Page 201 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

188 Silence in Intercultural Communication

Aya, she responds, overlapping with Dr. Lucas before her name is mentioned.
This suggests that rather than avoiding eye-contact, she was ready to pick up Dr.
Lucas’ non-verbal cue. Although there is a slight problem between lines 19 and 23
because of Aya’s voice projection and Dr. Lucas’ modification to his question, Aya
provides a response to the initial main question which was about extra curricula
experiences. Dr. Lucas asks a further specific question about Aya’s high school.
Aya overlaps again with Dr. Lucas in a slightly interrupting manner at a spot not
necessarily close to a TRP to respond to the question. She goes on to provide
details of her school in relation to its religious background. Aya makes further
comments on the nature of the “reform church” in lines 62, 63 and 65. In all these
exchanges, turn transition and adjacency pairs run smoothly with overlapping,
latching and less than 1.5 seconds transitional pauses, although the overlapping
talk occasionally occurred in a slightly interrupting manner. This exchange shows
turn-taking and pause management which contrasts with Aya’s general charac-
teristics in these areas, in which expansion of sequences was rare and long silent
pauses in turn transition were common.
Thus, it appears that Aya is at her best in situations where the subject matter
can be associated with her own life and experiences, while she tends to struggle
and remain more silent when expressing her own thoughts in her own way if
there are fewer opportunities for her to associate the content of learning with
her life and experiences. Gaps in topical preference between Japanese students
and Australian peers found in the self-reports of Japanese students in Chapter 4
contradict the findings in Aya’s case, as they did with Case Study 2. In contrast,
Tadashi’s case seems to be a strong reminder of topical preference in Japanese
classroom discourse in which the personal lives of students are generally consid-
ered irrelevant for learning (see Chapter 3), as well as of the pattern found in the
Japanese students’ interviews (see Chapter 4, Section 4.4.2). It was also confirmed
in the case studies that Australian students frequently provide their personal ex-
periences or stories in relation to topics for discussion. Nevertheless, the cases of
Miki and Aya were at odds with the Japanese students’ comments given in Chap-
ter 4. It can also be said that Miki and in particular Aya have adapted, to some
degree, to the norms of Australian classroom discourse.
Another factor affecting topical preference is personal interest. Aya’s case re-
vealed that loss of interest in the subject reduced her motivation to engage and
participate. On the other hand, her strong interest in subjects from Japanese stud-
ies, supported by her confidence in her background knowledge, motivated her
to participate actively. It was also shown that the level of difficulty Aya found in
different subjects affected her preference in topics. If one cannot grasp concepts
and the language related to them in a subject, it becomes difficult to participate.
Her native-speaker peers, on the contrary, expressed their interest and motivation