Page 172 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 5. Performance and perceptions of silence 159

Turning to the Japanese students’ orientation to politeness, Tadashi, in Case
Study 1, did not critically comment or disagree. For example, when Mr. Fuller
wrote up his ideas for the assignment on the whiteboard, inviting Tadashi and
Kylie to give their opinions, Tadashi focused on copying the details, whereas Kylie
negotiated the content with Mr. Fuller:
(46) [Interaction: Tadashi, Curriculum and Examinations]

1 Lect: Is this: (0.6) being unreasonable? or can
2 you see uh:=
3 Kylie: =No it=
4 Lect: =practical purpose with this.
-> 5 Kylie: I can see (it)/(you).(0.2) because it is
6 good (0.2) but u:m so are you saying that
7 we design one, and then we give you reasons
8 for what we’ve designed ( ) thing that.
9 Lect: u:h the so: (0.2) what- what I am getting at
10 i:s, say you’ve got two (.) two foci if you
11 like. (0.2) year eight and year ten. (0.4)
12 there might be something different.(1.5) you
13 know there might be difference in what you
14 do in year eight what you do in year ten.
15 (0.6)
-> 16 Kylie: Yeah (.) uh: but- are you saying that we
17 desi:gn (0.2) one for year eight and one for
18 year ten and then we give reasons for what
19 we designed that?
In the follow-up interview, Tadashi said that the assignment had seemed too long,
but he had not said so:

(47) [Interview: Tadashi]
I: What did you think of the assignment’s content?
T: That was a bit, well, to be honest I thought it was, it might be a bit too
much, but, then, the content of the assignment seemed very useful, so -
[…] I decided not to say anything. “I will do this if the teacher told us to
do this,” I thought.

This silence of ‘non-resistance’ or ‘non-negotiation’ could in fact be considered as
his politeness strategy of “Don’t do the FTA.”
In the other two case studies, critical comments and disagreements were not
performed by Japanese students either. Instead, a tendency for deferential behav-
iour towards the teacher was observed. In Case Study 3, Aya’s politeness orienta-