Page 191 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

178 Silence in Intercultural Communication

there seem to be topics which Australian students regularly introduce but Japa-
nese students do not. Personal and everyday life experiences, often contributed to
classroom discussions by Australian students, were noted by Japanese students to
be missing in their notion of ‘classroom discussion.’ This difference may contrib-
ute to Japanese student silences. However, the Japanese participants’ performance
in the case studies revealed a different picture. Although it was found that silence
could emerge from the absence of talk on specific topics, preferred and dispre-
ferred topics of the three Japanese students appeared to vary.
In the sessions observed in Case Study 1, which were all in the field of edu-
cation, it appeared that students were allowed or encouraged to share their own
experiences as a student or a trainee teacher, since they had already had their
teaching practicum in that year and were about to enter the teaching profession.
Therefore, comments such as “I remember in my prac,...” or “In my school, ...”
were heard frequently. An example is given in the following interaction excerpt
below, in which one of Tadashi’s classmates provides her own experience related
to the issue of “rank order” in high school exams in the Curriculum and Examina-
tions class.

(72) [Interaction: Tadashi, Curriculum and Examinations]
1 Lect: and that’s what they mean by the rank
2 order. And the differences.
3 Linda: So what would you do space out difference
4 in assessment? or: maybe ( ) that? or
5 (0.4)
6 Lect: >I mean< it could be that my test was too
7 easy.
8 Linda: All right.
9 (0.7)
10 Chris: I remember with um: one of our subjects in
11 um year twelve, in a ( ), (0.2) our
12 teacher gave us the mark that she thought,
13 (0.2) and then she got uh:m one of her
14 friends who’s teaching in a different school
15 to just give us a mark of[ her own ? ]
16 Lect: [Very import]ant.=
17 Chris: =yeah. (.) just to see like the difference
18 in um: (0.2) markings. (.) yeah.=
19 Lect: =Working with colleagues getting advice
20 from someone else bouncing an idea of (
21 ) monitoring (0.2) it’s very important.
22 (0.4)