Page 214 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 6. Re-interpreting silence in intercultural communication 201

that perceptions of silence may depend on the weight of significance placed on
participation in a specific type of participant structure, which could vary across
situations. Thus, those who do not participate as much as others in a participant
structure which is significant (academically or motivationally), may be perceived
negatively for their silence.
Turn-taking behaviour was also found to depend on the local negotiation to
some degree. The impact of the co-participants’ individual orientation to turn-
taking needs to be taken into account. The image of articulate Australian students
does not always represent every Australian student, and the turns allocated to
Japanese students were often taken over by the Australian students who tend to
dominate classroom discussions, while other Australian peers sat in silence.
A consideration of silence in the light of systems of politeness in context also
revealed how talk and silence are negotiated in intercultural communication. The
different levels of face threat perceived by participants may lead to varying polite-
ness strategies, which may explain such cases in which the same individual may
be silent in one situation and articulate in another. Furthermore, as demonstrated
by the case studies, it is important that silence and politeness are approached not
only from the user’s perspective but also from the receiver’s point of view. Such
a focus on ‘process’ and ‘assessment’ in politeness research, advocated by Eelen
(2001), Mills (2003) and Watts (2003), has been very informative in this respect,
particularly considering the ambiguous nature of silence.
In the cognitive domain, the topic discussed in the classroom was found to af-
fect the behaviour of the students. Not only the main topic of a particular session
but the types of topic across sessions – for example, technical or everyday – may
interact with the individual topic preferences of the participants and lead to si-
lence which is topically salient. It was also revealed that the silence may depend on
the types of background knowledge required for or relevant to a particular class
discussion and the knowledge schema that the individuals bring to the class.
Having considered silence in intercultural communication focusing on the
local negotiation of participation, it would not be an exaggeration to say that these
factors at the situational level are the key to addressing the tension between the
‘local’ and ‘global’ perspectives (Erickson 2004: 197) in interpreting intercultural
communication. Exactly how the situational level provided the key in the case of
my research will be presented in Section 6.4. 1 below, in which ‘the silent East’ will
be reconsidered.