Page 70 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 3. The sociocultural context 57

the dates))
6 (pause – around 5.0)
7 Teacher: New Year’s Eve. How about this day?
8 Teacher: New Year’s Day.

As can be seen above, it seems that in Japanese classroom interaction there is
significantly less simultaneous talk, less competition for the floor, shorter turn
length, and longer and more frequent silent pauses than in Australian classrooms.
There are also fewer sequences initiated by students.
On the other hand, a most likely explanation for the students’ collective si-
lence seems to be that the act of volunteering an answer or comment means show-
ing off and thus brings about loss of face, the modest face expected of an average
Japanese student. This explanation of avoiding ‘showing off’ is common to studies
on Asian students’ reticence (Anderson 1992; Goldstein 2003; Tsui 1996). Indeed,
in my data, a student was teased by his classmates when he expressed his opinions
clearly and more articulately than others:

(11) [Tokyo High School Class4 Modern Japanese]
Class is talking about some young people who had disrupted the coming-of-age
ceremony, held nationally on the 15th of January every year by bringing in alcohol or
crackers, or making noise.
1 Teacher: Ms. Kitano.
2 Kitano: Better to listen when it’s time to listen.
3 Teacher: Ms. Hotta, what did you say now?
4 Hotta: Make it a party.
5 Teacher: How about you Mr. Okada?
→ 6 Okada: We must listen. Of course we must listen, right? Those who do not
7 listen even when they come to an age have distorted
8 (‘kussetsushiteru’) mind, so it has to be cured.
→ 9 Nakata: Professor, what is distorted (‘kussetsu’)?
10 ((Class laugh))
→ 11 Teacher: How about you, Mr. Nakata?
While Kitano (line 2) and Hotta (line 4) responded with short sentences and in a
non-committal manner, Okada took a longer turn, stating his opinion in an asser-
tive and serious tone. However, he was teased by other students (lines 9 and 10).
Moreover, the teacher did not refer to Okada’s comment and instead nominated
the student who actually teased Okada (line 11). It seems that the teacher nomi-
nated this student to divert the attention from Okada’s threatened face.
The resistance to volunteering in class was also commonly found in Fuji high
school, where an English teacher was observed to use an interesting strategy. Tak-