Page 179 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

166 Silence in Intercultural Communication

silence, in contrast with Kathy’s straightforward response and Robin’s attempts to
show her involvement, does not communicate her engagement in the discussion.
The examples shown above suggest that Japanese students and Australian stu-
dents may choose different politeness strategies in coping with face threatening
situations such as not knowing an answer when questioned. Judging from the ex-
tensive use of silent responses in Japanese high school classrooms, it seems that si-
lence in response to questions or invitations for participation is an unmarked and
common off-record strategy for Japanese students. From the teacher’s reaction, it
is also possible that the silent response is not perceived as highly face-threatening
or impolite. However, such silent response can be regarded as ‘rude’ or ‘impolite’
in other cultures. Pavlidou (2001) comments, referring to teacher-student power
asymmetry in general, that the teacher can ignore a student wanting to partici-
pate, but “a student could not simply remain silent if selected by the teacher as the
next speaker, at least not without severe consequences” (p. 107).
It is also possible that using silence as the most indirect form of message in
Australian classroom contexts can be interpreted as placing more demands on the
co-participants and is therefore a dispreferred politeness strategy in the situations
illustrated above. The meaning of silence may become a source of miscommunica-
tion if it is not interpreted as intended. In the case studies (for example, examples
(51) and (52) above), Japanese students were asked to provide answers a second
or a third time following their silences. This causes serious loss of face, especially
since they tend to perceive their Australian peers as voluble, and they know they
are expected to participate actively in Australian university classrooms. It is not
certain, however, if Japanese students are aware of the fact that silent responses
may be perceived negatively by their Australian peers or lecturers.

5.5.4 Assessment of politeness and negotiated silence

From the analysis above, we could say that silence is used as a marked face-saving
strategy by Japanese students in Australian university seminar settings. However,
precautions should be taken not to consider such politeness strategies of class-
room participants as fixed attributes. Instead, we should take into consideration
how politeness strategies are negotiated in various communicative situations.
First, we need to consider how lecturers deal with politeness in classroom
communication. Some lecturers seem to avoid making attempts to include less
vocal students because they do not want to embarrass the students. Dr. Telfer
from Case Study 2 explained why she does not prefer nominating a student: