Page 181 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

168 Silence in Intercultural Communication

tence if they are silent in class. Unless the ‘barrier’ is broken by either the student
or the lecturer, the negative consequences of silence will remain.
We can see that the politeness orientation of lecturers can also affect their
decisions in directing and regulating classroom discourse. Although the silence of
Japanese students is a face-saving strategy for them, it threatens the positive face
of Australian lecturers at the same time. On the other hand, Australian students’
politeness strategies appear to be less face-threatening for Australian lecturers,
as an “up front” and “relaxed” manner is expected from students in Australian
university classrooms. Thus, in order to save their own positive face, and to avoid
imposition on the negative face of the Japanese students, Australian lecturers
seem to divert attention from the silent Japanese students to Australian students
who are willing to participate voluntarily. As we have seen above, however, Japa-
nese students’ silence as a face-saving strategy appears to be common in Japa-
nese classrooms, and Japanese teachers do not seem to find it face-threatening, as
Australian lecturers appear to. A similar perception gap of silence and politeness
is raised in Goldstein’s (2003) study of Hong Kong migrant student silences in
Canadian high schools. The study showed that non-Asian peer students found
the silence of Hong Kong migrant students ‘burdensome’ and demotivating, while
some teachers, being aware of the problem, were found to be using nomination as
a way of enhancing these students’ participation. Interestingly, where Goldstein as
a researcher mentions the danger of ‘embarrassing students’ by nominating them,
the teachers point out that the students would get used to it gradually. This echoes
the Japanese high-school teachers’ strategies to deal with student silence, which
imply a limited concern with embarrassing silent students.

5.5.5 Context and politeness orientation

Another important aspect of silence and politeness is the role of context. There
is evidence that Japanese students do not always exhibit the politeness strategy
orientation illustrated above. For example, the Japanese student in Case Study 3,
Aya, who was found to be “quiet and retiring” by Dr. Lucas, was perceived to be
“always the first one to speak” and “fantastic” by other lecturers in Japanese Stud-
ies courses. One of Aya’s Japanese peer students even referred specifically to Aya
and another Japanese student actively participating in these other courses:

(58) [Interview: Japanese student]
[...] There are Japanese students who respond, […] a great deal, [...] even
though they are Japanese, in that kind of way in class, they are not - sort of not
hesitant like normal Japanese about participation. I watch these two girls
admiring the responses that pop out of their mouth. They are [Yuri] and [Aya].