Page 206 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 5. Performance and perceptions of silence 193

5.7 Summary of the chapter

In this chapter, the widely perceived silence of Japanese students has been dis-
cussed through the analysis of empirical data from an authentic multicultural
classroom context. The findings from the three case studies were also compared
with those from the studies in Japan (Chapter 3) and Australia (Chapter 4). With
regard to perceptions, all three Japanese students in the case studies were per-
ceived to be silent by their lecturers, peers and themselves. Furthermore, it was
revealed that lecturers expect and value voluntary participation from students,
so that those who do not volunteer comments or questions are regarded as “shy,”
“unconfident” or even lacking in “interest” and “commitment.” It was also found
that the frequency of contribution as well as non-verbal behaviour in the class-
room can contribute to impressions of overall academic competence.
However, when the Japanese students’ performance was analysed, the degree
and types of silence were found to vary. Moreover, most importantly, gaps in as-
sumptions about classroom communication and in perceptions of others by both
the Japanese students and the Australian participants were found to contribute to
silence. It was also noted that in the case studies a limited number of Australian
students tended to dominate classroom discussion and silence Japanese students
(whether consciously or from supportive intentions). Therefore, the role of profi-
ciency in English and the transfer of discourse style from L1 should not be over-
emphasised but treated carefully. This in turn also suggests that Japanese students’
interview comments in Chapter 4 reflected their overgeneralised views on their
silence in contrast with Australian students’ volubility.
While there is an overall tendency toward self-selection of turns in all the
sample groups, the Japanese participants relied more frequently on other-selec-
tion of turns for their participation. These incongruent participation patterns
confirm what was described by Japanese students in Chapter 4 and found in Japa-
nese high school classrooms, as seen in Chapter 3. Hence, silence can be seen to
be partly due to a lack of familiarity with voluntary participation. However, as
seen in Aya’s case, where self-selection in a particular participant structure (‘open
floor’) was critical to demonstrate academic competence, lack of participation
through a particular type of self-selection may lead to negative perceptions of
silence (and academic competence).
In the case studies, language proficiency seemed to vary slightly among the
three Japanese students, and so did the degree of silence. Importantly, language
proficiency did not seem to directly predict the degree of silence. It was found that,
rather than overall proficiency of English or general fluency, lack of command of a
specific genre of language in a specific context affected silence in both perceptions
and performance. It was also suggested that those who have decreased fluency (as