The Pragmatic-cognitive Approach To Turn Silence

Silence is a prevalent phenomenon in human communication and the correct interpretation of it is greatly important in interpersonal interaction. As the famous American writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau once wrote, in human intercourse the tragedy begins not when there is misunderstanding about words but when silence is not understood. The understanding of silence is so important that the research on it has been carried out abroad and at home in varied disciplines, such as philosophy, anthropology, psychology, linguistics and so on. Researchers in these disciplines have tried to define it by clarifying its varied forms, presenting a variety of functions and other distinctive perspectives. However, by reviewing the previous literature, we find out that the research on it in the field of linguistics abroad has not yet come to final agreement, the current study of it at home is still in its initial phase, and that the study of turn silence, an indispensable part of human communication, has rarely been touched upon up to now. Therefore, to interpret turn silence in interpersonal interaction becomes the major concern of this thesis.In order to give a clear definition of this phenomenon, we will firstly introduce a vital theory in conversation analysis, which is called turn-taking theory proposed by Harvey Sacks et al in the 1970s. Through discussion, we will see that turn silence is simply interpreted on the surface level within the framework of conversation analysis and the communicators' psychological factor is not taken into consideration at all. Then, in order to explore the communicator's psychology when interpreting turn silence in interpersonal interaction, a cognitive theory in pragmatics called relevance theory is employed. So, in the main part of this thesis, turn silence is dealt with within the framework of relevance theory.In this thesis, in answer to the question why relevance theory rather than other theories is employed to interpret turn silence, we will firstly introduce two relevant theories in pragmatics to interpret it. They are Grice's cooperative principle and Brown and Levinson's face theory respectively. Through the overall analysis, we will find out that both cooperative principle and face theory have their demerits in explaining it. In other words, neither of them is adequate to provide valid rationale for the analysis of conversational turn silence despite their own advantages. And relevance theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson in the 1980s right serves this purpose. So, in the following part, turn silence is interpreted within the framework of relevance theory, including the informative and communicative intentions conveyed by it and its relevance and contextual effects. More importantly, several ordinary meanings of it are explored. It may indicate thinking, a dispreferred answer, agreement, disagreement, disregard, reluctance to answer, self-correction, etc. Another important aspect we discussed in this thesis is some important factors affecting the interpretation of it, such as the relationship between the communicators, the occasion where the conversation occurs, the length of the silent period and national discrepancy, and so on.Through the whole discussion, we confirmed that turn silence itself is a speech rather than the failure or stop of communication. Last but not least, some implications this research may bring are discussed in the last chapter. Here, the author suggests that this research on turn silence within the framework of relevance theory might be conducive to further cross-cultural study and the study of silence in classroom teaching, especially to the study of the cross-cultural differences in the use and valuation of turn silence.