the action of preventing another from speaking. The term ‘intercultural
communication’ used in this book also needs to be clarified. Following the dis-
tinction made by Scollon & Scollon (2001) and Spencer-Oatey (2000), it refers to
communication occurring in encounters between people from different cultural
backgrounds. The term ‘cross-cultural’ is used when two groups from different
cultural backgrounds are compared, but not necessarily in interaction. Another
important clarification concerns that of the terms ‘Japanese’ and ‘Australian’. The
Japanese students in the Australian based studies are those who identified Japa-
nese as their first and strongest language and had Japanese parents. Some had
lived in Australia for more than 5 years, while others for less than 2 years. The
Australian students in the case studies discussed in Chapter 5 were from Anglo-
Saxon or European background, spoke English as their first and the strongest
language and were educated in Australia. The Japanese students’ interview com-
ments (presented in Chapter 4) also appeared to use the term ‘Australian students’
to represent this group.
Following this introductory chapter (Chapter 1), I review existing studies on
silence in both communication in general and intercultural communication in
Chapter 2, with a focus on silence in Japanese communication and in multicul-
tural classroom settings in general. This chapter sets my research in context. At
the end of the chapter a model for interpreting silence in intercultural communi-
cation is proposed. The model takes account of contextual factors at various levels
of social organisation from an empirical point of view. In Chapter 3, I describe
silence in Japanese classrooms through my own classroom studies in Japan. Fol-