A cross cultural stydy of pauses and time fillers in some american and vietnamese films

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG NHUNG A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF PAUSES AND TIME-FILL

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG NHUNG

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF PAUSES AND TIME-FILLERS IN

SOME AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE FILMS

(Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa về việc sử dụng các quãng lặng và các yếu tố

khỏa lấp trong một số bộ phim Việt Nam và Mỹ)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15

HA NOI - 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG NHUNG

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF PAUSES AND TIME-FILLERS

IN SOME AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE FILMS

(Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa về việc sử dụng các quãng lặng

và các yếu tố khỏa lấp trong một số bộ phim Việt Nam và Mỹ)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15

SUPERVISOR: Prof Dr Nguyễn Quang

HA NOI - 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES

ABBREVIATIONS

Part A INTRODUCTION

I Rationale 1

II Scope of the study 2

III Aims of the study 2

IV Methodology 2

V Design of the study 3

Part B DEVELOPMENT Chapter I Theoretical preliminary 1.1 Language, culture and communication 4

1.1.1 Language and communication 4

1.1.2 Language and culture 5

1.1.3 Communication 5

1.2 High-context culture vs low-context culture 9

1.2.1 Definitions and main differences 9

1.2.2 Entering high and low context situations 10

1.3 Non-verbal communication 12

1.4 Paralanguage 13

Chapter II Silence/ Pauses and Time-fillers 2.1 Silence/ Pauses 15

2.2 Time-fillers 17

Chapter III Findings and discussion 3.1 Research methods 19

3.1.1 Subjects 19

3.1.2 Research questions 20

3.1.3 Research method and data collection instruments 20

3.2 Findings and discussion 21

3.2.1 Vietnamese findings 21

3.2.1.1 Availability 21

3.2.1.2 Proportionality 23

3.2.1.3 Manifestability 25

3.2.2 American findings 27

3.2.2.1 Availability 27

3.2.2.2 Proportionality 29

3.2.1.3 Manifestability 32

3.2.3 Concluding remark 34

Part C CONCLUSION I Summary of major findings 35

II Limitations 36

III Suggestions for further study 36

References 37

LIST OF TABLES

Vietnamese findings:

Table 1: Number of pauses and time-fillers (between colleagues) Table 2: Number of pauses and time-fillers (boss to employee) Table 3: Number of pauses and time-fillers (employee to boss) Table 4: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (boss to employee) Table 5: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (employee to boss) Table 6: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (between colleagues)

American findings:

Table 7: Number of pauses and time-fillers (between colleagues) Table 8: Number of pauses and time-fillers (boss to employee) Table 9: Number of pauses and time-fillers (employee to boss) Table 10: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (between colleagues) Table 11: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (boss to employee) Table 12: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (employee to boss)

PART A INTRODUCTION

I RATIONALE

At the beginning of the 21st century, it is beyond question that English has

become the lingua franca, the language used for communication across territorial and cultural borders Crystal (2003: 120) states that “English has become a global language because it has been at the right place at the right time” English is considered the

universal language and its contribution towards such fields as business, international communications, entertainment, tourism, trade and technology, is undeniable‟

People learning and using English are increasing dramatically in number worldwide It can be seen that, because of the heavy demand of cross-cultural interaction, the development of telecommunications, and the appearance of communicative approaches in language teaching and learning, the study of speech acts in communication appears inevitable

The last few decades have witnessed a great change for the better in the relationship between Viet Nam and the US Many cross-cultural activities have been performed between the American and the Vietnamese However, it is observed that, in cross-cultural interaction, people tend to focus much more on linguistic factors than on cultural factors For example, it is customary for the Vietnamese to extend such

greeting routines as „Bác/ cô/ chú/ anh/ mày đang làm gì đấy?‟, „Bác/ cô/ chú/ anh/ mày đang đi đâu đấy?‟; so, when communicating with their Anglophone friends, they simply transfer their cultural practices into „What are you doing?‟ or „Where are you going?‟ In the English-speaking cultures, such greeting routines are considerably

embrassing, especially in the initial meeting The lack of appropriateness in language use may lead to misinterpretation, misunderstanding and miscommunication Communication breakdown might very much be the case Therefore, the study of Vietnamese-American cross-cultural differences in speech acts is obviously necessary Silence/Pauses and time-fillers exist in all social interactions in any culture They are used to show respect, anger, hostility, disinterest, or any other emotions However,

when and how to use time-fillers or silence/pauses are not the same in different languages and cultures Therefore, the study of similarities and differences of using silence/pauses and time-fillers in interaction would help not only for the success of American-Vietnamese cross-cultural communication but also in communicative language teaching/learning

II SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Although intralinguistic (vocabulary, grammatical rules, phonetic rules ) and extralinguistic (facial expressions, postures, proximity ) factors, to a great extent, play a vitally important role in communication, they are beyond the scope of this study This study only focuses on pauses and time-fillers in some American and Vietnamese films for the discovery of major similarities and differences between the two groups

This research is confined to studying only the factor of power [colleague to colleague (equal); boss to employee (high to low); and employee to boss (low to high)] that are readily manageable and lend themselves to quantitative analyses

Similar plots, characters and scenes that involve similar communicative events/ situations are intentionally chosen for contrastive analysis

III AIMS OF THE STUDY

The aims of the study are:

- To investigate the use of silence/pauses and time-fillers under the variables of power in chosen situations in some American and Vietnamese films

- To find out major American- Vietnamese cross-cultural differences and similarities in using silence/pauses and time-fillers in the situations under investigation

IV METHODOLOGY

The main method of this study is the quantitative one All the considerations, remarks, interpretations, comments and assumptions given in the study are largely based

on data analysis with due reference to publications

The data were collected from four American and four Vietnamese psychological films The instrument to construct validation is used to tap individual assessment of social power (SP)

socio-V DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The study consists of three parts:

Part I Introduction, which provides the rationale, scope, aims and methods of the sudy Part II Development, which consists of three chapters

Chapter 1 Theoretical preliminaries This chapter covers the relationship

between language and culture, language and communication, cross-cultural communication, high-context and low-context culture, non-verbal communication and paralanguage

Chapter 2 Silence/pauses and Time-fillers This chapter reviews the issues

relevant to the study including silence/ pauses and time-fillers Then the notions of silence/ pause and time-filler definitions and usages are discussed

Chapter 3 Findings and Discussions The strategies of using silence/pauses and

time-fillers are identified and major cross-cultural differences and similarities discussed Part III Conclusion, in which the main findings are reviewed, the implications for cross-culture interactions, the limitations of the study pointed out and suggestions for further research offered

PART B DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1 Theoretical preliminaries

1.1 Language, culture and communication

1.1.1 Language and communication

By age four, most humans have developed an ability to communicate through oral language By age six or seven, most humans can comprehend, as well as express, written thoughts These unique abilities of communicating through a native language clearly separate humans from all animals

In 1994, in Time magazine, an article appeared titled „How man began‟ Within

that article was the following bold assertion:

“No single, essential difference separates human beings from other animals”

Yet, in what is obviously a contradiction to such a statement, all evolutionists admit that communication via speech is uniquely human - so that it often is used as the singular, and most important, dividing line between humans and animals

In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution, Jones, Martin, and

Pilbeam (1999) concede that there are no non-human languages, and then go on to observe that language is an adaptation unique to humans, and yet the nature of its

uniqueness and its biological basis are notoriously difficult to define In his book, The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain, Terrance Deacon (1997)

notes:

In this context, […], consider the case of human language It is one of the most distinctive behavioral adaptations on the planet Languages evolved in only one species, in only one way, without precedent, except in the most general sense And the differences between languages and all other natural modes of communicating are vast

Language is the development of the basic form of communication between human beings, and in a society And just as it is the basic form, it is also the most developed

We can not communicate in any real sense without language, other than through

gestures; we do communicate through some non-verbal forms like the visual arts - painting and sculpture - and through dance, but the culmination of true, articulate, communication is through language It could naturally take a number of forms It could

be unvarnished, workaday prose, it could be poetry, it could be drama; but all of these are forms of language, written, spoken and read The way in which the language is being used is making it pretty Thus, a successful communicator must own a good command of language at first

1.1.2 Language and culture

Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning “to cultivate”) is

a term that has different meanings And, the word “culture” is most commonly used in

three basic senses:

 excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture

 an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning

 the set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture#cite_note-1)

Of all aspects of culture, it is a fair guess that language was the first to receive a highly developed form and that its essential perfection is a prerequisite to the development of culture as a whole

1.1.3 Communication

Communication is a process of transferring information from one entity to another Communication processes are sign-mediated interactions between at least two agents which share a repertoire of signs and semiotic rules

All communication is cultural - it draws on ways we have learned to speak and give nonverbal messages We do not always communicate the same way from day to day, since factors like context, individual personality, and mood interact with the variety of cultural influences we have internalized that influence our choices Communication is interactive, so an important influence on its effectiveness is our relationship with others

The relationship between communication and culture is a very complex and intimate one First, cultures are created through communication; that is, communication

is the means of human interaction through which cultural characteristics - whether customs, roles, rules, rituals, laws, or other patterns - are created and shared It is not so much that individuals set out to create a culture when they interact in relationships, groups, organizations, or societies, but rather that cultures are a natural by-product of social interaction In a sense, cultures are the “residue” of social communication Without communication and communication media, it would be impossible to preserve and pass along cultural characteristics from one place and time to another One can say, therefore, that culture is created, shaped, transmitted, and learned through communication The reverse is also the case; that is, communication practices are largely created, shaped, and transmitted by culture

To understand the implications of this communication-culture relationship, it is necessary to think in terms of ongoing communication processes rather than a single communication event For example, when a three-person group first meets, the members bring with them individual thought and behavioral patterns from previous communication experiences and from other cultures of which they are, or have been, a part As individuals start to engage in communication with the other members of this new group, they begin to create a set of shared experiences and ways of talking about them With any culture; communication shapes culture, and culture shapes communication

Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communication across cultures The study of cross-cultural communication is fast becoming a global research area

One factor that is believed to contribute to successful communication in general and cross-cultural communication in particular is communicative competence Communicative competence is a term in linguistics which refers to a language user's grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology, phonology and the like, as well as social

knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately The term was coined by Hymes (1966), reacting against the perceived inadequacy of Chomsky's distinction between competence and performance To address Chomsky's abstract notion of competence, Hymes undertook ethnographic exploration of communicative competence that included communicative form and function in integral relation to each other The approach pioneered by Hymes is now known as the ethnography of communication

The notion of communicative competence is one of the theories that underlies the communicative approach to foreign language teaching Canale and Swain (1980: 1-47)

define communicative competence in terms of four components:

1 Grammatical competence: including vocabulary, word formation, sentence

formation, pronunciation, spelling and linguistic semantics;

2 Sociolinguistic competence: addressing the extent to which utterances are

produced and understood appropriately in different sociolinguistic contexts depending

on contextual factors such as status of participants, purposes of the interaction, and norms or conventions of interaction;

3 Discourse competence: concerning mastery of how to combine grammatical

forms and meanings to achieve a unified spoken or written text in different genres

4 Strategic competence: composed of mastery of verbal and non-verbal

communication strategies that may be called into actual situations or to sufficient competence in one or more of the other areas of communicative competence and to enhance the effectiveness of communication

A more recent survey of communicative competence by Bachman (1990) divides it into the broad headings of "organizational competence," which includes both grammatical and discourse (or textual) competence, and pragmatic competence, which includes both sociolinguistic and illocutionary competence Through the influence of communicative language teaching, it has become widely accepted that communicative competence should be the goal of language education, central to good classroom practice The understanding of communicative competence has been influenced by the field of pragmatics and the philosophy of language concerning speech acts

Research results from contrastive analysis of discourse and acts such as compliment, apology indicate that appropriateness in a particular situation in one culture may not become the same in another culture So acquiring sociolinguistic norms

is actually acquiring the culture in which the language is used

Savignon (1997) adds that there exists the interrelation among the four components in increasing communicative competence

1 Linguistic knowledge (verbal and non-verbal elements, patterns of elements in

particular speech event, range of possible variants, meaning of variants in particular situations)

2 Interacting skills (perception of salient features in communicative situations;

selection and interpretation of forms appropriate to specific situations, role and relationship; norms of interaction and interpretation; strategies for achieving goals)

3 Cultural knowledge (social structure, values and attitudes, cognitive

map/schema, enculturation processes)

Nguyen Quang (2001: 68) states that communicative competence is the shared part of the three components mentioned above

Despite the disagreement among scholars about its components, all researchers postulate the existence of communicative competence

A popular cultural framework was proposed by Hall (1973, 1990), in which he states that all cultures can be situated in relation to one another through the styles in which they communicate In some cultures, such as those of North America and much of Western Europe, communication occurs predominantly through explicit statements in text and speech, and they are thus categorized as low-context cultures In other cultures, such as Asia, much of the Middle East, Africa, and South America, messages include other communicative cues such as body language and the use of silence, and thus, known as high-context cultures Essentially, high-context communication involves implying a message through that which is not uttered This includes the situation, behavior, and para-verbal cues as integral parts of the communicated message These

terms such as “high-context and low-context culture”, “non-verbal communication” and

“paralanguage” will be investigated in the following sections

1.2 High-context culture vs Low-context culture

1.2.1 Definitions and differences

High-context (HC) culture and the contrasting low-context (LC) culture are

terms presented by Hall in his book Beyond Culture (1976) Hall states that HC

transactions feature pre-programmed information that is in the receiver and in the setting, with only minimal information in the transmitted message LC transactions are the reverse Most of the information must be in the transmitted message in order to make up for what is missing in the context

High-context culture refers to a culture's tendency to use high-context messages over low-context messages in routine communication This choice of communication styles translates into a culture that will cater towards in-groups; an in-group being a group that has similar experiences and expectations, from which inferences are drawn

In a high-context culture, many things are left unsaid, letting the culture explain Words and word choice become very important in higher context communication, since a few words can communicate a complex message very effectively to an in-group (but less effectively outside that group), while in a lower context culture, the communicator needs

to be much more explicit and the value of a single word is less important

LC culture refers to a culture‟s tendency to cater towards in-groups Low context cultures, such as Germany or the United States make much less extensive use of such similar experiences and expectations to communicate Much more is explained through words or verbalization, instead of the context

Viet Nam and most Asian countries are classified as HC cultures The U.S.A and Canada, along with Northern European countries, are classified as LC This is, of course,

an oversimplification Within a LC culture, we'll find ourselves in high-context situations and vice-versa For example, within a LC American culture, communications among family members are generally HC because of the high level of shared experience For our purposes, though, we will rely on the broad-brush definition

High Context cultures are considered:

 Less verbally explicit communication, less written/formal information

 More internalized understandings of what is communicated

 Multiple cross-cutting ties and intersections with others

 Long term relationships

 Strong boundaries- who is accepted as belonging vs who is considered an

"outsider"

 Knowledge is situational, relational

 Decisions and activities focus around personal face-to-face relationships, often around a central person who has authority

For examples: Small religious congregations, a party with friends, family gatherings, expensive gourmet restaurants and neighborhood restaurants with a regular clientele, undergraduate on-campus friendships, regular pick-up games, hosting a friend in your home overnight

Different from a high-context culture, a low-context can be seen as:

 Rule oriented, people play by external rules

 More knowledge is codified, public, external, and accessible

 Sequencing, separation - of time, of space, of activities, of relationships

 More interpersonal connections of shorter duration

 Knowledge is more often transferable

 Task-centered Decisions and activities focus around what needs to be done, division of responsibilities

For examples: large US airports, a chain supermarket, a cafeteria, a convenience store, sports where rules are clearly laid out, a motel

While these terms are sometimes useful in describing some aspects of a culture, one can never say a culture is "high" or "low" because societies all contain both modes

"High" and "low" are therefore less relevant as a description of a whole people, and more useful to describe and understand particular situations and environments

1.2.2 High and low context situations

Every culture and every situation has its high and low aspects Often one situation will contain an inner HC core and an outer LC ring for those who are less involved

For instance, a PTA (parent-teacher association) is usually a low-context situation: any parent can join, the dates of the meetings, who is president, what will be discussed, etc are all explicitly available information, and it is usually fairly clear how

to participate in the meetings However, if this is a small town, perhaps the people who run the PTA all know each other very well and have many overlapping interests They may "agree" on what should be discussed or what should happen without ever really talking about it, they have unconscious, unexpressed values that influence their decisions Other parents from outside may not understand how decisions are actually being made So the PTA is still low-context, but it has a high-context subgroup that is in turn part of a high-context small town society

When we enter a HC situation, it does not immediately become a LC culture just because we came in the door It is still a high-context culture and we are just ignorant Also, even low context cultures can be difficult to learn: religious dietary laws, medical training, written language all take years to understand The point is that that information has been made conscious, systematic, and available to those who have the resources to learn it

High contexts can be difficult to enter if we are an outsider (because we do not carry the context information internally, and because we can not instantly create close relationships) Low contexts are relatively easy to enter if we are an outsider (because the environment contains much of the information we need to participate, and because

we can form relationships fairly soon, and because the important thing is accomplishing

a task rather than feeling our way into a relationship)

Many researchers have found that people in high-context cultures tend to be more implicit in verbal codes, perceive highly verbal persons less attractive, tend to be more reliant on and tuned into non-verbal communication, and expect to have more non-verbal codes in communication

1.3 Non-verbal communication

Communication is the transfer of information, ideas and emotions from one person to another Most of us spend about 75 percent of our waking hours communicating our knowledge, thoughts, and ideas to others However, most of us fail

to realize that a great deal of our communication is of a non-verbal form as opposed to the oral and written forms

The last decades have seen a tremendous upsurge in research and popular interest

in the phenomena of nonverbal communication In its narrow and accurate sense, nonverbal behavior refers to actions as distinct from speech It thus includes facial expressions, hand and arm gestures, postures, positions, and various movements of the body or the legs and feet It may also include the way we wear our clothes or the silence

we keep Therefore, we can say that silence/pauses are considered as one of non-verbal behaviors

In his book, Nonverbal communication, Albert Mehrabian (1972) states that

nonverbal communication (NVC) is the act of imparting or interchanging thoughts, opinions, or information without the use of spoken words Nonverbal communication is used as a key variable to determine people's attitudes, values, and beliefs For example,

an observer watching a focus group will pay special attention to the nonverbal cues of group interaction, such as body language, facial expressions, and eye contact, to identify group members' true feelings about an issue

In The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, nonverbal communication is defined

as communication without the use of spoken language

Many scholars indicate that NVC is usually understood as the process of communication through sending and receiving wordless messages NVC can be communicated through gestures and touch, by body language or posture, by facial expressions and eye contact NVC can be communicated through object communication such as clothing, hairstyles or even architecture, symbols and inforgraphics Speech contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, including voice quality, emotion and speaking style, as well as prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation and stress

Dance is also regarded as a nonverbal communication Likewise, written texts have nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words, or the use

of emoticons

As can be seen from many definitions shown above, paralanguage and body language are considered as NVC; however, object language and environmental language, which are very important and can not be denied in communication, have not been clearly pointed out by those researchers Therefore, the author prefers the definition given by Nguyen Quang (2008):

vocally and/or nonvocally channeled It includes paralanguage vocal) such as: speed, volume, vocal flow, and extra-language (nonverbal- nonvocal) grouped into body language such as gestures, postures, facial expressions, object language such as clothes, jewellery, and environmental language as conversational distance, setting

(nonverbal-The proverb “Actions speak louder than words” underscores the importance of

nonverbal communication NVC is especially significant in cross-cultural situations Probably nonverbal differences account for typical difficulties in communicating

1.4 Paralanguage

Paralanguage refers to the vocal and nonverbal elements of communication used to modify meaning and convey emotion Paralanguage may be expressed consciously or unconsciously, and it includes the pitch, volume, and, in some cases, intonation of speech Sometimes the definition is restricted to vocally-produced sounds The study of paralanguage is known as paralinguistics

The term „paralanguage‟ is sometimes used as a cover term for body language, which is not necessarily tied to speech, and paralinguistic phenomena in speech The latter are phenomena that can be observed in speech but that do not belong to the arbitrary conventional code of language

Paralanguage is part of the nonverbal communication and convey emotions and attitudes It may not only be expressed consciously or unconsciously but also include

vocalizations such as hissing, hushing, and whistling, as well as speech modifications such as quality of voice or hesitations and speed in talking Some examples of paralanguage are laughing, crying, whispering, snoring, sucking, sneezing, sighing, etc Tone of voice plays a fundamental role in telephone interactions

According to Robbins and Langton (2001), Paralanguage is communication that goes beyond the specific spoken words It includes pitch, amplitude, rate, and voice quality of

speech Paralanguage reminds us that people convey their feelings not only in what they say, but also in how they say it

Literature has shown that it is possible to convey the full gamut of emotions in text The real problem is that it takes a long time and a lot of talent to do this Consequently,

it is not that text does not have emotional clues, but it is so difficult to put them in To

that end, with text, paralinguistic clues are:

The paralinguistic properties of speech play an important role in human speech communication There are no utterances or speech signals that lack paralinguistic properties, since speech requires the presence of a voice that can be modulated This voice must have some properties, and all the properties of a voice as such are paralinguistic However, the distinction “linguistic vs paralinguistic” applies not only to speech but to writing and sign language as well, and it is not bound to any sensory modality Even vocal language has some paralinguistic as well as linguistic properties that can be seen and even felt

In text-only communication such as email, chatrooms and instant massaging, paralinguistic elements can be displayed by emoticons, font and color choices, capitalization and the use of non-alphabetic or abstract characters Nonetheless, paralanguage in written communication is limited in comparison with face-to-face conversation, sometimes leading to misunderstandings

CHAPTER II SILENCE/PAUSES AND TIME-FILLERS

2.1 Silence/ Pauses

According to Clark (1996), pauses are powerful cues for what is happening in a conversation To use them as a basis for analyzing culture-specific behavior, we first have to check carefully what purposes pauses may serve in conversations and how the usage differs across cultures As we want to build a computational model for American English and Vietnamese, those two cultures are of special interest

In the book of Conversational organization – Interaction between speakers and hearers, Charles Goodwin (1981) describes his research on gaze behavior and

manipulation According to him, gaze is used to manage turn taking and to signal understanding or attentiveness If attention signals of the listener are missing, pauses are used by the speaker to regain attention In this case the duration of the silence is dependent from the nonverbal signals of the hearer Pauses in speech can be used for the following purposes:

 cognitive processing

 control mechanism

 acceptance / refusal

 turn taking

Most of the studies dealing with silence/pauses have pointed out that during a pause,

time-filler sounds like “uhmm”and “ahhm” might occur as well as nonverbal

behaviors like head nods or gestures And, pauses are generally considered to have two particular functions:

(a) pauses signal some word choices, and

(b) may reflect decisions at major constituent boundaries

In addition, a third function is the semantic decision-making The matter of content and the function of pauses for the speaker are examined Until that point, the speaker is simply a language generator which pauses either in the course of normal decision-making operations or because of disruptions in those operations However

the speaker can be seen as a participant in the social act of speech Pauses and other phenomena of spontaneous speech should be functionally related to changes

in the interpersonal situation and/or to changes in the responsiveness of the speaker, given a constant interpersonal situation

In addition, the functional significance of pauses is considered in terms of cognitive, affective-state, and social interaction variables Two sorts of social interaction variables are found to influence pauses in spontaneous speech:

 Mediating variables: e.g changes in the audience situation and predispositional responsiveness to listeners, and

 Control variables: e.g the number of potential speakers and the individual desire

to speak

Pauses in speech can either be used as control mechanism to control the flow of the conversation, as well as for cognitive processes, as decision making

Another usage of pauses is described in the book Politeness: Some universals

in language use by Brown and Levinson (1987), where politeness strategies are

constituted as an aspect of social interaction The authors describe some parallelisms in the linguistic construction of utterances with which people express themselves in different languages and cultures One motive of these parallels is isolated – politeness They claim the existence of conversational structure sequences and with it the intentional usage of pauses for politeness purposes Note that a carefully located pause can on the one hand mean acceptance and on the other hand refusal In their example (where A is a man, and W is his friend‟s new bride) the silence conveys acceptance:

A: Do you sing?

W: (silence) A: Hooray! Give us a song

Whereas silence can also be a polite refusal like in a situation, where A asks B for a favor and B falls into silence Thus, pauses can be used to express refusal or acceptance in a polite way But the interpretation of the pause remains a challenge to