Page 82 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

chapter 4

Perceptions of silence

From a macro-perspective

4.1 Introduction

In this chapter, I approach silence in intercultural communication from the par-
ticipants’ perceptions. The discussion here is based on what the participants said
about silence, and actual classroom interaction will be examined in Chapter 5.
As I briefly mentioned in the introductory chapter, I initially set out to de-
termine the communication problems faced by Japanese overseas students when
they join mainstream classrooms in Australian universities. At the exploratory
stage of the research, the following questions were addressed:

1. What are the problems faced by Japanese students in communication in Aus-
tralian university classrooms?
2. Are there any discourse patterns characteristic of Japanese students which
could be sources of problems in communication in Australian university
classrooms?
As I explored these issues by conducting ethnographic interviews with Japanese
participants, the phenomenon of silence emerged as significant, leading me to the
focus of study in this book: silence in intercultural communication. The research
questions formed after the initial and exploratory stage were:

1. How do the Japanese students compare themselves with their Australian
peers in terms of talk and silence in the classroom?
2. What are some explanations for the Japanese students’ self-perceived si-
lence?
3. Are Japanese students perceived to be silent by Australian lecturers?

For questions 1 and 2, interview data was analysed to identify different types of
silence described by Japanese students. Following this, questionnaires were dis-
tributed to lecturers to ascertain whether they also perceived Japanese students as
silent (question 3) and if so, what types of silence were perceived. The interaction