Page 186 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 5. Performance and perceptions of silence 173

(65) [Interaction: Aya]

26 Henry: I just think that (0,2) (es ar: ci:), even
27 though they did that, (0.2) they were
28 within the guidelines of the ( ),
-> 29 (4.5)
-> 30 Lect: What do you think about this question Aya,
31 (0.4)
-> 32 Aya: I- I- I ↑just wasn’t sure what you mean
33 wha- ex- (0.6) what extent? belong to-? Is
34 it like (1.6) the youth have (0.6) really
35 get (.) (got) up from the reading which is
36 written by Ueda?
In general, if Aya is nominated for an opinion or to recount a personal experience,
she responds within one second, as shown above. It was when she was asked to re-
call a fact in history that her pauses were longer. As mentioned earlier, in a course
for which she had more motivation and confidence, she was described as the first
student to speak. Having experienced the Australian secondary school system,
she may be more familiar with the mode of interaction in Australian classrooms.
With regards to Tadashi in Case Study 1, as discussed earlier, he finds it dif-
ficult to adapt to norms of turn-taking speed in Australia, but whether this is
because of the time he requires for organising thoughts is difficult to determine,
based only on analyses of classroom interaction and his interview comments.
Nevertheless, there is an indication that thinking time contributed to his silence.
In his interview, he told of an arrangement with a lecturer (not those in the ob-
served classes) where the lecturer told him what questions would be discussed in
advance and for which question Tadashi would be nominated. This allowed him
more time to be organised for this participation. In this way, he managed to secure
his participation without having to deal with the problem of turn-taking timing,
and at the same time he had enough time to organise his thoughts. However, it is
still difficult to judge whether the preparation time required was due to a lack of
English proficiency (which is unlikely, given the command of English displayed in
his speech) or to the need to structure the content of his comment.

5.6.2 Knowledge schema, topic and shared knowledge

Another aspect of the cognitive factors raised by the Japanese interviewees in
Chapter 4 and discussed in Chapter 3 in relation to silence was the role of knowl-
edge schema. While each individual has their own fields and level of knowledge,
those who share a cultural or linguistic background are likely, to a large extent, to