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Last update:
9 February 2010

© John Benjamins
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Silence in Intercultural Communication

Perceptions and performance

Ikuko Nakane
University of Melbourne

Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 166

2007. xii, 240 pp.
Publishing status: Available

Hardbound – In stock
978 90 272 5410 8 / EUR 105.00 / USD 158.00
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978 90 272 9177 6 / EUR 105.00 / USD 158.00
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How and why is silence used interculturally? Approaching the phenomenon of silence from multiple perspectives, this book shows how silence is used, perceived and at times misinterpreted in intercultural communication. Using a model of key aspects of silence in communication – linguistic, cognitive and sociopsychological – and fundamental levels of social organization – individual, situational and sociocultural - the book explores the intricate relationship between perceptions and performance of silence in interaction involving Japanese and Australian participants. Through a combination of macro- and micro- ethnographic analyses of university seminar interactions, the stereotypes of the ‘silent East’ is reconsidered, and the tension between local and sociocultural perspectives of intercultural communication is addressed. The book has relevance to researchers and students in intercultural pragmatics, discourse analysis and applied linguistics.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements
ix
Transcription conventions
xi–xii
Chapter 1. Introduction
1–4
Chapter 2. A review of silence in intercultural communication
5–39
2.1 Overview
5
2.2 Preliminaries: Silence in communication
5
2.3 Silence in intercultural communication
12
2.4 Silence in multicultural classroom contexts
16
2.5 Silence of overseas students from Asia in the Anglo-mainstream classroom
18
2.6 Silence in Japanese communication
22
2.7 Summary: An overview of silence in intercultural communication
30
2.8 Interpreting silence
31
Chapter 3. The sociocultural context: Silence and talk in Japanese classrooms
41–67
3.1 Japanese high school classroom study
41
3.2 Linguistic domain
43
3.3. Socio-psychological domain
52
3.4 Cognitive domain
60
3.5 Summary: Japanese classroom practice and silence
66
Chapter 4. Perceptions of silence: From a macro-perspective
69–99
4.1 Introduction
69
4.2 Linguistic factors contributing to silence
72
4.3 Socio-psychological factors contributing to silence: Politeness orientations
84
4.4 Cognitive factors contributing to silence
91
4.5 Intentional and unintentional silence
97
4.6 Summary: Perceptions of silence in intercultural communication
98
Chapter 5. Performance and perceptions of silence: An empirical view
101–195
5.1 Introduction
101
5.2. Methodology of the case studies
103
5.3 Talk and silence in the case studies: Comparison of performance and perceptions
107
5.4 Linguistic factors contributing to silence
115
5.5 Socio-psychological factors contributing to silence
154
5.6 Cognitive factors contributing to silence
171
5.7. Summary of the chapter
193
Chapter 6. Re-interpreting silence in intercultural communication
197–208
6.1 Introduction
197
6.2 What is 'silence'?
197
6.3 The roles of factors affecting silence at different levels of social organisation
199
6.4 Rethinking 'the silent East': Perceptions and performance
203
References
209–219
Appendix 1
221
Appendix 2
223–224
Appendix 3
225
Appendix 4
227–228
Appendix 5
229–231
Appendix 6
233
Author index
235–236
Subject index
237–239

“[...] Nakane's work fills an important gap in the field by providing an in-depth understanding of silence in the multicultural classroom context. The book is particularly relevant for graduate students interested in carrying out research in the area of silence, intercultural communication and classroom discourse. Because the books explicates the intricate nature of silence, it would also be of interest to lecturers teaching students coming from a variety of countries, cultures and educational backgrounds and to native-English-speaking students studying in multicultural classrooms.”
Sibil Tatar, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey, in Discourse & Communication, Vol. 3(1), 2009

Subject classification

Communication Studies
Communication Studies
Linguistics
Discourse studies
English linguistics
Japanese linguistics
Pragmatics