Silence rules

"There are no guidebooks for reading everyday nonverbal behaviors... instead it will be more beneficial to learn the framework"(Martin & Nakayama, 2010). Of all the different nonverbal behaviors to learn about, silence seems to be the most significant. The concept varies in importance between different cultures, and in the U.S. it is not highly valued. That makes it possibly even more important for Americans to understand. Silence has been studied and has been found to be beneficial in a number of situations. Martin & Nakayama cite that it is appropriate when meeting strangers, courting, seeing friends after a long absence, while getting cursed at, and while people are grieving. In addition to being advantageous, silence can also communicate boredom,  or can even lead to a poor outcome in a business setting. Silence, of course, simply refers to the act of not speaking or in this context, the act of non actively communicating.

John Cage, an american musical composer, was interviewed about different sounds in the musical context. He mentions that, even in music, sound holds a very unique place. When viewed from the perspective of silence everything else seems just as a constant noise. Even in the musical scene. Cage says that other sounds are always the same (including Beethoven or Mozart) and silence is always different. He goes on to say that the silence that is most often heard is traffic. This is an interesting point of view that doesn't completely reflect the typical american view of silence. Until recent studies, Americans have associated silence with negative, unhealthy relationships, or disempowerment. Newer studies have suggested that silence can help improve health and sanity.

When looked at from the intercultural communication point of view, silence means different things in different cultures. In an lecture, Cage is quoted to have said that the "introduction or interruption of silence might give definition to either a predetermine structure or too an originally developing one" (Cage, 1973). On the surface it is just the absence of noise, or as Cage inferred it is the prominence of background sounds. Unfortunately not many conclusions can be drawn from studying silence that can't be drawn from studying other nonverbal forms of communication: that it means different things to different people and in different cultures. I think that I will try to experiment with being silent, and try to pay attention to how it is perceived by other people as well as my initial reactions. Even though this cannot make me more culturally aware of how other people view silence, it can possibly help me see different ways of looking at being silence, and help me develop my own silence identity.

References

Cage, J. (1973). Silence. In Lectures and WritingsMiddletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.


Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2010). Intercultural Communication in Contexts (5th Edition ed). New York, NY: McGraww-Hill.