Because of its ambiguous function and usage, silence is a major source of intercultural
miscommunication, which frequently leads to negative judgments, and breeds stereotypes.
Grounded in a cross-cultural and interactive framework, I conducted a five-month descriptive
qualitative study, which explored silence perceptions among Chinese, Korean, Russian,
Colombian and Iranian ESL speakers, and Canadian native-speakers of English (NS). Multiple
perspectives were investigated using stimulated recall, in a context of intercultural mentoring
sessions and interviews. Eight ESL 'silence producer' participants were asked to explain their
silence use, and their interpretations were compared with the functions attributed to these
silences by other participants, one from the same cultural background as the 'silence producer',
and a NS. Participants' silence perceptions were described, and most negatively-interpreted
silences were identified. Analysis revealed intra-cultural acrimony, that high language
proficiency perceptions increase negative silence attributions, cross-cultural differences in
attitudes towards fillers, and the systematic silencing of ESL speakers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/33661 |
| Date | 29 November 2012 |
| Creators | Lemak, Alina |
| Contributors | Kerekes, Julie |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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