Silence and Politeness in Intercultural Communication in Uni Seminars

Journal of Pragmatics 38 (2006) 18111835
www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma
Silence and politeness in intercultural communication in

university seminars
Ikuko Nakane *
Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
Received 29 December 2004; received in revised form 8 May 2005; accepted 8 July 2005
Abstract
This paper examines naturally-occurring university seminar interactions1 in Australia and reports an
analysis of the politeness orientation of participants with Japanese and Australian backgrounds in relation to
speech and silence. Although the silence of students from Asia, attending universities in countries such as
the US, UK and Australia, has been discussed extensively in the literature, empirical studies of silence in
classroom settings are still scarce. This paper aims to explain such phenomena, using participant interviews,
classroom observation and detailed discourse analysis of classroom interaction. While silence was
commonly used by Japanese students to save face, verbal strategies were more common among Australian
students. The extensive use of face-saving silences by Japanese students was found to be negatively
evaluated by Australian lecturers whose response strategies, while meant to avoid imposition on Japanese
students, also resulted in lack of rapport. However, the study also finds that silence may be negotiated when
shifts occur in the participants perceptions about the footing of their own and/or their interactants.
# 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Silence; politeness; University seminars; Intercultural communication; Japanese; Australian English
1. Introduction
1.1. Silence and politeness
Despite being an important feature of politeness (Mills, 2003; Saville-Troike, 1985; Sifianou,
1997), silence has not been given sufficient attention in politeness research. Silence can be used
* Tel.: +61 3 8344 8893; fax: +61 3 9349 4870.

E-mail address: inakane@unimelb.edu.au.
1
Some of the sessions observed and video-recorded were called lectures, and some tutorials. However, all the
sessions involved both teacher-centered talk and class discussions with a maximum of 23 students, and for convenience,
the term seminars is used throughout this paper.
0378-2166/$ see front matter # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2006.01.005
1812 I. Nakane / Journal of Pragmatics 38 (2006) 18111835
in social encounters to avoid the imposition, confrontation or embarrassment which may not be
avoided when one uses verbal expression (Jaworski, 1993, 1997; Jaworski and Stephens, 1998;
Sifianou, 1997). However, surprisingly, in the classic work on the theory of politeness by Brown
and Levinson (1987), silences used as politeness strategies are scarcely discussed. Nevertheless,
the authors assume that silence could be a realization of the Dont do the FTA (Face Threatening
Act) strategy, where one may decide not to perform the FTA at all when the risk of threat to face
is too great.
In contrast, Sifianou (1997) claims that silence can be used to perform most of the politeness
strategies identified by Brown and Levinson (1987). For example, silence can be used as a
positive politeness strategy when it functions as a sign of solidarity and rapport, while it can also
be a negative politeness strategy if it functions as a distancing tactic. In addition, it is also possible
to use silence as an off-record strategy when it serves as the most indirect form of a speech act
(Saville-Troike, 1985; Tannen, 1985). It is also worth noting that while silence has a positive
value in avoiding imposition, it can also be the least polite form because it places high
inferential demands on the addressee (Sifianou, 1997:73).
It is indeed important for politeness research to give more consideration to assessment of
appropriateness by the hearer(s), rather than focusing exclusively on the speaker (in the present
study, the user of silence) (Eelen, 2001; Mills, 2003; Watts, 2003). Thus, in this paper, I will
discuss Japanese students silences as politeness strategies, while considering the interpretations
and assessments of these strategies by their Australian lecturers and peers.
In her discussion of politeness in intercultural communication, Sifianou (1992) claims that
communication problems are more likely to occur among participants from different socio-
cultural backgrounds, due to gaps in the tacit agreement among native speakers as to which
forms are conventionalized, which forms carry what degree and what kind of politeness
(p. 216). Spencer-Oatey (2000) also suggests that rapport management strategies may vary
across cultures and lead to problems in intercultural communication. An example of this is
Scollons (1985) study on silence and politeness in communication between Anglo-Saxon
Americans and Athabaskan Indians. It shows how negative stereotypes can be created because
of gaps in sociocultural norms and values underlying talk and silence as politeness strategies.
Anglo-Saxon Americans view their communication with Athabaskans as failure, due to
unreciprocated talk, while Athabaskans find that Anglo-Saxon Americans talk too much and
are rude.
In Brown and Levinsons (1987) categorization of politeness orientation across culture (which
is done from the perspective of American or British culture), Japanese culture is described as
having negative politeness orientation. Relating politeness orientation to volubility and
taciturnity, Scollon and Scollon (1995) suggest a correlation between the talk-silence dimension
with the positivenegative politeness dimension (in their terms, involvement-independence).
Considering that the Japanese are often described as attaching strong values to, and making
abundant use of, silence (e.g. Barnlund, 1975; Loveday, 1982; La Forge, 1983; Lebra, 1987), and
assuming that Australian culture tilts towards American or British culture, AustralianJapanese
intercultural communication may be expected to exhibit positive and negative politeness as well
as a talksilence contrast. However, such a dichotomizing view needs to be carefully scrutinized
to avoid making sweeping generalizations about cultures (Eelen, 2001; Mills, 2003; Sifianou,
1992). Instead, we need to base our analysis and discussion of silence and politeness on the
participants behaviour and perceptions in relation to the local context of interaction, the specific
institutional context, and the wider cultural context (Holmes and Stubbe, 2003; Mills, 2003;
Watts, 2003).
I. Nakane / Journal of Pragmatics 38 (2006) 18111835 1813
Notable here are the number of discussions on politeness in Japanese and the applicability of
the Brown and Levinson (1987) model of politeness to it. Among all, Ide (1989) and Matsumoto
(1988) are often referred to as having brought about the critical view that politeness is not
universally motivated by the addressees wish to be free from imposition. Instead, the concepts of
face as a socially and publicly acceptable self-image, and of politeness as motivated by
discernment, have been argued to be more acceptable (e.g. Ide, 1989; Matsumoto, 1988).2
However, my focus in this paper is on the role of silence in relation to politeness, and I will not go
into the discussion of the universality of Brown and Levinsons theory. Rather, I will take
Hamamotos (2001) view that the face that is maintained as a socially appreciated and expected
image in Japanese culture can be interpreted as Brown and Levinsons (1987) positive face.
In considering silence and politeness in intercultural communication, the issue of native-non-
native speaker relationship needs to be addressed. Discussing silence of people who have limited
capacity in verbal communication, Jaworski and Stephens (1998) refer to a study by Gass and
Varonis (1991) which suggests that silence, in communication between non-native speakers and
native-speakers, may be employed as a face-saving strategy. Native-speakers may avoid talking
to non-native speakers to free themselves from the imposition of being required to repeat or speak
loudly, while non-native speakers may, like hearing-impaired people, avoid asking for repetitions
in order to save their interlocutors negative face.
1.2. Politeness in the classroom
Another aspect of the interaction studied here, which has a major impact on the participants
orientation to politeness, is the classroom setting. Pavlidou (2001) has discussed politeness
orientations of teachers and students in Greek high school classrooms. She finds that the teachers
used positive politeness strategies for developing cooperative atmosphere of learning, while
students attended to teachers negative, rather than positive face. It was argued that, because of
the roles assigned to the participants in class, teachers do not need to attend to students negative
face, while students do not need to attend to the teachers positive face. Pavlidou (2001)
concludes that classroom interaction in her study is characterized by minimal politeness
investments (p. 129), as teachers have to perform FTAs, which they themselves and the students
assume as being normal, and therefore certain FTAs do not require redressive action.
In the present study, the institutional context of the university seminar involves its own
practical goals (in this case, teaching and learning), institutional norms of interaction, and role
relationships, all of which affect the participants choices and assessments of politeness
strategies. Holmes and Stubbe (2003) characterize the two demands that impact on politeness in
the workplace as transactional versus interpersonal, social or affective goals (p. 53), and argue
that the ways people deal with tensions between these two demands need to be considered by
taking into account factors such as participants role relationships, number of participants, the
type of message and its urgency, and so on.
1.3. What is meant by silence?
Before entering into a detailed discussion of silence and politeness, it is necessary to clarify
what types of phenomena are referred to by silence in this study. Although silence tends to be
2
For discussions of Japanese politeness, see e.g. Pizziconi, 2003; Matsumoto, 2003; Haugh and Hinze, 2003; Foley,
1997.
regarded as background to verbal communication, it takes various forms, and functions at many
different levels of human interaction. In this study, however, I focus on three types: (1) temporary
or total avoidance of communication by individuals who do not hold the floor in interaction; (2)
avoidance of certain speech acts; (3) turn-constituting silences with illocutionary force. The third
type may be intended or interpreted as inter-turn (or switching) pauses.
At this point, it is also important to comment on the aspect of intentionality of silence. In this
paper, I will be using the term politeness strategies in discussing the use of silence. However,
the view of linguistic/paralinguistic phenomena as strategies produced by the speaker as an
individual has been contested in recent works on politeness (e.g. Eelen, 2001; Mills, 2003;
Watts, 2003). In this light, it is important to consider the aspect of intentionality of silence in the
present study. Kurzon (1997) identifies intentional and unintentional silence, referring to the
former as silence intentionally used as a strategy, while the latter is silence caused
unintentionally, due to extreme anxiety, embarrassment or panic. Indeed, not all the silences
observed in classroom communication and discussed in the present study are intentional or
strategic. The problem is that, due to the ambiguous nature of silence, it is often difficult to
discern the intentionality of silence. Follow-up interviews with participants may sometimes
provide clues, but this is not always the case. Thus, for instance, the silence of an individual to
whom a question has been directed could be an off-record strategy, but also a pause for thinking
time, or an inability to speak due to embarrassment. In the last two cases, silence is not
intentionally produced, and therefore it would be inappropriate to identify such silence as a
politeness strategy.
Nevertheless, it is important to consider the assessment of silences, whether intentional or
unintentional, because even unintentional silences may be interpreted by other interactant(s) as
intentionally used, threatening their face. Thus, while I use the term strategy for convenience in
this paper, the concept includes behaviour which may not be intentional, yet could possibly be
interpreted as intentional.
2. The study
2.1. Questions and data
The study reported in this paper is part of a larger research project on silence in intercultural
communication in the classroom, which explores the role of Japanese students silences as
politeness strategies in multicultural university seminar settings. The questions addressed in this
study are:
(1) How are the silences of Japanese students employed as politeness strategies?
(2) Are there differences in terms of silence and talk as politeness strategies between Japanese
and Australian students behaviour?
(3) How do Australian lecturers perceive Japanese students silence in terms of politeness?
(4) How are silence and talk negotiated with respect to politeness in intercultural classroom
communication?
The data for this study was collected at two universities in Sydney, Australia, and includes (1)
semi-structured interviews with 19 Japanese students studying in mainstream university courses;
(2) questionnaire responses from 34 university lecturers; (3) video- and audio-recorded seminar-
Table 1
Participants in case studies
Case Participant Sex Age Residency Courses Classes observed No. of attending
study in Australia and recorded students
(years)
1 Tadashi M 27 8 BEd LOTE (languages (1) Teaching as a profession 2223
other than English) (2) Curriculum and examinations 25
2 Miki F 24 2.5 MA Japanese studies Intercultural communication 814
3 Aya F 23 6.5 BA Japanese and History of secondary education 34
Education
style classroom interaction and interviews with three Japanese students,3 their Australian peers4
and lecturers who participated in the recorded sessions (see Table 1); and (4) video-recording and
fieldnotes of classroom interaction from two Japanese high schools. Of these data the third set,
consisting of three case studies, will be discussed extensively here, although the other sets of data
mentioned above will be presented and discussed where relevant. The relevance of the Japanese
high school data for this study is that it provides an example of the type of classroom discourse
which Japanese students had been immersed in before coming to Australia. For certain types of
silences, such as avoidance of voluntary participation, the interview and questionnaire data about
silence in class provide valuable information concerning the participants perceptions of the
significance of, and reasons for, silence. To investigate avoidance of communication, self-
reported data is often the only source of information for researchers, as Jaworski and Stephens
(1998) argue. Other types of silences, such as occurring after a lecturers nomination of a student,
will be illustrated and discussed with transcripts of classroom interaction. All the interviews with
Japanese students were conducted in Japanese, and the comments were later translated into
English by the author. Table 1 (above) is a description of the Japanese participants and the
seminars in the case studies. All the names are anonymised.
2.2. The silence phenomena
In the initial stage of the research project, 15 out of 19 (78.9%) of the Japanese students
studying in Australian universities made reference to their being silent in classroom
communication. This self-perception of silence was most typically characterized by comments
such as I dont talk much in class or I am very quiet during discussions. Moreover, 14 Japanese
students (73.7%) described their Australian peers as active participants in class. Another
important finding in the interviews is that a particular type of silence was identified by Japanese
students. Most of the students who mentioned their silence explained that they would not speak
unless they are nominated. This was supported by the results from the case studies in which
participation patterns of the Japanese students and other key participants were analyzed. In
Tables 2 and 3, self-selected turns mean volunteered turns while other-selected turns mean
3
Tadashi (Case study 1) had studied in Bible school in Sydney for 4 years before starting his university studies in
Education. Miki (Case study 2) had spent 1 year at the same university as an exchange student, and after completing her
studies in Japan, came back to enroll as a degree program student. Aya (Case study 3) completed her secondary education
in Australia and stayed on to study at a university in Sydney.
4
In this paper, Australian peers refer to Australian-educated students of Anglo-Saxon origin.
Table 2
Overall distribution of turn types in the case studies
Seminar/turn types Self-selected (%) Other-selected (%) Total (%)
Seminar A (Case study 1) 91.0 9.0 100
Seminar B (Case study 1) 89.6 10.4 100
Seminar C (Case study 2) 84.9 15.1 100
Seminar D (Case study 3) 83.1 16.9 100
Average 87.1 12.9
Table 3
Japanese students distribution of turn types in the case studies
Seminar/turn types Self-selected (%) Other-selected (%) Total (%)
Seminar A (Case study 1: Tadashi) 0.0 100.0 100
Seminar B (Case study 1: Tadashi) 53.7 46.3 100
Seminar C (Case study 2: Miki) 56.5 43.5 100
Seminar D (Case study 3: Aya) 56.5 43.5 100
Average 41.7 58.3
turns taken as a result of nomination by another classroom participant. Table 2 shows the
distribution of turns by participants of each seminar, including both Australian and Japanese
students; Table 3 shows that of Japanese students only.
In addition, the lecturers in charge of the seminars in the case studies found Japanese students
to be silent unless nominated, as we can see from their comments below:
[Interview excerpt 1 Ms. Hardy]

[. . .] he would never volunteer and theres so many kids in that group that do volunteer
that unless you do, you dont have a chance. (Case study 1, on Tadashi)
[Interview excerpt 2 Dr Telfer]
I would have thought - because she never asked me, because she never volunteers
any comments, I would have automatically probably, until discussing with you
[the researcher], (inaudible) I would have automatically said oh she is an unconfident
shy person. (Case study 2, on Miki)
[Interview excerpt 3: Dr Lucas]
[. . .] My general impression was that she was very quiet and very retiring so it needed
some real, I suppose, a real decision on my part whether I was going to ask her questions
or bring her in because I felt just that she would have been quite happy to be in the
corner and not really part of it. (Case study 3, on Aya)
However, when the actual seminar interaction was examined in detail, a few cases of silence were
observed even where the Japanese students were nominated. The silence in this context was
explored by close analysis of the classroom discourse and of comments from follow-up
interviews.
Various factors, such as language proficiency, educational practices and beliefs about teaching
and learning, as well as each participants background and personal history were considered in
order to account for these silence phenomena. Among them, politeness strategies and
orientations seemed to have a very strong influence on the students silence, and this is the focus
of this paper.
3. Findings
3.1. Silence as a strategy to maintain positive face
3.1.1. Second language anxiety

The Japanese students comments in the interviews suggest that silence is often used as a
strategy to avoid loss of face. As a general pattern, this especially seems to be the case with
voluntary participation. Comments also suggest that fear of face loss is partly due to perceptions
of ones own insufficient language proficiency:
[Interview excerpt 4]
F1: You know, with Chinese people for example, their English is not perfect. So, in fact
its 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.
F7: If I had more Australian friends, [. . .] because most of my friends are international
students, I dont worry about my English and I enjoy communicating with them even if my
English is wrong.
This type of silence was also found among migrant students from Hong Kong in Canadian high
schools in a study by Goldstein (2003), who described it as inhibitive silence (p. 65), drawing on
Cheungs (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 (e.g. 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 may affect the line of
interaction they takewhere there is a high risk of face loss.
3.1.2. Adherence to correct responses

Not only lack of language proficiency but also anticipation of negative perception by the
lecturer, due to ones weak background knowledge, seems to inhibit participation:
F9: I must say asking questions to the lecturer is kind of scary. Because I dont 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 Id better not do it.
Speaking up without being well prepared or having an adequate grasp of the subject matter
was described by Japanese students as explaining their silence. One Japanese student mentioned:
F3: How can I say, something wrong, in Japan, saying something wrong is well not
quite bad, but somehow its like shameful, if you say something wrong, you feel
embarrassed, and that sort of thing I still have with me. So yeah I hate saying something
wrong, in front of people.
What is important to note here is that unlike the standard interpretation of politeness strategies
as ways to save the addressees face, this avoidance of talk by Japanese students seems to
function as a face-saver for the self. In their study of hearing-impaired peoples silence, Jaworski
and Stephens (1998) claim that hearing-impaired people use silence, especially in group
conversation, as a negative politeness strategy to avoid imposition on others, by asking them to
slow down or speak up. In the present study, however, Japanese students did not touch on the
issue of disturbing the flow of classroom interaction. Their silence as a politeness strategy is
addressed to protect their positive face, which includes the desire to be ratified, understood,
approved of, liked or admired (Brown and Levinson, 1987:62). From their point of view, the
threat to their own positive face is too great for them to participate. On the other hand, lecturers
may find lack of student participation face-threatening in an Australian context. In such a case,
politeness orientation is not reciprocated and the equilibrium of interaction is endangered. I will
return later to this source of cross-cultural misunderstanding.
As Goffman (1955) argues, in any social encounters human beings do face-work to avoid
losing face; thus, Australian students should also be expected to find risk in voluntary
participation (although they are unlikely to suffer from a fear of producing incorrect English
sentences). However, silence as a face-saving strategy does not seem to be common among
Australian students. There were comments by Japanese students about Australian students
speaking more casually, without fear of losing face:
F8: They dont keep it to themselves, I think. Like, its a bit of an idea, and its
not a big deal.
M2: I think they just put their thoughts into words and speak straight away. And they
dont think they are silly. Or, they are not wrong, and its not like they dont want to feel
embarrassed because they are wrong. They think opinions are opinions, and its a good thing
to speak.
M2: Not so many Australians are shy, I think [. . .] compared with Asian people who
are shy, they are somehow totally different [. . .] even if they are shy, they would give
their opinions.
These comments in turn seem to suggest that for these Japanese students making a comment is
in fact a big deal and they dont want to feel embarrassed. This gap may be due to differences
in the schema and interpretive frame. Schema is a notion originally discussed by Bartlett (1932)
which has extensively been used in discourse analysis (e.g. Gumperz, 1982; Roberts and Sayers,
1987; Tannen, 1993). Schema is a set of knowledge and belief structures that has been
accumulated through our past experiences and that scaffolds assumptions about our social
interaction (Roberts and Sayers, 1987:115). Interpretive frame, a notion developed by Bateson
(1972), is a set of expectations about types of roles and activities on which interactants rely to
interpret what is going on, and to react accordingly. These notions of schema and interpretive
frame have been particularly useful in analyzing intercultural discourse (e.g. Gumperz, 1982;
Tannen, 1993; Tyler, 1995), where differences in schemata and interpretive frames have often
been found to trigger miscommunication or misunderstanding.
In the context of the present study, therefore, different assumptions and beliefs about
education, and different expectations concerning appropriate behaviour in the classroom, may
lead to cross-cultural clashes. The Japanese students references to wrong English in the
answers shown above seem to reflect the educational practices and ideology of Japanese
schooling, where correctness of the end product is valued rather than the process of learning, such
as classroom discussion (e.g. Ballard and Clanchy, 1991; Kato, 2001; Milner and Quilty, 1996;
Yoneyama, 1999). Japanese students perhaps tend to have differing criteria for relevance and
correctness of student comments in the classroom, and hence frame classroom participation as a
risky act. In fact, Australian students participation was criticized by a number of Japanese
students for its carelessness and irrelevance. For Australian students, on the other hand, it is
possible that in the classroom, learning is achieved through negotiation of ideas, and therefore
quantity of talk matters. The ideologies and theories of education in Australia encourage student-
centered classroom practice. Classroom participation is often given weight as part of assessment,
and active participation may be considered as engagement and willingness to learn (e.g. Ballard,
1996; Ballard and Clanchy, 1991; Milner and Quilty, 1996). If so, silence may be interpreted as
unsuccessful learning (cf. Jaworski and Sachdev, 2004) rather than as fear of saying something
wrong. This may be one of the driving forces for Australian students volubility.
According to Thomas (1983), such a mismatch of schema and interpretive frame is a cause of
cross-cultural pragmatic failure, where interactants from different cultural backgrounds
misunderstand or miscommunicate intended meanings. Thomas (1983) identifies two types of
pragmatic failure, which are (1) pragmalinguistic failure and (2) sociopragmatic failure. In
pragmalinguistic failure, the attitude of the speaker towards the information is not mutually
understood, while in sociopragmatic failure, the intended illocutionary force and/or attitude of
the speaker to the hearer is not mutually understood (ibid. 101). The type of mismatch in schema
and interpretive frame among Japanese and Australian students mentioned above can cause
sociopragmatic failure. Thomas (1983) claims:
It is cross-cultural mismatches in the assessment of social distance, of what constitutes an
imposition, of when an attempt at a face-threatening act should be abandoned, and in
evaluating relative power, rights, and obligations, etc., which cause sociopragmatic failure.
(p. 104)
In their schema and interpretive frame of classroom interaction, Japanese students may find
the level of threat to their own face in the act of speaking higher than do their Australian
counterparts.5 Japanese students silence was perceived by lecturers as their major weakness in
the lecturer questionnaire in the present study, as comments below show:
Often silent when other students engage in discussion. It does not always mean language
difficulty, one suspects culture that expects only instruction.
5
There are also Australian students who do not participate or find it difficult to participate (Nakane, 2003), therefore it
is possible that the Japanese interviewees may have overgeneralized ideas about their Australian peers. However,
preliminary observation also suggests that Australian students silence may have to do with the intense competition for the
floor.
Some students are quiet, and dont speak much in class but write very good essays when
they have time to think and compose their sentences on paper.
A lecturer in Case study 1 comments on the performance of Tadashi:
[Interview excerpt 10: Ms. Hardy]

Id be interested to know what he was getting. Yes - pass . . . I couldnt imagine it would
be a higher level than a pass from just my impression in the classroom.
Some Japanese students are aware of the negative consequence of silence, and participated in
class after managing to reduce the level of face-threat. One student asked his lecturer if he could
have the questions for the next class so that he could prepare his comments. He also asked the
lecturer to nominate him for these comments so that he would not miss out by failing to jump into
the discussion. Another student made an arrangement with his classmate to have a question and
an answer ready before his presentation, since he feared that he would not be able to answer
questions in the question time.
Overall, however, there seems to be a pragmatic failure caused by the mismatch of politeness
orientation between Japanese students and Australian lecturers. As a consequence, academic
achievement seems to be sacrificed to some degree by Japanese students for the sake of face-
saving.
3.2. Silence as a Dont do the FTA strategy
Silence is also used as a Dont do the FTA strategy in a classic sense (cf. Brown and
Levinson, 1987; Sifianou, 1997) when Japanese students refrain from expressing
disagreement with the lecturer. Criticism and disagreement are the types of acts which
are dispreferred seconds (Levinson, 1983; Pomeranz, 1984; Sacks, 1987), and are in general
also highly face-threatening for the addressee (Brown and Levinson, 1987). The use of
silence, instead of verbal expression of critical views or disagreement, can be identified as the
superstrategy of Dont do the FTA. This type of silence is illustrated in a Japanese students
comment, below:

I dont really challenge lecturers. [. . .] There were times when I didnt understand
what was wrong with the way I was working, but I didnt particularly challenge the
lecturers. I didnt change the way I had been working. I continued the work the way I
wanted to anyway.
This students silence was not acceptance of, or submission to, the teachers comment about
his work, but avoidance of confrontation or even resistance covered up with surface acceptance,
as he continued to have his own way of working on his project. On the other hand, Australian
students are often described by Japanese students as expressing a critical attitude to lecturers.
However, as became clear from a personal communication with a lecturer on a teaching and
learning committee, covering up confrontation with silence while not accepting the lecturers
suggestion is considered to be rude by Australian lecturers. The hidden criticism or
disagreement may not surface and may not be noticed by lecturers, but if it emerges, for instance
in written assignments, it may lead to serious sociopragmatic failure. Whether or not less power
difference is assumed to exist, in a real sense, in the Australian university context, where critical
thinking is encouraged (e.g. Ballard, 1996; Ballard and Clanchy, 1991; Matsuda, 2000; Milner
and Quilty, 1996), expressing critical views or disagreement with classmates or the lecturer is
regarded as a sign of engagement and enthusiasm in learning as well as a way of showing
academic competence.
Below is an example of an Australian student in Case study 1 critically commenting on the
lecturers point (see Appendix A for transcription conventions) ((The participants:
Lect = lecturer; Tamara = a Greek Australian student)):
[Interaction excerpt 1]
6 Lect: Language teachers havent checked, (.)you know,
7 Greek teacher hasnt checked with Italian
8 teacher=Italian teacher (.) ah hasnt checked
9 with the Japane[se t]eacher.
! 10 Tamara: [But-]
11 (0.2)
12 Lect: Whats happening in the different
13 languages that I can bring in,
14 (0.2)
15 Tamara: Mm[:]
16 Lect: [t]o my subject for example film, (0.4)
17 bringing in the aspect of film. and
18 the text. ((cough)) u:m (1.2) one of the
19 successes with French and German, (0.2) and
20 then later Japane:se, was (.) precisely
21 using film. (0.5) and its come late to some
22 other languages = you were gonna say
23 but (.) Im sorry,=
! 24 Tamara: =Ahm yeah I- I understand like cause Ive
25 been studying Greek for many many many many
26 years since (.) you know kindergarten, and
27 uni, (0.7) but- um (0.4) uh I just dont
28 know okay we have to implement new
29 strategies in order to get (0.2) you know,
30 candidates to continue the language, hhh
31 but I think its (0.4) it- it varies from
32 >subject to subject< cause once you get to
33 >year eleven and twelve for Greek< its more
34 content based. hh I dont know how >you
35 will be able to< introduce it.=
36 Lect: =(Right/But),
! 37 Tamara: and I dont know how students would
38 react. (0.4) I dont know if its such a
39 difference?
In the excerpt above, it is interesting to see Tamara perform the FTA of making a critical
comment in stages with redressing politeness strategies. She shows approval by saying yeah I- I
understand in line 24, being positively polite, and then indirectly expresses her doubt by
hesitantly saying but um . . . I just dont know (from line 27 to 30, being negatively polite),
before gradually getting to her disagreement but I think its . . . it varies from subject to subject
(lines 3132; being negatively polite); I dont know if its such a difference? (lines 3839; being
negatively polite). This type of staged critical comment was performed by other Australian
students. Here we can see a tension between a need to perform FTA for a practical goal of
classroom participation and a need to maintain the lecturers face.
In her study on politeness in Greek high school classrooms, Pavlidou (2001) finds minimal
politeness investments in teacher-student interaction (p. 129), and explains that, because of
the goal-orientedness of classroom activities, certain acts that would be very face-threatening
in another setting are less so in classroom (p. 130). In the Australian university context, the
criticism and disagreement, which are highly face-threatening in other settings, are performed
with staged politeness strategies by Australian students, and lecturers are likely to perceive
such behaviour as an indicator of academic competence rather than as threatening the lecturers
face.
Turning to the Japanese students orientation to politeness, Tadashi in Case study 1 did not
perform critical comments or disagreement. For example, when Mr. Fuller wrote up his ideas for
the assignment on the whiteboard, inviting Tadashi and Kylie for their opinions, Tadashi focused
on copying the details, whereas Kylie negotiated the content with Mr. Fuller ((The participants:
Lect = Lecturer; Kylie = an Australian student)):
1 Lect: Is this: (0.6) being unreasonable? or can
2 you see uh:=
3 Kylie: =No it=
4 Lect: =practical purpose with this.
! 5 Kylie: I can see (it)/(you).(0.2) because it is
6 good (0.2) but u:m so are you saying that
7 we design one, and then we give you reasons
8 for what weve designed ( ) thing that.
9 Lect: u:h the so: (0.2) what- what I am getting at
10 i:s, say youve got two (.) two foci if you
11 like. (0.2) year eight and year ten. (0.4)
12 there might be something different.(1.5) you
13 know there might be difference in what you
14 do in year eight what you do in year ten.
15 (0.6)
! 16 Kylie: Yeah (.) uh: but- are you saying that we
17 desi:gn (0.2) one for year eight and one for
18 year ten and then we give reasons for what
19 we designed that?
In the follow-up interview, Tadashi said that the assignment had seemed too long, but he had
not said so:
[Interview excerpt 12: Tadashi]

I: What did you think of the content of assignment?
T: That was a bit, well, to be honest I thought it was, it might be a bit too much, but,
then, the content of the assignment seemed very useful, so [. . .] I decided not to say
anything. I will do this if the teacher told us to do this, I thought.
This silence of non-resistance or non-negotiation could in fact be considered as Tadashi s

politeness strategy of Dont do the FTA. In the other two case studies, critical comments and
disagreements were not performed by Japanese students either. Instead, tendency towards
deferential behaviour towards the teacher was observed. In Case study 3, Ayas politeness
orientation appears to assume a hierarchical power relationship (see Hofstede, 1980) with the
lecturer Dr Lucas, while her peers were found to use more solidarity-oriented strategies with him.
The exchange below shows an incident in which Ayas deference towards Dr Lucas can be clearly
seen during her paper presentation:
5 Lect: What would you say if I tho:ught (.) that
6 your nineteen twenty three was a mistake.
7 (0.2) I thought it should read ninety thirty
8 three. (0.5) Do you think thats possible?
9 (1.0) ((Aya looks through the paper))
! 10 Aya: Possible.=Yes, ve(h)ry very possib[le].
11 Lect: [um]:
12 Lect: Cause (0.3) the nineteen thirties are
13 great depression. (0.4) in Australia >in
14 most of Europe most of north America<. (0.4)
15 an- it certainly in South Australia.(0.4)
16 They put fees on. (0.2) in high schools.
17 (0.2) Id be very surpri:sed if that
18 shouldnt be ninety thirty three.
19 (1.3)
20 But I could be wrong. (.) I 8( ) 8.
21 (2.4) ((Aya looks through the paper))
22 Lect: Maybe its not worth checking now, b[ut ]
! 23 Aya: [sor]ry=
24 Aya: =Yea.
25 (0.3)
26 Lect: But if it is ( ) (0.2) thirty three=
! 27 Aya: =Oh no I havent-,
In the excerpt above, Dr Lucas points out that the year 1923 which Aya has on her handout
may be a mistake. Aya replies that it is very very possible after 1.0 s in which she turns the
pages of the article on her lap. It is unlikely that Aya spotted the error during the 1.0 s pause in line
9, as she still tries to find the relevant page in the article between lines 19 and 21. This means that
without having strong evidence of her error, she deferred to Dr Lucas suggestion. In line 27, Aya
also blames herself (Oh no I havent) for the confusion. Notice also that her apology (line 23)
and agreement with Dr Lucas suggestion to check the facts later (line 30 Yeah) overlap with
Dr Lucas turns, and her admission of her shortcomings (line 27) latches onto Dr Lucas turn (line
26). Ayas deference to Dr Lucas was also noticed by one of her peers:
[Interview excerpt 13: Robin]

[. . .] she said its very possible, I think she said - or something like that. So that sort of
showed [. . .]. It probably shows that shes got a lot of respect for the lecturer as well.
In that way, like that it was very possible, like straightaway she said without hesitation
like Oh no. [. . .] Shes - yeah, whatever hes saying, you know.
From Ayas perspective, whether or not she has a lot of respect for the lecturer, she mentions
a very strong pressure to perform and be well prepared:
[Interview excerpt 14: Aya]

[Dr Lucas] is very, you know, experienced, and certainly his own knowledge, he knows
his own subject well, and yeah, he is very well organised, so in that sense, I am not
unhappy about him. To some degree, yeah, because he is too strict, or rather than strict,
he is disciplined, I myself in turn have to be disciplined, that sort of pressure is very
strong, so - yeah.
The footing that Japanese students take in classroom interaction thus seems to assume a
relatively more hierarchical relationship between the teacher and the student, as it also has been
claimed in Australian-Asian cross-cultural classroom studies (e.g. Braddock et al., 1995; Ballard
and Clanchy, 1991; Milner and Quilty, 1996). Furthermore, in the framework of Japanese
schooling, teachers are often regarded as holding the authority for knowledge, which is to be
transmitted to the student without question (e.g. Matsuda, 2000; Yoneyama, 1999). Thus, silence,
instead of highly face-threatening disagreement or criticism, is the appropriate option for
Japanese students. Here again, the level of face-threat may be perceived as higher by Japanese
students due to institutionally and socioculturally conditioned politeness orientations (cf.
Hamamoto, 2001; Ide, 1989; Matsumoto, 1988, 2003). In the Australian university classroom
context, however, the option for silence is a marked, as well as negatively evaluated, strategy.
According to Thomas (1983), such mismatch of power and social distance assessment is one of
the causes of cross-cultural sociopragmatic failure.
3.3. Silence as an off-record strategy
As mentioned in section 2.2, Japanese students interview comments suggested that they
tend to remain silent unless nominated for a comment or a response. However, close
examination of classroom transcripts in the case studies revealed instances of their silence
after being nominated. In this section, I will demonstrate that silence of Japanese students
when being asked for a comment or response can be identified as an off-record politeness
strategy.
In the excerpt below, Tadashi from Case study 1 remains silent (line 33) after being counter-
questioned by the lecturer. (The participants: Tadashi = a Japanese student; Lect = lecturer;
WY = a Korean student; Kylie = an Australian student; Gary = an American student).
6 Lect: The last, (.) Eleven,
7 (0.6)
8 WY: What is a profession. (0.3) What
9 distinguishes profession from trade, (0.2)
10 What does it mean to be a professional?
11 (0.4) Does being a pro- professional affect
12 the way you dress (0.2) speak behave
13 towards others at work?
14 (0.7)
15 WY: Uh: 8[ (so:) ]8
16 Lect: [Comme]nts?
17 WY: U:m (0.5) my definition of a profession is:
18 u:m (0.4) actually (0.2) a occupation,
19 (0.2)
20 Lect: Mm hm?
21 WY: Uh: but um (0.4) who got thi: (0.5) um e-
22 expert on (a special) field?
23 Lect: Mm: hm?=
24 WY: =Yeah.
25 (0.4)
26 Tadashi: An- to be paid for (too).=
27 WY: =Yea:h.
28 Lect: And what? Sorry?
29 Tadashi: Um to be paid for?
30 (0.3)
31 Lect: Paid for?=So what to do with
32 (discriminating) a profession and a trade.
! 33 (1.5) ((Tadashis head goes down, hand on his chin))
34 Kylie: [You have to study to]
35 Gary: [You have to use ni]fty ja:rgon (.) if
36 you are a professional (0.2)
Judging from the simultaneous participation by the two students in line 34 and 35, Tadashis
silence was interpreted as an indirect message that he did not know the answer. Tadashi mentions
in the follow-up interview that he did not have confidence and he was not sure, so in the end he did
not say anything. However, unlike in an open floor for anyone to participate voluntarily, in this
context the pressure was on him alone to respond, as a nominated student. According to the
classic turn-taking rule by Sacks et al. (1974), he is required to respond somehow and anybody
else responding here will be violating the turn-taking rule. However, the length of his silence
seems long enough to entitle others to speak (cf. Jefferson, 1989) and his non-verbal behaviour
also suggests he is not sure of the answer. Silence in combination with these indicators can be
interpreted as an off-record politeness strategy.
In the next example, an Australian student, Molly, asks a question in relation to Mikis
presentation on backchanneling. Initially, Miki asks a clarification question (line 67), but after
that, she remains silent while Molly tries to elicit a response from her.
62 Molly: Do- do we: lik- do generally um: (0.6) I
63 dont know how can I say it right do Western
64 people: (0.3) do their ow- do their own
65 fill-in: stuff?
66 (0.2)
! 67 Miki: Do their, sorry?
68 (0.4)
69 Molly: L- like um (0.4) um? hu(h)h (0.2) li- do we
70 (0.2) instead of um:: li- >I dont know< we
71 have pauses instead of um: (0.6) I dont know
72 we have pauses instead of (0.5) um (0.2)
73 the: (0.2) those ( ) you know saying
74 something with: nodding or whatever, (.) do
75 we fill it in instead? (0.2) more?
! 76 (3.6)
77 Molly: Er the are the:se backchannel:s(0.4)um(0.2)
78 after: like specifically a:fter sentences but
79 the person keeps(.)the speaker keeps talking?
! 80 (1.2)
((Lecturer makes a comment on the concept of backchanneling))
133 Molly: But that- it- like how- >I dont know,< (.)
134 i- is there: (0.4) do Westerners do you find
135 Westerners do that?
136 (4.2) ((after 2.5, shakes her head))
137 Miki: I really dont (know) ( ).
138 ((looks down on the paper.
139 Molly nods 4 times- 1.2))
140 (6.0)
141 Lect: Its really (quite a) dramatic difference,(.)
142 (those) ( )
Molly is quite persistent in her pursuit of a response from Miki, who remains silent in
three occasions. In line 136, there is a long silence of 4.2 seconds. Since no one speaks, Miki
has to verbally express an outright admission of not knowing the answer, which causes a
serious loss of face. It is possible to consider these silences as realization of off-record
politeness strategy, but the silence did not seem to have been interpreted by Molly as Mikis
face-saving strategy.
The type of silences shown above are likely to be used as an indirect way of communicating
I dont know the answer or I have no idea or I am not quite sure if I understood the
question. However, as we can see above, Miki repeated this strategy until she had to verbally
express I dont know, and as a consequence, a long and awkward silence followed, and the
lecturer tried to restore the flow of discussion.
In fact, this use of silence was found extensively in my observation of high school classes in
Japan. When this type of silence occurs, teachers would either keep providing clues to guide
students to a correct answer or move on to the next student. The example below, from a lesson
on classical Japanese literature in a Japanese high school6 shows the former strategy (lines 2, 4, 7,
12 and 14):
1 T: Next, B. Who shall I ( ), Mr. ( ).
! 2 (pause - around 0.8)
3 S: I dont know.
5 T: Are you looking at the back [of the handout] ? What is the modern
6 translation of hitono soshiri?
8 S: I dont know.
9 T: Why dont you look for the relevant part in the translation and
10 read it ?
11 ((student looks for the relevant section?))
13 T: Hito no soshiri, where is it in the translation?
15 T: Soshiri means accusation, okay. So, where is it?
16 S ((reads out the relevant section))
17 T: Then, ( ), who is the subject of this sentence?
18 S Mikado.
Similar behaviour of students in Japanese schools was reported by an Australian exchange

student in Katos (2001) study:
When asked questions during the class, they [Japanese students] often said I dont know
even if they knew the answer, consulted other students before speaking up, or remained
silent until the teacher gave up and moved on to another student. (p. 62)
On the other hand, when they could not provide the satisfactory answer, the Australian
students in the case studies were often found to use verbal responses to indicate they either had no
idea, or only had some vague idea. In the following excerpt, Dr Lucas asks the group to give the
name of the chancellor of the university ((The participants: Lect = lecturer; Aya = a Japanese
student; Kathy and Robin = Australian students))
1 Lect: >You know< the myth goes on:, our own
2 chancellor or this university, (.) who is?
3 (1.0)
! 4 Kathy: hhh uh huh [huh hhhh] ((Aya silently giggles))
5 Lect: [Ah HAH ] ha:h, (0.2) whos the
6 chancellor of 8Sydney university8.
6
This transcription of Japanese classroom data was based on the notes taken by the author during the observation, as
video-recording was not allowed in this school. The original interaction in Japanese was translated into English by the
author. Empty parentheses represent inaudible word(s).
7 (0.4)
8 Robin: Um:=
! 9 Kathy: =Havent got [a clue.]
! 10 Robin: [I can ] see him (0.3) uh huh
11 huh huh=
12 Lect: =Aye,
13 (0.3)
! 14 Robin: I can see his picture: but-
15 Lect: All right, you really will. (0.2) because
16 its not a he.
17 (0.4)
18 Robin: Ah all right, (.) 8Thinking of ( )8
19 Lect: Its a she: its a woman called Leoni
20 Kramer. (0.8) you know? (.) Shes been
21 quite an important and powerful person
22 (0.4) in Australia.
It is interesting to see how the two students handled the situation in which they did not have the
correct answer to the question. Kathy openly admitted she did not have a clue. Her
straightforward response without hesitation as well as her giggles in line 4 suggest that she is not
worried about loss of face. On the other hand, Robin made attempts to show that she had some
clue, even though she could not come up with the name. Although she does not know the answer,
she manages to cope with the pressure to present herself as a committed student by showing her
engagement and requesting more clues to the answer.
As to Aya in the stretch of talk above, she was in fact the only one who stayed silent. She also
giggled when Kathy did in line 4, but silently. It is possible that her silence, in contrast with
Kathys straightforward response and Robins attempts to show her involvement, does not
communicate her engagement in the discussion.
The examples shown above suggest that Japanese students and Australian students may
choose different politeness strategies in coping with face threatening situations such as not
knowing the answers when questioned. Judging from the extensive use of silent responses in
Japanese high school classrooms, it seems that silence in response to questions or invitation for
participation is an unmarked and common off-record strategy for Japanese students. From the
teachers reaction, it is also possible that the silent response is not perceived as highly face-
threatening or impolite. However, such silent response can be regarded as rude or impolite in
other cultures. Pavlidou (2001) comments, referring to teacher-student power asymmetry in
general, that the teacher can ignore a student wanting to participate, but a student could not
simply remain silent if selected by the teacher as the next speaker, at least not without severe
consequences (p. 107).
It is also possible that using silence as the most indirect form of message in Australian
classroom contexts can be interpreted as placing more demands on the co-participants and is
therefore a dispreferred politeness strategy in the situations illustrated above. The meaning of
silence may become a source of miscommunication if it is not interpreted as intended. In the case
studies (e.g. interaction excerpts 4 and 5 above), Japanese students were asked to provide an
answer for a second or a third time following their silences. This caused serious loss of face,
especially since they tend to perceive their Australian peers as voluble, and they are expected to
participate actively in Australian university classrooms. It is not certain, however, if Japanese
students are aware of the fact that silent responses may be perceived negatively by their
Australian peers or lecturers.
3.4. Assessment of politeness and negotiated silence
3.4.1. Lecturers perceptions of student silence

From the analysis above, we could say that silence is used as a marked face-saving strategy by
Japanese students in Australian university seminar settings. However, precautions should be
taken not to consider such politeness strategies of classroom participants as a fixed attribute.
Instead, we should take into consideration how politeness strategies are negotiated in various
communicative situations.
First, we need to consider how lecturers deal with politeness in classroom communication.
Some lecturers seem to avoid making attempts to include less vocal students because they do not
want to embarrass the students. Dr Telfer from Case study 2 explained why she does prefer not
nominating a student:
[Interview excerpt 15: Dr Telfer]

T: First, because I worked in (inaudible) Aboriginal communities and habit into it
that singling out (inaudible) a direct question was a bad thing to do. And, second,
because working with undergraduates in big classes, if you ask them direct questions
you often put them on a spot.
I: Um. . .you dont like to do it to (inaudible)
T: No, we dont. We worry about doing it because if someone doesnt know the
answer, it is really bad if they dont have things to say, so . . . but, it doesnt . . .
from the semester (inaudible) in order to get better participation from the students
like Miki and Mike, I should ask direct questions.
These comments suggest that one way to avoid nominating a student in the classroom is the
Dont do the FTA strategy, used to minimize imposition or loss of face. As shown in interaction
extract 3 in section 3.3, Dr Telfer sensitively performs face-work when Mikis face is threatened
by her classmate persistently directing questions to her. Ironically, as she Drherself notes above,
Dr Telfer elicited relatively long accounts from normally inactive students by direct questioning
after becoming aware of issues in classroom participation in the first recall interview. Thus, her
line of interaction with quieter Asian students was altered to accommodate their politeness
orientation. Ms. Hardy in Case study 1 also mentions that students should not be embarrassed by
being forced to speak:

[. . .] there are many other kids like him [Tadashi]. And the Australian kids that
should not feel embarrassed - and to a certain extent, you know, as a tutor, I think
youve got to be aware - if they dont want to speak . . .
She also feels that the quietness of students such as Tadashi has to be respected as well,
and she wont impose that [speaking] because you [they] dont want it to happen. She also
says she is scared of breaking down the barrier which she feels is there. She goes on to
say:

[. . .] there must be a difference and in the behaviour that well tolerate that would cause
actually a difference between how I relate to Tadashi that I expect a bit more up front
more um engagement with me that probably- I find [it] difficult - that I dont get with
him and that I must admit I dont get with a lot of students that havent got an
Australian background?
However, the students are likely to be evaluated negatively for not participating actively (see
interview excerpt 10; cf. also Jaworski and Sachdev, 2004 for teachers beliefs about student
silence in the UK), and unless the barrier is broken by either the student or the lecturer, the
negative consequences of silence will remain.
Thus, we can see that the politeness orientation of lecturers can also affect their decisions in
directing and regulating classroom discourse. Although the silence of Japanese students is a face-
saving strategy for them, it is at the same time highly face-threatening for Australian lecturers. To
save Japanese students positive face wants, Australian lecturers attend to Japanese students
negative face wants of freedom from imposition. As we have seen in section 3.3, Japanese
students silence as a face-saving strategy appears to be common in Japanese classrooms, and
Japanese teachers do not seem to find it so face-threatening as Australian lecturers do. On the
other hand, Australian students politeness strategies appear to be less face-threatening for
Australian lecturers, as an up front and relaxed manner is expected from students in
Australian university classrooms.
A similar negotiation of silence and politeness is raised in Goldsteins (2003) study of Hong
Kong migrant students silence in Canadian high schools. The study showed that non-Asian peer
students found the silence of Hong Kong migrant students burdensome and demotivating, while
some teachers, being aware of the problem, were found to be using nomination as a way of
enhancing these students participation. Interestingly, where Goldstein as a researcher mentions
the danger of embarrassing students by nominating them, the teachers point out that the
students would get used to it gradually. This echoes the Japanese high-school teachers strategies
to deal with student silence, which imply less concern about embarrassing silent students (cf.
section 3.3).
3.4.2. Context and politeness orientation

Another important aspect of silence and politeness, as noted earlier, is the role of context.
There is evidence that Japanese students do not always exhibit the politeness strategy orientation
illustrated above. For example, the Japanese student in Case study 3, Aya, who was found to be
quiet and retiring by Dr Lucas (see interview excerpt 3), was perceived to be always the first
one to speak and fantastic by other lecturers in other courses. One of Ayas Japanese peer
students even referred specifically to Aya and another Japanese student actively participating in
these other courses:

[. . .] There are Japanese students who respond, [. . .] a great deal, [. . .] even though
they are Japanese, in that kind of way in class, they are not - sort of not hesitant as
normal Japanese about participation. I watch these two girls admiring that responses pop
out from their mouth. They are [Yuri] and [Aya].
The female lecturer in charge of this class, who will be referred to as Dr Riley, is always
smiling and encouraging students in an explicit manner. She commented that Ayas contribution
in her class was terrific and she was good in volunteering and vigorously talking in class.
One explanation is that Ayas different performance may depend on the perceptions about the
level of performance expected by the lecturers. While Aya mentions strictness and pressure in
Dr Lucass class (see interview excerpt 12), she appears to have responded positively to
Dr Rileys encouragement, as she commented:
[Interview excerpt 19: Aya]

[. . .] [Dr Riley], how can I put it, she says we should ask about anything. I mean, she
says there is no stupid question, and this, you know, just this makes me think of asking
questions, like she says it is okay to say things like What is a verb? So this motivates
me very much. I like this kind of way very much.
However, it should be emphasized that a space for negotiation as well as humor was present in
Dr Lucas class. He also commented in his interview that he was well aware of the fact that
students may falter in on-the-spot oral communication and that oral performance may not be as
reliable as written language is. Moreover, the two peer students from this subject commented that
the tutorial sessions were informal, relaxed and cozy. In fact, Dr Lucas commented that
Ayas communication felt formal to him. Thus, the pressure to perform well and the level of
deference towards the lecturer expected of students could have been overestimated by Aya. This
could have led her to communicate in a footing where correct answer is important and the
teacher is the absolute authority, which in turn was perceived by Dr Lucas as Aya distancing
herself and lacking in involvement.
Another important factor in relation to Ayas different politeness orientations and silence is the
topic. Australian Education was the subject of Dr Lucas course, while Dr Rileys was Japanese
Linguistics. Being a native speaker of Japanese, the line Aya takes in the latter course is that of an
expert user of the language in question, and because she is more informed on the topic, she is less
likely to say something wrong, or to receive disagreement or criticism. In contrast, she would be
in a position of apprentice in a course in Australian Education among Australian students, who
are more familiar with the topics in the course. Being less informed than other students entails a
higher risk of saying something wrong or receiving negative feedback.
The analyses of the empirical data above seem to show that use of politeness strategies is
negotiated in each unique classroom context. Both students and lecturers engage in assessing
threats to their own faces as well as to other participants in each situation, and silence is
constructed as a result of the interaction of these assessments.
4. Conclusion
The present study revealed that silence is used as realization of face-saving strategies by
Japanese students in Australian university seminars. Avoidance of voluntary participation can be
a way of maintaining positive face of the self, while avoidance of criticism and disagreement can
be a classic Dont do the FTA strategy to save the hearers face. Silence following a question or
invitation for a comment directed at an individual can be an off-record strategy. The results
support Sifianous (1997) claim that silence needs to be considered as realization of politeness
strategies beyond Dont do the FTA.
The study also found that silences as face-saving strategies are much less common among
Australian students, who tend to perform face-work verbally and establish rapport more easily
with Australian lecturers. Thus, cross-cultural sociopragmatic failure may be caused by a lack of
harmony between the politeness orientation of Japanese students and that of their Australian
peers and lecturers. Japanese students silence is negatively perceived in the Australian university
seminar setting, and at the same time seems to be a threat to face which lecturers want to avoid. It
was also suggested that silence is a negative indicator of academic competence in Australian
university education.
The politeness orientations of the Japanese and Australian participants appear to go hand in
hand with the ideology of education and the educational practices they bring to class with them.
In a Japanese educational context, silence does not seem to be a face-threatening and obstructive
behaviour, as knowledge tends to be transmitted from the teacher and proof of learning does not
require verbal performance. Silence thus becomes a conventionalized politeness strategy in
Japanese classrooms. In contrast, the assessment of talk as face-enhancing rather than face-
threatening behaviour in the Australian educational context appears to mean that certain types of
FTA cause less face-threat here than they do in other settings; also, conventionalized redressive
actions have developed in this context (for example, staged criticisms with positive and negative
politeness strategies).
The study examined silence and politeness not only from the users perspectives but also from
the receivers point of view. Such a focus on process and assessment in politeness research
advocated by Eelen (2001), Mills (2003) and Watts (2003) has been very informative in this
respect, in particular considering the ambiguous nature of silence. Japanese students face-saving
silences did not appear to be perceived be as such by Australian lecturers, but rather as
threatening the lecturers face. Furthermore, it is necessary for studies in politeness to take into
consideration the fact that politeness orientations may vary in their frequency and significance in
different contexts of interaction, and that politeness strategies are negotiated by interactants who
are sensitive to the politeness orientations of their co-participants.
There are limitations to this study, however. To name a few, the participants fields were
limited to the humanities; other contexts of university classroom interaction, too, need
exploring. Above all, however, the non-native and native speaker dimension needs to be
investigated more extensively, as it seems that non-native speakers tend to have anxieties
about producing erroneous speech in front of the class, something which is face-threatening
to them. Thus, Australian (or non-Asian) students politeness orientation in classroom
interaction in their second language needs to be studied, as it will enable fruitful discussion
of issues on silence, language proficiency and politeness in multicultural classroom
settings.
The tension due to politeness orientations, as discussed in this paper, may be alleviated by
providing awareness-raising opportunities for Japanese students as well as for their Australian
lecturers. I believe that this issue has not been brought up explicitly in actual teaching and
learning situations, and that simply talking about this may help bring down the barrier. In
particular, Japanese students need to be made aware that their silence may be interpreted
negatively in both social and academic terms and that it may even be regarded as impolite
behaviour. Another option for addressing the tension, as suggested by Goldstein (2003) and
Nakane (2003, 2005), is that more preparation opportunities before speaking, preferably in
groups, help reduce the level of face-threat. Finally, more participation from relatively silent
students can be expected through nominating them, although again organizing some form of
preparation may be necessary to address the face threat. In conclusion, it is hoped that more
attention will be given to silence in intercultural pragmatics research, as I believe it plays a key
role in politeness in intercultural communication.
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my thanks to the participants of this study in Australia and in Japan, and
to Ingrid Piller who gave me valuable advice.
Appendix A
Transcription conventions (for Australian classroom interaction data)*
[ point of overlap onset

] point at which overlap stops
= latching (no gap or no overlap between stretches of talk)
(0.5) elapsed time in silence by tenth of seconds
(.) micropause of less than 0.2 s
word stress
: lengthening of a sound
. falling terminal contour
, continuing contour
? rising contour
"# shifts into higher or lower pitch
88 speech noticeably quieter than the surrounding talk
CAPITALS speech noticeably louder than the surrounding talk
>< speech produced noticeably quicker than the surrounding talk
hh in-breath, the number of h indicating the length
hh an out-breath, the number of h indicating the length
- a halting, abrupt cutoff
() inaudible speech
(why/well) varieties of transcriptionist doubt
(( )) non-verbal activity
! a pointer to a specific part of an extract
*
Compiled from Atkinson and Heritage (1984), Jefferson (1984) and Sacks et al. (1974).
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Journal of Pragmatics 38 (2006) 18111835

Silence and politeness in intercultural communication in

1.1. Silence and politeness

* Tel.: +61 3 8344 8893; fax: +61 3 9349 4870.

1.2. Politeness in the classroom

1.3. What is meant by silence?

2.1. Questions and data

2.2. The silence phenomena

[Interview excerpt 1 Ms. Hardy]

3.1. Silence as a strategy to maintain positive face

3.1.1. Second language anxiety

3.1.2. Adherence to correct responses

[Interview excerpt 10: Ms. Hardy]

3.2. Silence as a Dont do the FTA strategy

[Interview excerpt 11]

[Interview excerpt 12: Tadashi]

This silence of non-resistance or non-negotiation could in fact be considered as Tadashi s

[Interview excerpt 13: Robin]

[Interview excerpt 14: Aya]

3.3. Silence as an off-record strategy

Similar behaviour of students in Japanese schools was reported by an Australian exchange

3.4. Assessment of politeness and negotiated silence

3.4.1. Lecturers perceptions of student silence

[Interview excerpt 15: Dr Telfer]

[Interview excerpt 16: Ms. Hardy]

[Interview excerpt 17: Ms. Hardy]

3.4.2. Context and politeness orientation

[Interview excerpt 18]

[Interview excerpt 19: Aya]

Transcription conventions (for Australian classroom interaction data)*

[ point of overlap onset

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