Understanding Silence and Reticence : Ways of Participating in Second Language Acquisition

Tracking foreign language teacher emotional reactions to student silence: An autoethnographic case study in Japan

“…In Japan, for example, non-verbal communication is much more prevalent to maintain politeness. The listener is expected to deduce meaning based on context, and in Japanese communicative interactions, direct language is seldom used (Bao, 2014). These points are made to reinforce that even though this investigation centers on an educational context, in a macro sense, Japanese cultural communicative practices pervade almost all institutions (Banks, 2016;Lebra, 1987;Takahashi, 2021;Yoshikawa, 1987).…”

“…In the field of language learning, (King, 2013a) considers silence, or "absence of talk," a dynamic construct that can shift or change depending on a wide range of competing forces (p. 328). (Bao, 2013(Bao, , 2014(Bao, , 2023Bao & Ye, 2020) highlights how causes of silence in a second language acquisition contexts are pretty varied but can be grouped mainly as either positive (e.g., processing information), neutral (i.e., accepted in a given scenario) or negative (e.g., defiance). Regarding willingness to communicate, the terms volitional or non-volitiona silence could be used (Peter D. Macintyre, 2007) or intentional/ non-intentional silence (Kurzon, 2007).…”

“…One can simply look at the word "reticent", which is considered a positive trait in Japan. Under this category, Japanese students may remain silent as a show of respect (Bao, 2014;Lebra, 1987), to establish hierarchies (Banks, 2016), or simply because they are more accustomed to classroom silence (King, 2013a;King & Harumi, 2020). Conversely, some students may hide behind the auspices of reticence -using silence as a vehicle to mask defiant attitudes toward language learning (King & Smith, 2017).…”

“…These students can add momentum to learning (Shachter & Haswell, 2022) and be a source of joy to teachers (Talbot & Mercer, 2018). In addition, talkative language learners contribute to their own development; this is because the act of speaking provides FL teachers with essential cues to monitor comprehension (Filipi, 2018), accuracy (Gibson, 2008), and student engagement (Bao, 2014). Depending on a particular utterance, a teacher could provide helpful feedback.…”

Behind the invisible curtain: Silence as a multimodal negotiation space in group Q-and-A sessions at a Japanese university

“…The interactional phenomenon of silence is interpreted in numerous ways from different perspectives. In many Western pedagogical settings, it is typically considered a void to be filled and seen as potentially representing a lack of knowledge or interest (Baurain, 2011), while many researchers have analyzed how and why silence occurs so frequently and is more widely accepted in Asia (Bao, 2014) (Harumi, 2011) Using the lens of conversation analysis (CA) on the data collected in two English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing courses at a Japanese university, this study is twofold. First, it focuses on the frequent silent spaces that Japanese student-presenters create during question-and-answer sessions in their group presentations of their essays; second, it examines how teachers effectively steer such silences in a specific direction in the classroom discussion.…”