Page 37 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

24 Silence in Intercultural Communication

In daily conversations, business meetings, and school classrooms in Japan, si-
lence is much more common and is of longer duration than in Western countries.
(p. 51, italics mine)

Thus, as we can see, length of silent pause is often described to be relatively lon-
ger than that of native English speakers, and is claimed as one of the causes of
intercultural miscommunication. Pritchard (1995) reports that Japanese students
in an EFL classroom with a teacher who is an English native speaker are likely to
feel that their own space is covered with their teachers’ speech as they try to fill in
the silences. Marriott (1984) also argues that Australian English native speakers
correct themselves or use prompting in their interaction with Japanese speakers
whose tempo of speech they find slow. Furthermore, Murata (1994), comparing
frequency of interruptions in interaction between (1) native speakers of Japanese
in Japanese, (2) native speakers of English in English and (3) native speakers of
Japanese and native speakers of English in English, suggests that Japanese ways of
speaking prefer not to have interruptions while English ways of speaking prefer to
have interruptions as a sign of commitment to conversation. These findings imply
that the tempo of turn-taking is relatively slower in Japanese than in English. In
addition, what is interesting is that the Japanese participants interrupted more
frequently when they interacted with English native speakers in English than in
their own language, which according to Murata (1994), suggests that the Japanese
participants may have accommodated their interactional style.
Silences which occur at TRPs of first pair parts are particularly sensitive issues
in intercultural communication in English with Japanese speakers. In particular,
native speaker English teachers seem to have difficulty in making judgement as to
whether a long pause at TRPs after questioning Japanese students are for think-
ing time required before responding or for a silent speech act indicating that one
does not know the answer, or for even nervousness (cf. Anderson 1992; Pritchard
1995). Anderson (1992) notes that Japanese students’ non-comprehension tends
to be signalled by facial expressions and attitudes, and their period of silences
should not be interpreted as “unwillingness to comply” (p. 102). On the other
hand, Pritchard (1995) points out that transfer of L1 communicative style causes
a problem for Japanese students in an EFL classroom:

For the Japanese, slow, careful speech is an indication of thoughtfulness and pru-
dence which in English discourse may cause frustration and impatience. In an
EFL classroom, silence is equated with ‘I don’t know the answer,’ rather than ‘I’m
thinking about it.’ Students, therefore, need to be taught ways of coping with this
silence. (p. 255)