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Chapter 6. Re-interpreting silence in intercultural communication 207

Finally, it may be necessary to reconsider the nature of ‘classroom participa-
tion’ and the negative connotations attached to silence in the classroom (Jaworski
& Sachdev 2004), as well as the positive aspects of silence in the classroom as
demonstrated in existing studies (Rowe 1974; La Forge 1983; Jaworski & Sachdev
1998). The strong reliance on verbal communication in the classroom for assess-
ment of academic competence, which was critically regarded by some of the Japa-
nese students in my study, should be re-evaluated.
Although the present research focused on Japanese students, some of the im-
plications given above can be applied to groups in other intercultural communi-
cation contexts, especially where silence is viewed as a problem. In doing so, as
has been argued above, it is important to consider the given model in relation to
the immediate context, and to the historical/political context, of the interaction.

6.4.3 Implications for research into silence in intercultural communication

In this book, I aimed to demonstrate how silence is constructed through the
perceptions and performances of participants in intercultural communication.
A combination of methodological approaches and data sources, including eth-
nography of communication, conversation analysis, analysis of coded classroom
interaction and stimulated recall interviews, enabled the provision of multiple
accounts of silence and a critical discussion of silence from these various perspec-
tives. While conversation analysis provided an understanding of silence as a prod-
uct of participants’ orientations to face-to-face interaction which often operate at
an unconscious level, self-reports given in interviews brought out silences which
would not be found otherwise (Jaworski & Stephens 1998) and revealed the types
of silence which can be perceived and how they are perceived. Empirical analysis
of silence in intercultural communication has been scarce and is long overdue.
More empirical accounts of silence – as to exactly what behaviour is perceived as
marked silence and how such silence is noted as ‘deviant’, or taken for granted, by
participants in intercultural communication – are required if we wish to advance
a theory of silence.
There are limitations to this study, however. More empirical data and rigor-
ous analysis as baseline information on standard length of inter-turn pauses in
Japanese would have provided useful comparative data for analysis of silence and
turn-taking management. There were also difficulties in specifying, from among a
number of possibilities, the motivations for, and interpretations of, silence in each
context. The ambiguity of silence is magnified in intercultural communication. It
will always be a problem in this field of research, and is exactly why the triangula-
tion of data and analytic tools is important. Another limitation is that a contras-