Silence, Face And Politeness In Intercultural Communication In The Chinese EFL Class Of English Linguistic Postgraduates

A very salient and unique participation pattern for Asian students in the ESL class in English speaking countries and in the EFL context in Asia is silence; more specifically there is usually no response to teachers'questions but total avoidance of participation and communication in class (Song, 1995; Flowerdew and Miller 1995; Cortazzi & Jin, 1996; Liu, J., 2000; Davis, L., 2001; Jackson, 2002, 2003; Chen, T., 2003; Nakane, 2006). Moreover, silence is one form of the communication practices that is more revealing in terms of the cultural values and beliefs of the speech community and therefore, it is one of the most selected topics for ethnographic studies (Fitch, 1994). However, Asian students'classroom silence and its cultural meanings have been ignored by scholars both at home and abroad. Nakane (2006) holds that few scholars conduct empirical studies on Asian students'unique participation patterns and their underlying cultural meanings, though there are a great amount of theoretical elaborations and impressionistic descriptions. There seems to be three scholars who concentrate on ethnographic studies on silence patterns of Asian students in the ESL class in English speaking countries: Saville-Troike (1982; 2003), Liu, J. (1996, 2000, 2001a, 2001b, 2005) and Nakane (2006). However, most of their ethnographic researches are conducted in the ESL class in English speaking countries. No ethnographic studies on silence patterns and their cultural meanings have been conducted in the EFL class in mainland China. To fill in such a gap, the current ethnographic research attempts to explore the classroom silence of English Linguistic postgraduates in the Chinese EFL class. It tries to answer the following questions: What are students'definitions of classroom silence? What are the students'intentions and purposes behind silence? What are the factors that influence students'silence? What are the communicative patterns of silence in the Chinese EFL class? What are the cultural meanings and values of the silence pattern (students'cultural values and beliefs about the silence pattern)? How has the silence pattern been shaped culturally and historically? How does a native English speaker teacher interpret students'silence? Are there miscommunications? To answer those questions, first-year postgraduates of English Linguistics were observed for one year and 14 of them were interviewed twice or three times; the American teacher was interviewed and surveyed; documents on silence, handouts and assignments of the lectures were collected. The models of Chinese face and politeness serve as the theoretical framework of the current research. Chinese face is proposed as a situational social psychological construct closely related to highly complex hierarchical social networks, status and prestige (Hwang, 1987; Zhu, 1988; Ide, 1989; Ho & Zhou, 1993; Lim and Choi, 1996; Garcia, 1996, Placencia, 1996; Wang & Yang, 2006; Jia, 2007). Chinese politeness is the behavior to maintain Chinese face with the functions of keeping the Confucian hierarchy and social acceptance (Gu, 1990). The results of the research show that in the EFL context the students do not respond to the American teacher's questions but avoid communication and participation totally in class. Students'silence is influenced by the teacher's authority, peers'influence, self-confidence, modesty, other-evaluation, long-formed habits of silence, number of students, classroom setting and familiarity with the teacher and peers. Students'silence pattern can be interpreted with Chinese models of face and politeness. The silence is intentional; Chinese students use it as a polite behavior to maintain and enhance their face. In terms of social construct of face, students use silence to negotiate their right position in the Confucian hierarchical networks and behave according to social norms in order to avoid social sanctions; In terms of psychological construct, they use silence to balance their self-concept and other evaluation and try to be modest and underestimate their abilities in order to keep their social image. Students'face negotiation is situational specific and is influenced by students'number, classroom setting, familiarity with the teacher and peers and formality of the communicative event. Students'face and silence negotiation is rooted in and influenced by Confucianism. However, the American teacher was unable to identify the unseen Chinese face constructed by the Chinese students; instead, she perceives students'silence as their shyness, not understanding the content, boredom with the lecture and deficiencies of the teaching methodology. There are miscommunications between Chinese students and their foreign teacher due to the different values and meanings of silence in different cultures. Finally implications are drawn for teaching and classroom interaction and communication in the EFL class in China and suggestions for further directions on the topic are provided.