the Meaning of Silence

The Meaning of Silence
Introduction:
This paper analyzes the nature of silence, the possible meaning of it, and the reasons for the different understanding of it in intercultural communication. At the end of the paper, some suggestions are given for successful understanding of it. It is the author’s intention that this knowledge can facilitate effective intercultural communication.

Silence, as one of the means of non-verbal communication, is also called “quiet time? In almost any language, we can find evidences to show importance people attach to it: in English, we have a proverb ?speech is silver, and silence is golden.?In Chinese, we have ?silence is better than speech.?(cishi wusheng sheng yousheng). However, in actual communication, the significance of silence is largely ignored or, to make things worse, it is misunderstood partly because of the uncertain relationship between the signifier and the signified, since, in essence, silence is a sign. It is especially ...