Page 94 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

Chapter 4. Perceptions of silence 81

not been discussed in the literature and therefore their preferences for asking
questions during class cannot be assumed.
As shown earlier, it was reported that there is a tendency for less silence to
occur in small group discussions (participant structure 3), and more silence in
open group discussions of the whole class (participant structure 4). This contrast
can be addressed by considering the degree of public attention in class. In other
words, participant structures which give a lower degree of public attention to the
speaker are likely to correlate with less silence from Japanese students, while in
participant structures in which a higher degree of public attention is given to the
speaker, one may see Japanese students being more silent. The degree of public
attention is related to face-risk (Brown & Levinson 1987; Goffman 1955) in that
the more public attention, the greater the threat to face. Silence has been found to
serve as a strategy to avoid loss of face in public among hearing-impaired people
(Jaworski & Stephens 1998), and it can be used for the same purpose by Japanese
students. Silence in open discussion is to be explored in more detail in the next
section, and further investigated in the case studies in Chapter 5.
When we look at the two dimensions of pressure and public attention, the
degree of public exposure seems to be overridden by the pressure to talk. Stu-
dents reported to opt for speaking even if they were to be heard when nomi-
nated by the teacher, a participant structure in which the pressure to talk is high.
Kurzon (2001) points out the difficulties people may have remaining silent when
asked a question, by referring to Malone (1986) and Schulhofer (1987). Kurzon
(2001) also claims these difficulties are particularly felt when the questioner is in
an authoritative role. Therefore, although a student’s turn through nomination
in this participant structure is heard by the whole class, silence here would be a
highly marked behaviour, and hence is likely to be avoided. As Sifianou (1997)
states, silence when not responding to a question can be seen as a sign of rudeness
rather than as an attempt to avoid a face-threatening act. It is interesting, however,
that in Japanese high school classrooms, this type of silence was commonly seen
(Chapter 3), and we will be examining some examples of this silence in the case
studies in Chapter 5.
From another perspective, however, when the level of public exposure is high
and the pressure to talk is low, as in open class discussions or in straight lectures,
Japanese student silence is likely to be most distinctively found, according to their
comments. The Japanese students’ comments on silence in the interviews were
given mainly in relation to open class discussions. Moreover, they often com-
pared their own silence with their Australian peers’ volubility in this participant
structure.