The meaning of timing
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Today's Cathy:
The interpretation of timing — not within but between communications — hasn't been studied much. There's Wally Chafe's Discourse, Consciousness, Time, but I don't recall much in it about interpreting the length of gaps or silences. There's some of this sort of thing in work on computer-mediated conversation. And there's some work on intercultural differences in conversational "dead air", which I'll try to find. But it's a topic that might repay further investigation, I think, in a culture where more and more interaction is asynchronous.
[Update — The work I was thinking of, on communicative norms in certain North American Indian cultures, is summarized by John Gumperz ("Contextualization and Ideology in Intercultural Communication", in DiLuzio, Günthner and Orletti (Eds.), Culture in Communication) this way:
Conversations are often punctuated with relatively long pauses and silences. In informal gatherings, Indian people may sit or stand quietly, without speaking. If addressed, they may look away and remain silent for a relatively long time (at least from the perspective of mainstream Americans) before responding. When a person is asked a question and she has no new information to provide, nothing new to say, she is likely to give no answer. In all such cases, American Indians themselves interpret the silence as a sign of respect, a positive indication, showing that the other's remarks or questions are being given full consideration that is their due.
He cites work by Philips on the Warm Springs reservation in Oregon, and by Basso on Western Apache.
Thus Susan Philips, "Some sources of cultural variability in the regulation of talk", Language in Society 5(1): 81-95, 1976:
… Indian exchanges proceed at a slower pace than those of Anglos. […] The pauses between two different speakers' turns at talk are frequently longer than is the case in Anglo interactions. There is a tolerance for silences — silences that Anglos often rush into and fill. […]
For Anglos, answers to questions are close to obligatory … That this is not the case with Warm Springs Indians was pointed out to me by an Indian from another reservation who had married into the Warm Springs reservation. He observed wryly that it is often difficult to get an answer out of 'these old people' (and I should add that the phrase 'old people' has the connotation of respect). And he told an anecdote about posing a question that got answered a week after it was asked.
In other words, answers to questions are not obligatory. Absence of an answer merely means the floor is open, or continues to belong to the questioner. This does not mean, however, that the question will not be answered later. Nor does it mean that it ought not to be raised again, since the questions may reasonably assume his audience has had time to think about it.
This absence of a requirement for immediate response is also apparent in the handling of invitations.
Keith Basso notes the various interpretations that failure to speak can have in mainstream American culture ("'To Give up on Words': Silence in Western Apache Culture", Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 26(3), 1970):
Although the form of silence is always the same, the function of a specific act of silence — that is, its interpretation by and effect upon other people — will vary according to the social context in which it occurs. For example, if I choose to keep silent in the chambers of a Justice of the Supreme Court, my action is likely to be interpreted as a sign of politeness or respect. On the other hand, if I refrain from speaking to an established friend or colleague, I am apt to be accused of rudeness or harboring a grudge. In one instance, my behavior is judged by others to be "correct" or "fitting"; in the other, it is criticized as being "out of line."
He goes on to list a number of situations where conversation would be nearly obligatory in mainstream American culture, on pain of rudeness or other negative interpretation, but would be optional or even strongly discouraged among the Western Apache.
I've heard descriptions similar to those of Philips and Basso from several American Indianists whose experience and judgment I trust — though there is apparently (and unsurprisingly) cultural variation among different groups, as suggested by Philips' anecdote.]
Kenny V said,
August 7, 2009 @ 2:44 pm
I can attest to the reality of the significance of timing with regard to facebook messages and wall posts. It's like the modern-day equivalent of calling someone you met at a bar or party or after a first date the next day or 3 days later.
This was even in the news recently, when Audra Shay, candidate for chairman of Young Republicans, responded at various (incriminating) intervals to racist comments on her status posting and to comments repudiating those racist comments: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-06/new-gop-racist-headache/
Shimon Edelman said,
August 7, 2009 @ 3:02 pm
Here's the abstract of Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking
in conversation by Stivers et al. (PNAS, June 30, 2009):
Sili said,
August 7, 2009 @ 4:34 pm
My impression is that there is at least a stereotype about needy girlfriends getting upset if their boyfriends take too long to answer their – in reality insignificant – txt messages. The sort of txts that are merely a … confirmation of existence and contact.
In the interest of fairness, I think it applies to controlling boyfriends/husbands too. – In the extreme I'm sure it's been used by comedians: "Why didn't you pick up?! Who's that I hear?! Do you have the milkman there with you?!! I'm coming home right now!"
Presumably something similar is going on with twitter now – being generally unconnected I assume it to be more or less just txting writ large.
dr pepper said,
August 7, 2009 @ 5:50 pm
Aren't there still angels available to fill the dead air?
MBM said,
August 8, 2009 @ 7:12 am
Another people famous for their silences are the Finns and here's a funny video of what happens when a chatty American ends up in their midst:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz-3Tuj3hAA
Health warning: strong cringe factor!
Janice Huth Byer said,
August 8, 2009 @ 8:47 am
MBM, thanks for the telling link. Garrison Keillor attests in his first book, Lake Woebegone Days (1985) to a similar cultural divide even in America, between today's descendants of Norwegian immigrants and our parents, who, reared in the upper Midwest before TV and the 'net', literally mimed the old ways.
Janice Huth Byer said,
August 8, 2009 @ 9:43 am
Keith Basso's insight, revealed in Mark's excerpt above, on the role social status plays in our inclination to respond with silence, nicely connects with what we learned from Mark in one of his earlier postings: People in situations where they have higher status use fewer first person pronouns. This might logically follow from their statements receiving the greater benefit of silent acceptance. Not a few of our "I" statements are by way of explaining ourselves defensively.
Spell Me Jeff said,
August 8, 2009 @ 11:47 am
If my wife and I ever divorce, a key factor will be our different attitudes toward conversational timing. Once I've mulled things over enough to formulate a response, she's three topics ahead of me. 21 years and I still can't speed up my technique. It's the academic in me, I'm sure.
peter said,
August 8, 2009 @ 12:47 pm
By contrast, in many a Seinfeld episode the humour arises from a sequence of question-response interactions in which the responses are given extremely quickly, in some cases after only one word of the question has been uttered.
Nathan Myers said,
August 8, 2009 @ 11:42 pm
Isn't it a trope in American fiction for a young woman to be initially distressed and finally angry that the young man who got her phone number (and, possibly, more) has not called soon enough? The Dick Van Dyke show in the early '60s frequently had spinster Sal waiting on her office phone. Others have had boys advising one another not to call too soon, intending the object to note that she cared whether he did. The topic is raised with endless variations.
[(myl) Yes; one here.]
Sredzkistraße – The Language Log said,
August 9, 2009 @ 11:23 am
[…] The next is an article on timing and silence in spoken discourse (summary from John Gumperz , "Contextualization and Ideology in Intercultural Communication"): Conversations are often punctuated with relatively long pauses and silences. In informal gatherings, Indian people may sit or stand quietly, without speaking. If addressed, they may look away and remain silent for a relatively long time (at least from the perspective of mainstream Americans) before responding. When a person is asked a question and she has no new information to provide, nothing new to say, she is likely to give no answer. In all such cases, American Indians themselves interpret the silence as a sign of respect, a positive indication, showing that the other's remarks or questions are being given full consideration that is their due. […]
bocaj said,
August 10, 2009 @ 2:09 am
Speaking of Finns, there's always the lame joke about the two Finnish neighbors.
One Finn hears a knock at his door, goes to open it, and sees it's his next-door neighbor. He motions for the neighbor to come in and sit on the sofa, then he goes to grab a bottle and two glasses. The Finn returns to the living room and fills the two glasses with Koskenkorva. After not a few large gulps of the Koskenkorva and what must have seemed like an interminable silence to anyone but a Finn, the neighbor sets down his glass and says, "My house is on fire."
The Finn takes one more large gulp followed by a long sigh then replies, "Did you come here to talk or did you come here to drink?"
Breffni said,
August 10, 2009 @ 5:56 am
That US-Finnish encounter on YouTube is a reconstruction of an actual episode, by (and starring) Donal Carbaugh. He's done recent work on the significance and functions of silence, focussing mainly on the Blackfeet and the Finns, I think.