How Americans Use Silence and Silences to Communicate1 - by Tom Bruneau

by Dr. Thomas J. Bruneau, Professor Emeritus, Department of Communication, Radford University, Radford, VA: 24142 Phone: (540) 763-2004 Fax: (540) 831-5883 E-mail: tbruneau@radford.edu. Corrrespondence may be addressed to author.

Abstract2: This article attempts to outline for the first time how most Americans or U.S. citizens regularly use silence, silences, and silencings to communicate. It is important for people attempting to communicate with Americans to know something about their uses of silences. Silences are understood here to be just as important as what people say because, to let silences in, concerns meanings of many kinds. The study of silence, silences, and silencings concern many new avenues to understanding human communication.


Introduction/Apologies/Scope
For thousands of years people have talked and talked about the virtues and evils of silence. As far back as 42 B.C., Western wisdom finds Syrus saying, “Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.” All of the great, wise and ancient books of cultures both East and West speak of the value of refraining from speech. Indeed, much religious practice throughout the world is based on silence, silences, and the silencing of one’s self and others. Great philosophers and teachers throughout the ages, both East and West, have discussed silence. It is said of Cicero, the Roman statesman and rhetorician, that he felt there was an art as well as an eloquence of silence. In light of this background of enlightened silence, we must consider that silence, silences, and keeping others silent are very important for communication study. In the U.S., communication studies have developed rapidly, but the interest in the study of silence, silences, and silencing is only beginning to be developed.
An ambitious title deserves a great deal of apology and statements of limitations. My first apology is that this article will not say enough about how U.S. citizens (referred to as “Americans” throughout this article) use silence and silences to communicate. Quite a number of books would be required to make a bit of progress in that direction. There are too many different kinds of cultural and ethnic groups in the USA (all calling themselves, “Americans”) to make definitive comments about their common communication characteristics. Also, to compare the communication characteristics of U.S. citizens with other, fairly monolithic cultural groups, is to do a disservice to the art of comparison. We can, indeed, make some general comparisons between sociocultural groupings. We do it everyday in certain ways, but we must be very careful about using such generalizations. Otherwise, we can find ourselves saying stupid things like: “Americans talk all the time,” or “Americans are very noisy while Japanese are very silent.” However, when we begin to discuss how Americans (or any other groupings) are characteristically silent or talkative, sometimes, and in some places, we begin to emerge beyond the stereotypes which arise out of quick generalizations, generalizations that arose out of quick and easy categorizations. So, apologies for the title are due and our goal in this article will be to begin to discuss how Americans often and commonly use silence and silences to communicate. This article will be contrary to the simple beliefs and stereotypes about Americans held by many people who are not American. One of the underlying purposes of this article is to speak out against simple characterizations of ethnic and cultural groupings.
What is meant by “Americans” in this article is: those U.S. citizens living in the continental U.S.; who have acculturated over many generations; who have lost many of their traditional cultural connections; who are relatively unconscious of their everyday communication behaviors and characteristic habits; and, who are seen as relatively normal by most others throughout most geographical areas of the U.S. mainland. Such common characteristics, however, are highly dependent on the time, place, occasion, messages, channels, and often the gender and status of focal participants. The lengths or durations of silences vary with situational factors, just as spoken language varies.
Americans are complex and America’s “culture” is evolving. It is highly questionable if America could be called a legitimate “culture.” Mahatma Gandhi was once asked by a reporter what he thought about “Western civilization.” Gandhi was said to reply, “I think it would be a good idea,” (Darrow & Palmquist (1975). Those Americans exhibiting a common core of values and behaviors are evolving while those Americans becoming acculturated to the core are attempting to find identity in very rapid changes in one’s self as well as one’s sociocultural environments. This “identity in change” as well as “efficiency in change” are typically American traits. It should be understood that increasing speeds in human behavior and communication seem to parallel more contacts, more talk, more movement, more noisy conditions, and less and less silence.
To find peace and harmony (or silence) in such conditions is difficult. America is progressively charged; rapid rates of change are becoming standard. Sometimes it seems that progression seems more like regression. The rapidity of American life is increasing to the point of excluding the slow-time required for silent contemplation, meditation (centering), and thoughtfulness. Hurry is a value in itself, but hurry is contrary to important silences between people as well as those deeper personal silences and solitude. Faster speeds are experienced with more error and greater friction. More and more people feel they are being left “behind,” instead of being on the forefront of changes. Greater friction means more noise. So, Americans seldom wonder why they are watching their watches so watchfully. Even “vacations” (to vacate one’s everyday “busi-ness”) are filled with personal, all-terrain mechanical vehicles for land, water, snow, and the sky, spewing out high decibel violence that shatters the calmness of nature. It is rare for people to find a quiet place to think and dream without the blare of noisy riding or hand held machines. Thomas Merton, the Christian monk and theologian, once characterized the situation about “those who love their own noises,” “They bore through silent nature in every direction with their machines for fear that the calm world might accuse them of their own emptiness” (Merton, 1955, p. 256).

A Definitional Focus
There are major differences in the natural meanings of the terms, silence, silences, and silencing, as used here. By “silence” here is meant a global refrain from speaking, a motion toward stillness, isolation, and a lack of communication contact with others. It is not a matter of just being alone. It is being alone without verbal thinking going on intrapersonally. Such verbal thinking is simply a matter of internalizing what is and has been externally active; it is not silent. Silence refers to contemplation and meditation, psychic fugues, nostalgic raptures, fantasies, day-dreaming, mind-wandering, sleep, and unconscious journeys. So, silence is a non-linear psychic activity requiring one to still one’s cravings of sequential, linear order, structure, and psycholinguistic thought. One can be full of noise in the middle of a great desert without the calmness of mind necessary to produce silence in one’s self in deep solitude. To absent one’s self from the world is to gain insight into one’s own unique (re)-ality or everyday habitual experiences. Also, silence concerns an aesthetics, of metaphoria, an art of contemplation. Many forms of theological activities concern the attempt to still the mind, to become mindful, and to attempt to commune with a higher order, a oneness or divinity. Some cultural groupings are more often silent than other groupings. Americans seem to have a fear of silence as it reminds them of death, a momento mori, or reminder of one’s endings, finality, or death. Long silences, then, make many, many Americans nervous. . . In intercultural relations in many Asian countries, Americans become uncertain and feel awkward in a general atmosphere of silence with the uses of longer communicative silences.
Silences concern verbal thought, speaking, language and linguistics, and a linear sequencing of words and ideas. Silences are also involved in interactions between people in terms of who speaks first, next, before, after, etc. Silence is deeply psychological and removes linearity, silence removes order and structure, and concerns transcendental being or consciousness; silences, in contrast, concern processes of becoming and linearity, as in objectivity. There are silences in every utterance, as there are assessed beginnings and endings to every utterance. So, all speech features the uses of silences in punctuating linear processes or creating junctures, adding to the meanings of words, giving words their distinct character. Along with many other kinds of paralinguistics, such as rhythm, rate of speech, intonation, etc., silences as pausals and junctures are bound up with all spoken utterances.
Some silences are refrains from speaking where messages are sent and received nonverbally in lieu of words, but where words could just as well be used. The choice to send a message verbally or nonverbally is often available to communicants. However, for the most part, it seems that many communicative silences occur not merely as a refrain from speaking, but as ways of conveying meanings that are hopelessly connotative, suggestive, secretive, taboo, etc. In short, many communicative silences seem to involve the intention to share or the actual sharing of messages that otherwise would be difficult or undesirable to share by resort to words. Often, such silences exist to articulate the developmental stages of a relational configuration where words would be embarrassing to one or both of the participants in the relationship (Bruneau, 1979b).
The word “silencing” will here be used to refer to: conscious and unconscious attempts to control the verbal expressions of one’s self and/or others; the restricting of spoken expression by stated and unstated rules of communication conduct; and, the persuasive attempts to restrict, control, or prevent the spoken communication of individuals, outcasts, those marginalized, those feared, and those of so-called “lower” social class groups. One can silence one’s self when speaking out could be harmful or even reckless, but one can also silence those near them to protect friends, family, relatives, etc. There are many places on the faces of this globe where expressing one’s opinions would be to endanger one’s self to torture, imprisonment, or serious repercussions. While Americans profess a love for “freedom of speech,” they understand that to be free to speak does not mean there are not repercussions for doing so. In fact, the possibility of ostracism or rejection by one’s primary and important groups is a very serious concern of many Americans.



A Glance Backward: The Major Literature about Communicative Silences
Very much has been written about silence as a generalized concept pertaining to life in general. Hundreds of sayings, maxims, and famous quotations about silence exist in Western literature. Many songs and poems mention silence. Most reference to silence in American and Western literature, however, treats silence as ambiguous, metaphorical, and, often with reference to silence as a negative void or a vague, unexamined backdrop to expressions. Very little has been written with the explicit purpose of showing how silence and silences communicate meanings or serve as messages between people. What does exist previous to this essay as commentary about silence and silences can be found in Scott (1972), Bruneau (1973a), Jensen (1973), and Johannesen (1974). These are the major studies of communicative silence and silences in the U.S. at this time. However, some notable exceptions do exist.
Thaler (1929) was one of the early scholars to focus somewhat on communicative silences in studying how Shakespeare used silence and silences in his plays. Some other works of theoretical importance were Baker’s (1955) work on politics and that of Blackmur (1957) in terms of language theory. The early and influential work of Max Picard about religious uses of silence and, of course, the existentialists before him, brought interest in the meaning of silence to the fore. Another early philosopher, Wittgenstein (1961), brought attention to silence as involved in rational thought. The thinking of Ganguly (1968) was an early focus on the philosophy of communication and silence in culture. The popular theologian and philosopher, Thomas Merton (1949; 1955) was also a contributor to the study of silence as contemplation and meditation.
Psychologically and psychotherapeutically, the works of Reik (1949), Brown (1959), and Meerloo (1970) were important to Americans in their growing understanding of the importance of silences in psychological and psychotherapeutic practice. Anthropologically, the works of Hall (1966) and that of Basso (1970) were important and influential. Hall’s popularity did much to generate a great deal of interest in nonverbal communication in the 1960s and 1970s. Steiner’s theoretical work on the nature of language (1967) was an influential source of literature dealing with the more artistic and literary meanings of silence. Aesthetically, the writings of John Cage (1961) and Susan Sontag (1966) were powerful reminders to some American academicians that silence was just as important, or even more important, than verbal forms. After I had written my first piece on silence (Bruneau, 1973) and interviewed for my first job, the Dean of a College of Arts and Sciences, actually asked me during the interview process, if I wanted to teach a course on silence. . . as if joking. I told him with a serious tone, “Sure, it would be a lot of fun.” He seemed a little upset at my response, as I was interviewing for a speech communication job.
The work of the experimental linguist, Frieda Goldman-Eisler (1968) was of great importance to American linguists in their study of pauses in spoken messages and later added impetus for the study of pauses or junctures (turn-taking) in interpersonal interactions. It was after reading Goldman-Eisler that my doctoral dissertation took form (Bruneau, 1974). My dissertation included a summary and review of pausal literature, hesitation phenomenon, and variations in the presentation speeds of oral messages. I came to the study of silence and silences by experimenting with the effects of the expansion of pauses on listening comprehension and retention.
In the early 1970s an explosion of interest in nonverbal communication and silences took place in the U.S. Communication scholars at that time began to assess the available bits and pieces of information about silence and silences that were available across many academic disciplines. Theoretical works by Scott (1972) on silences as rhetorical factors, Bruneau (1973) on communicative silence, silences, and silencings, Jensen (1973) and Johannesen (1974), both on the functions of communicative silences, were important contributions to a sudden and growing interest about communicative silences. Notable contributions since the early 1970s have been made by Crocker (1980), Brummet (1980), and Naotsuka (1980).3

How Most Americans Usually Articulate Deeper Silence
Many U.S. citizens, especially older ones, are attempting journeys into silence. Many older Americans seem inclined toward nature, rural living, the arts, prayer, etc. They feel driven from the noises of cities and populated areas, buying vacation homes or retirement homes in the silence of country living. Younger Americans, however, seem fascinated with filling the natural and quiet worlds full of high frequency noise in their off-road, 4-wheel drive cars and trucks and all-terrain contraptions of every kind. Loving and joyful silences are not part of the atmosphere of many young Americans. The characteristic of American silence outlined below are generalizations about how Americans understand silence consciously or unconsciously.
The first major characteristic of American global and deeper silence is that this silence is a “no-thing,” or some great negative zone which is unknown and unknowable. Silence is viewed by most Americans as a negative no-thing mystery lurking behind “everything.” The negative zone which is silence in America can become as absolute and real as it is imaginary—a paradoxical bind. One of the reasons why Americans consider deep silence to be negative or undesirable is that such silence is often equated with death and stillness, stopping forever. Silence for many Americans then, is not a vibrant quality of life bursting forth beautifully everywhere and always. On the contrary, many Americans fear deep silences, such as those in the “dead of night” or those silences in being lost and alone in the wilderness. They often fear solitude as much as they fear deeper silence and quiet living; they must be in constant and continual contact with others as well as TVs, radios, telephones, computers, and other communication contact devices. Deep silences while alone seem to be kinds of nothingness or remindful of graveyards by many. There are American frontiers of the night, of solitude, and of the natural world yet to be discovered. The “somethings” lurking in the assumed negative voids of deep silence are often unconsciously feared as major change agents. So, words fill up the void to prevent personal thinking and changes that could arise out of such silent contemplation or meditation. Unconsciously, then, negative silence and beliefs in absolute silence for many Americans are created and feared. Such silence, it is intuitively felt could cause significant changes in one’s self and current personality. Such is the stuff of superstitions transformed into an inner sanctum or negative void, which is, in actuality, a system of deeper thoughts and thinking to be feared. Such silence is considered a major change agent and many American’s like to feel they have an identity that is not changeful.
A second major characteristic of how many Americans understand silence is that it is some unknown to be revered or worshipped. The general void can be viewed negatively or positively. To worship an undefined entity is to translate one’s existential terror into an object or system given hopeful form. For example, if silence is revered or worshipped negatively, one can begin to feel some force of judgment or criticism present and watching one’s everyday behavior, (God or some over-looking force may be watching one’s self). Such a force can be a kind of unconsciousness manifesting itself as an anxiety, regularly present to some degree. However, positive silence to be worshipped, for example, can be the cosmos as a grand, harmonious sphere or closed system of peaceful regularities. Hence, most Christian church music is “rotund” and some people speak of the music of the spheres above. Here we have the idea of a heaven that can be contrasted with a hell. Again, hugeness in vista, cosmological space, natural beauty and grandeur are often approached silently with religiousity, as if they were God’s creations.
Americans also relate silence with aesthetic experience as well as intellectual profundity. The appreciation of music, visual arts, poetry, excellent literature, etc., is a motion toward silence for most Americans, except those of little education or crude backgrounds. Deep thoughts, complex thinking, serious decision-making and the like are often associated with the necessity to be quiet and uninterrupted. It takes “time” to think; time in this sense relates to “con-temp-lation,” or being “with mental time.” This helps to explain why there is a silence of place; an atmosphere of silence is maintained in studies, in libraries, and where critical thinking and very careful work is done, such as at surgery rooms in hospitals and silence in judge’s courtroom chambers. It is as if Americans intuitively feel that creativity and care are related to the need for silence as a way of entering into the world of cognitive uncertainties. Also, social and personal problems are for many people a need to be alone and in silent places. Certain emotions seem to require silence and others seem to favor talking. There are times when it is difficult to speak.
Related to silence as thoughtful expertise and/or reverence toward heroes, Americans often associate silence with the concept of authority. “Be silent, for so are the Gods above,” seems to be an unconscious assumption held by many. Those persons high up in an organizational hierarchy are often equated with “highest authority” or some semblance of deity. When someone of high authority or some positive prominence comes close to someone of average or lower authority, the unauthorized person can fall silent, (Bruneau, 1973b). Seldom seen bosses and people at the top of an organization, or in a position of leadership, often are sheltered or trapped in very quiet penthouses and larger office spaces where access is denied lower ranking members of the group or team. Indeed, such authorities often live and work in silent surroundings. It is quiet at the top. In this regard, those who are famous or rich, too, are often regarded with silent awe by others and are also privileged to manicured privacy and silent retreats of many kinds, insulated.
The silence of a place or space are what I have often called, “zones of silence.” It is a taboo to be noisy in such places (Bruneau, 1973b). This is common to most American organizational spacing or places high in organizational rank. It is also common in most military organizations of which many kinds of American organizations are modeled. Places where monuments, tombs, graveyards, churches, museums, mental institutions, prisons, libraries, art galleries, hospitals, courtrooms, teacher or professor spaces, and many other places are silent zones for many Americans. Thus, the proxemics (spacing between interactants) and object language of Americans are related to a reduction in noise or a refrain from talking. Temples and sacred spaces, where people who are said to be holy or close to highest religious authority, are usually quiet. Also, it should be noted here, is the slowing down of kinesics or movements that are related to silence. Stilling one’s self, slowing down, and moving less are related to the silence of place. There is often less visual distractions and auditory space is guarded. Such spaces are often planned by those using such spaces or are constructed by those who build such spaces (Bruneau, 1973b).
Americans often unconsciously associate silence with serious “times” and important remembrances (Bruneau, 1979a). These times are big with silences and some of these silences are sometimes balanced with big noises or celebrations. Many of life’s rites of passage, award ceremonies, special days, honor awards, special commemorative days or special times past are often movements into groups falling silent out of remembrances and re-spect (seeing again). Burials, the losers’ dressing rooms in sports, serious accident sites, disaster areas, and the like are often associated with lengthy holding of one’s talk. There are many markers (signs, objects, directional markers) of these quiet places or zones of silence. The markers let people know that respect and no talking are expected.
Silence is often a mode of mental work or a style of thinking. The more serious the thinking or the more sacred the place, the more silence is held by authorities and expected of their followers (Bruneau 1973a; 1976). In this regard, deep thoughts about one’s own childhood problems and distant historical or a-historical (mythic) events seem to command one to fall silent. Fantasies, psychic fugues, day-dreaming, nostalgic raptures, reveries, and the like are silent times or silent moments held out of both conscious or unconscious needs, respect expected, or imposed by authority figures. Meditative (centering) and contemplative experiences, as well as other forms of present-time or immediacy foci, are full of silence. Futuristic thinking is often a quiet time, too. So, there is a general silence where talking is diminished in sociocultural groupings and the silences held are lengthy compared to Americans. In the U.S. longer silences are those of anger and grudge holding, also deep guilt and regret are held in not speaking. But, there are also many, many kinds of brief silenc-es to be discussed below.

How Most Americans Usually Articulate Brief Linguistic and Interactive Silences
What we are referring to here as silences are only one form of silences, called “interactive silences” (Bruneau, 1973a) or interpersonal silences. There are psychological silences, called “psycholinguistic silences” (Bruneau 1973a; 1979b). Psycholinguistic silences concern verbal thinking processes related to encoding and decoding communication. Americans, like people from any sociocultural grouping, exhibit silences related to their speaking styles. These silences, used while talking to others, are often commonly codified in ways that speech is encoded and decoded in interpersonal, group, or public address contexts. These silences occur when the frowns and wrinkles of wonder, puzzlement, inquiry, and questioning are activated on the faces of people in interactive contact. I have previously referred to these silences as “interrobangs,” or nonverbal “marks” or mental punctuation where personal time consciousness expands or contracts in relationship to clock time or some habitual personal timing.
The communication style of an interpersonal or group relationship is related to the characteristic manner in which focal participants in different sociocultural groupings use speaking, listening, and thinking silences. However, it is beyond this essay to make intercultural comparisons of silence. Americans will often use silences, of course, to secure or gain information. There are characteristic ways in which attention is given and how people vary in their attentive behaviors and diligence, especially in their “in-attention,” (attention inward). Inattention, however, is often viewed as negative and opposite to paying attention. This is a common and mistaken contrast in American thought, as attention inwardly is very important to achieving deep silence. Some cultural groupings do not seem to vary levels of attention and/or in-attention. Talking while one listens, as well as listening to one’s own speech, is an interesting phenomenon and varies in manner from one culture to another.
Americans use silences, often to indicate an absence of response, but also to show or indicate their mistrust. Certain silences are used to maintain or alter an interpersonal distance. In other words, trust levels pertain to different stages of friendship and levels of intimacy. These levels, in turn, feature characteristic kinds of silences, (Bruneau, 1976; 1979a; l980). These silences are related to knowing or not knowing the other very well. The manner in which silences occur to show trust or mistrustfulness gives participants cues as to how a relationship is developing. Americans use interactive silences as a means of showing or responding to deep emotion. Deep emotions often demand longer silences. If silences are not used, then repetitive sounds, repetitive wordings, and, in some cases, chantings, are used in lieu of silences.
When Americans see something very different, not seen or seldom seen before, or someone who looks or acts very different, they become silent. It is as if their eyes cannot see until their mouths close and they stop doing what they were doing (a movement toward stillness, less motion, stopping somewhat). Differences and novelty are the stuffings of American silences. These silences often occur when strangers come near, when people who differ as to racial or ethnic backgrounds appear, when something is different or unusual about another person, persons, or a situation. Many Americans, however, simply ignore and are ignorant of differences, almost habitually turning away or being blind to differences. Differences that are major concern jamais vu experiencing (seeing fresh and new) as opposed to déjà vu experiencing (already seen, habitually experiencing the world).
Americans often use interactive silences when they make inferences and judgments about other people. Assessments of social situations and events transpire in such breaks from the ongoing interactions. Americans participating in groups often stop listening when another person is speaking or when others talk to each other in order to make inferences about persons or statements made. A gap or break in one’s listening is created so that these inferences and judgments can be made. Silences also occur when decisions are made together or discussions of problems are forthcoming. The group silences seem to occur at critical times in problem solving. These are related to the thinking silences previously discussed above.
Silences are commonly used as vehicles to show deference and respect toward authority figures in organizations and in other group structures, such as during neighborhood and family gatherings. Such silences also help to maintain superior-inferior relationships, help maintain hierarchical order between people in groups, and help to establish, maintain, or change dominance relations and power configurations in interpersonal or group gatherings. These silences are not merely those exhibited by low status, weak, or powerless people. This category of silences also refer to refrains from speaking exhibited by parents, police, government officials, bosses, leaders, coaches, teachers, and others who control people.
Related to silences that are used to articulate or show interpersonal or group deference, respect, or status are those which actually carry persuasive force in controlling the behavior of others—others felt to be inferior to one’s self or under one’s control or guidance. These interactive silences are the bases of active persuasion attempts, consciously or unconsciously. These are attempts to alter the behavior, attitudes, thinking, or activities of others. These silences are often paired with flashing eyes that smile or stare, frowns and grimaces, and other gestures and facial expressions that help to accentuate and support these silences of control.
Another characteristic use of silences by Americans concern the maintenance of social roles and role expectations in sociocultural groupings. Americans do have normative expectations about who should talk and who should listen to others (when, where, and how). These expectations conform to social, political, as well as life roles (mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, etc.). Unlike many cultural groupings, women as well as men are expected to speak or remain silent in different situations. Over the years, these expectations were and are related to the silencing of women, minorities, and marginalized people. Such is the power of the often unrecognized functions of silences. These silences often go unrecognized because they are habitually acculturated, or out of conscious awareness. Silences are often considered to be “empty” intervals or meaningless in that words only appear to be interpretable. However, they are often major vehicles that maintain interpersonal and social order. They mediate communicative interactions as much as other nonverbal signals or words.
Interactive silences serve an auxiliary role in helping to facilitate communication. This auxiliary role of silences is the obvious environment that is created for turn-taking in the interactions between people. Silences serve many purposes related to the nature of interpersonal and group interaction. Silences not only serve many functions in the arena of person-to-person influence, silences also seem to create the possibilities for switching from being a speaker to being a listener, and visa versa. We can lose sight of this obvious function of silences. There are vast differences in the arena of turn-taking between Americans and many other sociocultural groupings, especially those in Asian cultures. In many places, a turn at speaking is not expected. For example, in many classrooms in many countries, it is not expected for a student to speak, but only to listen carefully and respectfully to teachers.
One way in which Americans use silences that is obvious, but is seldom mentioned, is for the purpose of concealing the nature of one’s self and one’s mental abilities. Concealment by silencing one’s self is a major American characteristic and common to many other cultural groupings, too. Many people around the globe, especially in some Asian societies, feel that Americans talk too much, clarifying and explaining and trying to make their meanings more and more certain. But, such talk often happens because these Americans feel that it is only through talk that meanings are conveyed. However, such talk can also conceal as well as control the interactions by over-powering those who are used to less talk. Such incessant talk can be consciously or unconsciously used to provide a barrier to Americans in terms of accessing their deeper levels of self. Small talk by Americans can act like silences in order to say nothing at all. So, Jean Paul Sartre once said that, if anything, silence is good conversation! Such silence as talk may seem paradoxical or seemingly contradictory to people from some sociocultural groupings.
Americans will often use silences in another way that is seldom recognized by people from other sociocultural groupings. Many Americans seem to take pride in knowing or being sure or certain their ideas, facts, etc. When they are certain about what they are saying, they continue to monopolize the burden of speech. Many times Americans will also refrain from speaking when they are stupefied or ignorant, when they do not know the subject or feel some kind of reluctance to talk. When silences become too long for them, they become nervous and talk a lot, sometimes at a higher volume to try to get their points across. This seems to be the case, because they feel something is wrong. The silence of others toward themselves can be misunderstood by some Americans—as silences that are long seem to be negative rejections to what they are saying. So, they keep talking at those who respond in long silences, thinking that people may be disagreeing with them or do not understand what they are saying. This often happens in situations where there are very few feedback cues.



How American Usually Articulate Silencing
Silencing is a method of persuasion to restrict talk, motion, behavior, and the muting of many forms of expression. Silencing occurs in all sociocultural groupings. Silencing is a mode of acculturation in the rearing of children, in the maintaining of social order, and in the control of others. Many of the statements about how Americans use silence and silences under other sections of this essay are, in reality, statements about how Americans not only articulate silences, but how they restrict the speech of others. We are here reminded of Seneca’s famous statement, “To silence another, first be silent yourself.”
There are many forms of “shunning” or the use of silences to silence others in the U.S. Silences can be a double-edged sword. This is contrary to what many may think about Americans. Grudges, stereotypes held, interpersonal judgments, ignoring, zoning laws, etc., are all ways in which people can be silent toward others and, therefore, beget silence in turn. Americans do, in fact, practice silencing others as much, if not sometimes more than many other sociocultural groupings in other parts of the world. This also appears to be the case in terms of many silenced minorities within the U.S. mainland boundaries. There may be as much virtue in the American ways of communicating as there are in other sociocultural groupings. There is a great deal of silence and ritualistic meanings of words in many cultures of the world, where infrequent talk is understood as important to maintaining their normative relations. Unfortunately, in some countries of the world, to speak out with one’s personal attitudes or beliefs is to be severely punished or to even risk one’s very life. So, Americans take pride in their assumptions about the importance of freedom of speech.

Summary
Contrary to stereotypic viewpoints about how Americans communicate, Americans do use silence, silences, and silencings to help articulate their basic nature of reality, socially, as well as a-socially. Americans do use silences and silencings to communicate in ways different than many sociocultural groupings elsewhere. The din of noisy American social groups is not what it may appear to be on the surface. We Americans do talk a lot, but much of this talk is only for maintenance of relationships or to define our selves as unique and special, individually or self-defined. The uses of American spoken language appear to be somewhat excessive, but these uses can also be ways to prevent the acquisition of deeper meanings to be found in one’s silence. One’s awareness of one’s egocentric identity held under the surface of talk can be avoided, if one keeps talking. A great deal of spoken language in America seems to be used to mask one’s fragile identity, as this identity experiences rapid changes in the U.S. Americans often experience problems when they go international and place themselves in face-to-face contacts with the more silent people of the world.

Notes:
1. I have been asked to contribute this article to China Media Research. It was presented long ago in 1982 at the conference of the Communication Association of the Pacific—Japan Chapter, Tokyo, Meiji University, June. This first article to outline American uses of silence and silences is presented here with some minor additions and corrections, but maintaining true to the original writing and presentation.
2. This abstract was not in the original article.
3. While I have been asked to publish my original conference paper here, without too much revision, I feel obligated to provide some up-to-date references for those who would like to do research investigations about communicative silences. The following references will be very helpful to a modern, updated, study in most cultures or sociocultural groupings: Acheson (2007); Braithwaite (1999); Bruneau (1985); Bruneau (1995); Bruneau (2007, in editorial review); Bruneau & Ishii (1988); Dauenhauer, 1980); Crawford (1997) Enninger (1991); Jaworski (1992, 1997); Jensen (1987); Tannen & Troike (1985); and Zerubavel (2006).


References
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