Page 90 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 4. Perceptions of silence 77

ful analysis of participant structures found in both the Anglo-Saxon and Warm
Springs communities, Philips found that the Anglo-background teachers’ struc-
turing of classroom communication was not compatible with the communicative
practices into which Warm Springs Indian children had been socialised.
Following and modifying the framework of Philips (1972, 1983), participant
structures in Australian university classrooms were identified from Japanese stu-
dent interview comments and also later confirmed in the lecture and tutorial ob-
servations in the case studies (Chapter 5). These participant structures are:
1. teacher nominating a student individually;
2. one-to-one ‘unofficial’ interaction between a teacher and a student;
3. small group discussion;
4. open class discussion;
5. open class discussion after student’s own presentation;
6. student giving a presentation;
7. teacher-centred ‘straight’ lecturing.
In the first type of participant structure, one student is nominated by the teacher
to make a comment or respond to a question, while other students in class at-
tend to the teacher and the nominated person. The second type is a one-to-one
interaction between the teacher and a student (initiated by either of them), found
in a situation where students are engaged in individual or small-group work. The
difference between (1) and (2) is that while the student’s speech is heard by other
students in (1), the interaction between the teacher and the student may not be
heard by others in (2).
The third type of participant structure has students in small groups of typi-
cally three or four discussing some questions or issues. Usually a whole class feed-
back session follows this type of activity to exchange ideas from different groups.
In the fourth type of participant structure, the whole class attends to a discussion
in which the floor is open to all the participants. This includes occasions when a
short period of talk occurs after a certain kind of cue (verbal or non-verbal) or a
question is given to the whole class. The fifth type is similar to the fourth in that
the floor is open for all the participants in class for discussion, but the discussion
leader’s role is assigned to the student who is the presenter. In the Australian con-
text, although the teacher still has the ultimate authority to control the discussion,
student presenters are expected to take responsibility for the discussion after their
own presentations (Marriott 2000).
The sixth type is student presentation itself. It resembles teacher lecturing, but
it is a different type of participation since the roles are reversed. The final type is
when the teacher is giving a long stretch of talk in a straight lecture style, holding