Page 167 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

154 Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 3, a multi-directional communication system involving student-student
talk rarely occurs. This absence of communication among students in the class-
room has been associated with assumptions that the teacher is the only authority
of knowledge and that learning takes place through reception of knowledge from
an authority, rather than through negotiation and interaction with peers and/or
the teacher (see Section 3.3.1; Matsuda 2000; Ballard & Clanchy 1991; Milner &
Quilty 1996). Thus, as Marriott (2000) indicates, Japanese students are not likely
to be familiar with the Australian “tutorial genre” (p. 286).
It must be noted, however, that the immediate contextual factors such as peer
initiatives to interact with Japanese students (in Miki’s case) or a teacher-domi-
nant communicative structure of the class (in Aya’s case) affected the Japanese
students’ modes of communication to a great degree. In other words, cultural
or linguistic interpretations of Japanese students’ silence in a specific mode of
communication should not be overemphasised; other factors affecting behaviour
should also be taken into consideration.

5.4.5 Summary

The results of the case studies reveal a complex and mixed picture of silence and
perceptions of it. It is likely that perceptions of silence are affected by the fre-
quency of voluntary participation through self-selection. At the same time, per-
ceptions of silence seem to be strongly related to evaluations of student academic
performance. Nevertheless, the frequency or the amount of participation does not
seem to simply account for perceptions of volubility or silence. As we have seen,
strategies which enhance or reduce the level of control in classroom discourse
seem to make a difference. On the other hand, the mode of classroom discourse
varies from class to class, and the effect of strategies on the perceptions of talk and
silence may depend on the ways in which the classroom discourse is structured.

5.5 Socio-psychological factors contributing to silence

This section discusses the orientation of the three Japanese students to politeness
in relation to their silence and in comparison with that of Australian students. It
will demonstrate how silence and talk are used to negotiate politeness by the three
Japanese students and their Australian peers and lecturers.