Page 97 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

84 Silence in Intercultural Communication

4.3 Socio-psychological factors contributing to silence:
Politeness orientations

The next category emerging from the Japanese student comments relates to socio-
psychological aspects of classroom participation; that is, silence which reflects
inhibition, fear, anxiety or embarrassment about speaking in public. This seems
to lead to a use of silence as a face-saving strategy (Chapter 2).

4.3.1 Maintaining positive face of the self

In the comment below, the student indicates that a lack of confidence in English
and anxiety due to having to speak in front of native speakers lead to her silence.

(27) You know, with Chinese people for example, their English is not perfect. So,
in fact it’s easy for me to speak with them. I get nervous when I speak with
native speakers, thinking something like, ‘What if my English is not correct?’
But with people like Chinese people, I can speak without worrying about
this kind of thing. [25:92 F1]

This student also mentioned that she experienced racism during her time at sec-
ondary school in Australia, and her friendship group tended to be made up of
Asian students. The fear and rejection she experienced may have had a silenc-
ing effect, similar to that shown in Losey’s (1997) study of Mexican American
female students in the U.S. and found among migrant students from Hong Kong
in Canadian high schools in a study by Goldstein (2003). Goldstein described
this as “inhibitive silence” (p. 65), drawing on Cheung’s (1993) discussion of
student silence. Thomas (1983: 106), drawing on Glahn (1981), comments that
“[n]on-native speakers may sometimes appear to be behaving in a pragmatically
inappropriate manner (for example, by being unexpectedly deferential) because
they (rightly) perceive themselves to be at a disadvantage.” Such a perception of
disadvantage puts non-native speakers on a different footing from native-speaker
Australian students and, where there is a high risk of face loss, may affect the line
of interaction taken.
An anticipation of being negatively perceived by the lecturer also seems to
inhibit participation:

(28) I must say asking questions to the lecturer is kind of scary. Because I don’t have
confidence in grasping the theories, I have this fear that lecturers may in fact
spot my weakness if I ask questions. So I decide I’d better not do it. [20:69 F9]