Article published In: Language and Dialogue
Vol. 6:3 (2016) ► pp.447–463
Keep silent or keep talking!
Remarks on silence in Romanian culture
Published online: 8 December 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.6.3.05ion
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.6.3.05ion
The paper approaches silence as a pragmatically relevant component of the dialogue. My aim is to illustrate the diversity of meanings and functions silence can discursively actualize, depending on the communicative situation. As a collectivistic, relationship oriented culture, Romanian culture is characterized by a preference for positive politeness strategies and accordingly by silence avoidance. Special attention will be given to the social, cultural, and individual parameters which determine the speaker to prefer silence to speech, as well as to the receiver’s position towards silence (accepted, rejected, or requested silences). I shall also have in view the relationship between the influence of individual factors and the socio-cultural tradition in actualizing silence. The data are excerpted from some corpora of spoken Romanian, as well as from a number of literary texts, given the fact that usually the latter reflect the prototypical behaviour of certain social groups or of some representatives of these groups.
References (24)
Enninger, Werner. 1991. “Focus on Silences across Cultures.” Intercultural Communication Studies I (1): 1–38.
Jakobson, Roman. 1960. “Linguistics and Poetics.” In Style in Language, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 350–377. Cambridge Mass: MIT Press.
Jaworski, Adam (ed.). 1997. Silence. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Berlin / New York: Mouton De Gruyter.
. 1997. “‘White and White’. Metacommunicative and Metaphorical Silences.” In Silence. Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Adam Jaworski, 381–401. Berlin / New York: Mouton De Gruyter.
Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Catherine. 1990. Les interactions verbales [Verbal interactions] 11. Paris: Armand Colin.
Kronenfeld, David B. 2008. Culture, Society, and Cognition. Collective Goals, Values, Action, and Knowledge. Berlin / New York: Mouton De Gruyter.
Lemak, Alina. 2012. Silence, Intercultural Conversation, and Miscommunication. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Toronto.
Milner, Jean-Claude. 1982. Ordres et raisons des langues [Orders and Reasons of Language]. Paris: Seuil.
Oduro-Frimpong, Joseph. 2011. “Semiotic Silence in Intimate Relationships.” Journal of Pragmatics 431: 2331–2336.
Philips, Susan U. 1985. “Interaction Structured through Talk and Interaction Structured through ‘Silence’.” In Perspectives on Silence, ed. by Deborah Tannen and Muriel Saville-Troike, 205–213. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publ. Corp.
Sacks, Harvey, Emmanuel A. Schlegoff, and Gail Jefferson. 1974. “A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-taking in Conversation.” Language 50(4): 696–735.
Sacks, Harvey. 1992 (1964–72). Lectures on Conversation, 2 Vols1., ed. by Gail Jefferson. Oxford: Blackwell.
Saville-Troike, Muriel. 1985. “The Place of Silence in an Integrated Theory of Communication.” In Perspectives on Silence, ed. by Deborah Tannen and Muriel Saville-Troike, 3–18. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publ. Corp.
Sifianou, Maria. 1997. “Silence and Politeness.” In Silence. Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Adam Jaworski, 63–84. Berlin / New York: Mouton De Gruyter.
Sobkowiak, Włodzimierz. 1997. “Silence and Markedness Theory.” In Silence. Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Adam Jaworski, 39–61. Berlin / New York: Mouton De Gruyter.
Tannen, Deborah, and Muriel Saville-Troike (eds). 1985. Perspectives on Silence. Norwood (NJ): Ablex Publ. Corp.
Tannen, Deborah. 1985. “Silence: Anything But.” In Perspectives on Silence, ed. by Deborah Tannen and Muriel Saville-Troike, 93–111. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publ. Corp.