Page 79 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

66 Silence in Intercultural Communication

face of the modest self expected by classmates and the positive face of the ad-
dressee whose view has to be respected (cf. Section 3.3.2 above).
In the creative writing class in Tokyo High School, students were given a
chance to comment on their own work as well as that of others. There was a ten-
dency to make a humble or even negative comment about their own work such as
“My work is rather corner-cutting (tenuki)” (see Excerpt (7), Section 3.3.2). Even
though the students were encouraged, they did not refer to other students’ work
except for general comments such as “This class has a lot of good poets” or “I was
impressed with everyone’s work.” No critical comment or comment referring to
a specific aspect of other students’ work was made, although the teacher encour-
aged the students to do so. As already mentioned, those who asserted their own
stance were teased by other students (cf. Excerpt (11), Section 3.3.2), as on one
occasion with “All right, that’s enough.” Those who verbalise their own opinions
in class tend to suffer sanctions, and as Yoneyama (1999) shows, in the worst
cases, the minority of students who want their personal voices to be heard end
up dropping out of school. Although at Tokyo High School, there were occasions
where students were given opportunities to express themselves in a spoken mode,
they were reluctant to talk about themselves, often speaking in a modest way or
in short sentences. It was often the students’ resistance to speaking their minds
which discouraged teachers from student-centred pedagogy.

3.5 Summary: Japanese classroom practice and silence

From the discussion of Japanese classroom practices above, it would not be an
exaggeration to say that Japanese education produces ‘silent’ students (Yoneyama
1999). The social distance between the teacher and students and the emphasis
placed on objective knowledge are closely tied to a pattern of communication in
which students are expected to accept what the teacher gives them as non-nego-
tiable knowledge and to avoid standing out in the classroom.
The participant structures which are common in Japanese classrooms give
students few opportunities to verbally interact with one another. This is rein-
forced by the pattern of turn-taking which does not require the monitoring of or
even attention to other party’s talk. Students rarely initiate interaction sequences
or overlap other talk, but instead tend to take a ‘minimalist’ approach. Long si-
lent pauses, which are often silent responses, are not uncommon, although some
teachers seem to find it a problem. Thus, oral interaction in the classroom is typi-
cally fragmentary and even incoherent. Instead, there is a general tendency for
written language to be given priority by both students and teachers over spoken
language.