Page 72 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 3. The sociocultural context 59

6 Teacher 1: ((gives demonstration Q-A for the third question with Teacher 2.
‘What do you usually do on the New Year’s Day?’ ‘I usually ---.’))
7 Teacher 1: Yuuki.
8 (pause – around 4.0)
9 Teacher 1: ((gives a cue))
10 (pause – around 3.0)
11 Teacher 1: ((gives support))
12 (pause – around 1.0)
13 Yuuki: I work.
14 Teacher 1: Do you have a part-time job?
15 Yuuki: Uh?
16 Teacher 1: Part time job?
17 Yuuki: Yes.
18 Teacher 1: Okay.

Similar behaviour of students in Japanese schools was reported by an Australian
student in Kato’s (2001) study:

When asked questions during the class, they [Japanese students] often said ‘I
don’t know’ even if they knew the answer, consulted other students before speak-
ing up, or remained silent until the teacher ‘gave up’ and moved on to another
student. (p. 62)
Pavlidou (2001), discussing politeness in Greek high school classrooms, also states
that a student would not be able to “simply remain silent if selected by the teacher
as the next speaker, at least not without severe consequences” (p. 107). It seems
that, at least in Anglo-Saxon and European contexts, the silence of a student who
has been selected as the next speaker is perceived as marked and inappropriate. For
Japanese teachers, however, this type of silence does not seem to be as marked. In
Excerpts (12) and (13), we can see that teachers used strategies such as expansion-
initiating questions, rephrasing questions or providing clues to make sure that re-
sponses could be elicited. One English teacher at Tokyo High School told me that
often students simply say “I don’t know” or remain silent even without thinking
about the question. Thus, although receiving no response or an abrupt “I don’t
know” response may be face-threatening for Japanese teachers, they seem to chal-
lenge students’ resistance to speak or think by pursuing a proper response, as seen
in the teacher’s persistence in eliciting a response in Excerpt (12). For students, it
appears that silence or an “I don’t know” response are the unmarked strategy to
avoid engagement in the spoken mode of communication. As Yoneyama (1999)
puts it, the “silence among Japanese students is the other side of the coin of the
communication breakdown between teachers and students” (p. 86), but we should
note that this is at the level of oral communication. What matters practically for