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1.3 Research Design
In this paper, both quantitive methods and qualitative methods will be applied to study the mechanism and functions of silence in conversation. To begin with, the data will mainly be collected from"Step-mother", a Chinese family drama with many kitchen-sink scenes and dialogues whose authenticity makes it true to life. It has 36 episodes which tells a warm and loving story about a bold and open-minded girl falls in love with a photographer and becomes a good step-mother, being accepted by his children after twists and turns. Though it contains a great deal of conversation including silence, only typical ones will be addressed in this paper. Besides, there are some stretches of conversation from daily life as well as Chinese and English movies and magazines which can reflect as much characteristics of spoken language as possible.
Moreover, this paper first gives a clear definition of silence within conversation analysis. Second, this paper interpret the meaning and nature of silence from the speaker's and the hearer's perspective respectively within the framework of Relevance Theory and demonstrate a possible inferential model of understanding silence. Third, this paper illustrate some functions of silence and factors affecting the interpretation of it so as to emphasize the importance of using silence in interpersonal communication.
2 Definition of Silence in Conversation
2.1 Classification of Silence in Conversation
A conversation is done in and through turns, thus the turns and turn-taking is one of the fundamental organizations of conversation, which will be introduced specifically in this part.
In linguistics, some scholars define silence in terms of the form and some attach attention to its functions such as what is believed that silence is "the absence of signifier, punctuation of the discourse"(Kurzon 2007). However, the most widely accepted definition of silence is put forward by Levinson. He regards the "turn" as a basic unit in conversation and silence, according to its location, can be grouped into three main categories by the rules of turn-taking. Those categories include "Within-turn silence", "Inter-turn silence" and "Turn-silence" which is the focus of this paper.
2.2 Definition of Silence within Conversation Analysis
"Turn" is the basic unit in the conversation. As a fundament part, it makes up the conversation carried out by the speaker and the addressee. Besides, the shift of "turn" between them is "turn-taking" which means "at least one and no more than one party talks at a time" in Sacks' word. moreover, Sacks et al suggest that there is a mechanism of turn-taking concerning C (current speaker), N (next speaker) and TRP(a transition relevance place). Operating on a turn-by-turn basis, it is a set of rules with ordered options. (Levinson, 2001). The process of turn-taking working within its mechanism is illustrated in the following figure designed by Zuo Yan (1996):
From the chart above, three types of silence can be clearly clarified.
First, "Within-turn silence" can be also called "Pause" which occurs at a non-TRP and indicates the time of hesitation that the speaker needs to organize the coming utterances. Second, "Inter-turn silence" consist "gap" and "lapse". The former refers to the silence before 1(b) and(c) while the latter refers to the silence occurred when the process goes beyond1 (a),(b),(c). These two types of silence can be exemplified in the following example:
Example1:
Mrs Hughes, the head housemaid and Mr Carson, the butler of the estate worked for the Grandson family for almost their whole life and they were talking about their future after their retirements.
Mrs Hughes: Do you(0.3 seconds) ever wish you(0.2 seconds) would gone another way?(2.0 seconds) Worked in a factory? Had a wife and children?
Mr Carson: Do you?