Page 195 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

182 Silence in Intercultural Communication

16 number. (1.2) uh ask for client services.
17 Tadashi: Okay.
18 ((T take notes/Lect still bringing out
19 materials 13.5))
Mr. Fuller described Tadashi as “business-like.” Tadashi himself revealed that the
type of questions he asked were more to do with administrative matters than with
the actual content of the subjects:

(78) [Interview: Tadashi]
I: What kind of occasions do you tend to ask questions?
T: Mmmm. I don’t really ask questions much, but well if I do, what can I
say, rather than the content, I ask about uh when the due date for
assignment is (laugh) or I ask the teacher to explain the assignment a bit
or something like that. Other than that, in terms of content of the class,
unless there is something I really need to ask about, I’d ask my friends.

Below is a comment by Ms. Hardy:

(79) [Interview: Ms. Hardy]
[…] the other students were quite personal, quite personal comments about
their life and about what they’d done and how they feel, but he certainly didn’t
do that.
Thus, there seems to be a gap in relevant and preferred topics between Tadashi
and Ms. Hardy, while his Australian peers’ preferences appear to match her ex-
pectations.
A close examination of his non-verbal behaviour suggests that Tadashi is
more committed to responding to knowledge-testing questions than to reach-
ing a better understanding of issues through interaction. This suggests resistance
to participation. When fact-checking questions were asked, Tadashi often dili-
gently examined his notes to find the answers. He also made more attempts to
self-select when questions requiring him to go back to his memory were posed.
For example, in the interaction excerpt below, Tadashi seems to be competing
for responses with Kylie, when the lecturer asks a question about key themes of
the Higher School Certificate. He gives the ‘right’ answer (line 42) slightly earlier
than Kylie, who overlaps Tadashi (line 43), but Tadashi repeats his answer in the
clear space (line 42). The competition continues for the next six turns. Tadashi’s
perseverance in the sequence is unusual but can be clearly seen in this excerpt, in
which memory-checking was the main task.