Managing talk and non-talk in intercultural interactions: Insights from two Chinese–British business meetings
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Helen Spencer-Oatey
Abstract
This paper explores how people’s expectations regarding talk and non-talk can affect intercultural interactions. Using discourse data from two Chinese–British business meetings together with follow-up interview comments, it describes instances when the participants reacted differently to talk/non-talk, and considers why the differing reactions occurred. It maintains that ‘silence’ can be manifested in ways other than physical non-talk, and argues that people’s perceptions of silence depend on their expectations. Mismatches in expectations, which can occur frequently in intercultural interactions, can result not only in subjective feelings of ‘uncomfortable silence’, but may also lead people to feel they have been ‘forced’ into silence or have not been ‘allowed’ to be silent.
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction: Silence in institutional and intercultural contexts
- ‘You do not have to say anything …’: Instructing the jury on the defendant’s right to silence in the English criminal justice system
- A fair share: Gender and linguistic space in a language classroom
- Silence as a means of preserving the status quo: The case of ante-natal care in Ireland
- Managing talk and non-talk in intercultural interactions: Insights from two Chinese–British business meetings
- Negotiating silence and speech in the classroom
- Untold stories and the construction of identity in narratives of ethnic conflict on the Polish–German border
- Busy saying nothing new: Live silence in TV reporting of 9/11
- Book reviews
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction: Silence in institutional and intercultural contexts
- ‘You do not have to say anything …’: Instructing the jury on the defendant’s right to silence in the English criminal justice system
- A fair share: Gender and linguistic space in a language classroom
- Silence as a means of preserving the status quo: The case of ante-natal care in Ireland
- Managing talk and non-talk in intercultural interactions: Insights from two Chinese–British business meetings
- Negotiating silence and speech in the classroom
- Untold stories and the construction of identity in narratives of ethnic conflict on the Polish–German border
- Busy saying nothing new: Live silence in TV reporting of 9/11
- Book reviews
