Page 50 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 2. A review of silence in intercultural communication 37

gestions. Similarly, students who are not interested in the topics discussed or in
obtaining good grades may not speak vigorously in class.
Finally, although students who share the same cultural background may have
similar orientation to learning, there are individual differences which may or may
not be compatible with the learning style preferred in the specific classroom con-
text or by the host culture, leading to perceptions of either excessive volubility or
silence. Learning style and topic are factors which can be located at an overlap-
ping area of socio-psychological and cognitive domains, since learning style is
related to types of interpersonal involvement and topic choice may relate to the
preferred level of self-expression or disclosure of personal matters.
At the situational level in the socio-psychological domain, the degree of face-
threat and assessment of formality expected among participants can be consid-
ered key factors affecting silence and talk. As mentioned earlier (Section 2.2.2),
silence has been discussed as one of the key features in assessment of face-loss risk
and negotiation of face-work (e.g. Goffman 1955; Mills 2003; Tannen 1985; Sifi-
anou 1997). If an intended speech act is too face-threatening, one may withdraw
from performing the speech. At the same time, perceived power, social distance
and affective involvement may affect the amount and types of talk and silence.
At the sociocultural level in the socio-psychological domain, politeness ori-
entation is a key factor influencing silence and talk. For example, Sifianou (1997)
explains Greek orientation to high-involvement, solidarity-based politeness by
their preference for talk over silence. According to Sifianou, the English have a
more distancing and deferential politeness orientation, preferring much less talk
than the Greeks. Such difference in politeness orientations and the related valua-
tion of silence and talk may result in misunderstanding and negative cultural ste-
reotyping. While we can consider politeness orientation at the sociocultural level
in such terms as solidarity-oriented or hierarchy-oriented, community members
also develop a repertoire of strategies and interpretive frames to attend to face-
work, including silence in various forms and functions. Thus, in the framework
used here, such a repertoire is considered to belong to the socio-psychological
and linguistic domains at the same time.
The third domain of communication in the model is a cognitive one. Factors
at the individual level are speed of reaction, knowledge schema, and topic. An
ability to process input and react quickly is likely to increase opportunities for
participation, and thus speed of reaction plays a role. Language processing speed
is also related to the linguistic capacity of an individual and therefore it covers the
linguistic domain as well as cognitive domain.
Another important factor is knowledge schema. Varying interpretations have
been made of the term, but it is similar to what Widdowson (1983) described as
cognitive constructs accumulated through long term experiences which provides