Page 30 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 2. A review of silence in intercultural communication 17

with language differences, cultural differences and teachers’ perceptions and ap-
proaches to these differences as major factors creating and reinforcing Mexican
American women’s silence in the classroom. The teachers’ questioning tends to
be directed to the whole class, which makes it difficult for Mexican American stu-
dents to react quickly enough before their Anglo-American counterparts. Even
when Mexican students manage to respond or initiate, interruption by the teacher
or peers frequently occurs, further damaging self-esteem and leading to more si-
lences. In addition, Mexican students suffer from not being given opportunities
to speak about the ‘real’ issues which they are interested in or with which they
may empower themselves, as the teacher’s questions are mostly ‘display’ questions
to teach ‘academic discourse’ for improvement of composition skills. However, in
one-to-one tutorial sessions and unofficial talk in class with peer students, Mexi-
can American students, in particular the most silent female students, broke their
silence when they received social support from peers and tutors. The teacher in
Losey’s (1997) study was committed, but the silence and inhibition of the Mexican
American women made her form a negative perception of them, and consequently
this was reflected in her communication with them in the classroom, which fur-
ther brought about a negative assessment of their performance. Losey’s work is
significant in that she integrated language differences, gender differences, cultural
and historical backgrounds, and the immediate environment of the multicultural
classroom in investigating the silencing of minority students.
In the studies mentioned above, silence or silencing of the minority students
in the classroom can be seen as a sign of discrimination and control and also the
tension which exists in negotiating power relationships between the teacher and
students, as Gilmore (1985) shows. The black students in his study, who compose
the dominant population in the school, used their ‘stylized sulking’ to show defi-
ance against the teacher. Although Gilmore (1985) interprets this defiant silence
also as a face-saving strategy, it “often turns the loss of face back to the teacher”
(p. 155). What is interesting is that white teachers tend to show understanding of
what they regard as culturally patterned behaviour, while black teachers and par-
ents do not tolerate the silent sulking. This study shows that teachers can also be
challenged by the silence of their students, and feel that their face is threatened.
As described above, silence in the multicultural classroom tends to be re-
garded negatively as it often marks asymmetrical power relationships. Neverthe-
less, positive aspects of silence in the classroom have also been reported. Mohatt
& Erickson (1981) found that Indian students at an all-Indian school on Odawa
reserve in Canada were more responsive to an Indian teacher who gave a ‘wait-
time’ of 4.6 seconds average while the responsiveness of students decreased with
a non-Indian teacher whose ‘wait-time’ was 2.0 seconds average. Hence, not only
does the increase of ‘wait-time’ increase the quality of classroom communication