Page 217 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

204 Silence in Intercultural Communication

can be explained, to a certain degree, through the transfer of L1 discourse features.
However, the silence found was more than a consequence of a simple clash of
L1-L2 practices. Additionally, the extent to which silence was perceived and per-
formed differed among participants and across classroom contexts. Furthermore,
the explanations for silence and types of silence also varied.
For instance, in Case Study 1, it seems that factors at a sociocultural level
strongly affected Tadashi’s silences. The analysis showed that, patterns of his be-
haviour were similar to patterns typically found in Japanese classrooms, in that
he participated almost exclusively through lecturer nomination, he focused on
the written mode of communication, and he almost never engaged in interaction
involving his own personal views or experiences.
Of Case Study 2, one could say that factors at all three levels of social or-
ganisation seem to be equally significant. That Miki’s stay in Australia was the
shortest of the three case study participants (2.5 years), and that she was living
with a Japanese flatmate suggest that she had not had enough exposure to col-
loquial interaction among Anglo-Australian or Australian-educated students to
enhance her fluency. Nevertheless, she seemed to have diverged, to some degree,
from the Japanese sociocultural norms. Thus, factors such as knowledge schema
and preferred topics appeared to have enhanced her participation. The immediate
context of the class also seemed to have influenced her readiness to speak as it re-
quired her to share her personal observations of Japan and its culture which were
obviously more familiar to her than to the Australian students. This familiarity
factor also may have reduced the risk of face-threat, which would otherwise have
increased silence due to psychologically and socioculturally based fears of face
loss. However, her lack of participation in the negotiation of ideas, and in inquiry
about other students’ cultural backgrounds, appear to indicate a sociocultural-
ly-based orientation to a deference politeness system (Brown & Levinson 1987;
Scollon & Scollon 1995). These equally-weighted influences on Miki’s silence at
different levels of social organisation seem to reflect a particular stage of an ad-
aptation process to Australian classroom discourse. She expressed uncomfortable
feelings of wavering identities associated with English and Japanese, and the sense
of an inability to speak with fluency frustrated her as she wanted to speak more
in classroom discussions.
In Case Study 3 (Aya), it seems that a mismatch between the immediate con-
text of the particular class observed for the study and her individually preferred
classroom context significantly affected her silence. The academic concepts and
language essential for the particular subject were not congruent with Aya’s knowl-
edge schema and vocabulary, which caused her to remain more silent than in
other subjects. Moreover, the image of ‘strict lecturer’ as perceived by Aya, but
crucially not by her peers, modified her politeness orientation (Brown & Levin-