Discourse And Silencing

Silencing is not only a physically coercive act. It is also an act of language involving forms of selection, representation and compliance. "Discourse and Silencing" weaves together theories and examples of discourse from different disciplines in order to put forward a theory of silencing in language: that discursive systems filter, represent and displace types of knowledge into other forms of expression.Each chapter of the book analyses examples of silencing through discourse in various social and political fields. The examples cover courtroom trials, government censorship, domestic violence, marital conversations, penal institutions, news media, and political rhetoric. They cover societies ranging from Eastern and Central Europe, Canada and the U.S. to New Zealand and Japan. The contributors clarify the difference between chosen silences and the silencing that, as a practice, seeks to limit, alter or de-legitimise another s discourse. The book also examines the continuous resistances and shifts in discourse and silencing within the social and political frameworks in which interlocutors negotiate their relations to each other.

This work discusses the discourse of silence and looks at how people relate to silence in specific conte×ts. It e×amines the application of semiotic tools to e×plore several facets of silence in everyday conversation, and reviews various studies of silence that have been published. The book interprets silence in terms of modality in order to distinguish between intentional and unintentional silence. It also presents an analysis of the silence of characters in films, biblical and cinematic te×t in which the terms of reference generally e×pand - from the silent answer, through the silencing of characters by authors, to silence as a feature of the generation gap.

The book deals initially with the interpretation of the silent answer to a question. From a semiotic approach to the contrast between silence and speech mainly within a Greimasian framework, the discussion turns to the application of pragmatic tools such as conversational analysis and adjacency pairs to the interpretation of silence. A model is presented which attempts to explain the observer’s cognitive competence, and its limits, in being able to interpret the silent answer. A basic distinction is also made between intentional silence (the refusal to answer) and non-intentional silence (the psychological inability to answer). The interpretation of silence is extended from a theoretical viewpoint to an analysis of various discourse types. Firstly, silence in the legal world: the accused’s and the witness’s right of silence, the right of legal authorities to silence the broadcasting of direct speech. The author then analyzes the silencing of characters in a literary text (Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice), in a biblical text (Moses and his speech impediment in Exodus), in opera (Moses’ silence in Schoenberg’s opera Moses und Aron) and in the cinema. Here, after the initial discussion of Ingmar Bergman’s The Silence, focus is shifted to the generation gap and the representation of silence by song in Mike Nichols’ The Graduate.

This book fills a significant gap in the field by addressing the topic of absence in discourse. It presents a range of proposals as to how we can identify and analyse what is absent, and promotes the empirical study of absence and silence in discourse. The authors argue that these phenomena should hold a more central position in the field of discourse, and discuss these two topics at length in this innovative edited collection. It will appeal to students and scholars interested in discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis.

This book constitutes a significant contribution to political discourse analysis and to the study of silence, both from the point of view of discourse analysis as well as pragmatics, and it is also relevant for those interested in politics and media studies. It promotes the empirical study of silence by analysing metadiscourse about politicians’ silence and by systematically conceptualising the communicativeness of silence in the interplay between intention (to be silent), expectation (of speech) and relevance (of the unsaid). Three cases of sustained metadiscourse about silent politicians from Germany are analysed to exemplify this approach, based on media texts and protocols of parliamentary inquiries. Ideals of political transparency and communicative openness are identified as a basis for (disappointed) expectations of speech which trigger and determine metadiscourse about politicians’ silences. Finally, the book deals critically with the role of those who act as advocates of ‘the public’s’ demand to speak out.

Suitable for those interested in politics and media studies, this title constitutes a significant contribution to political discourse analysis and to the study of silence, both from the point of view of discourse analysis and pragmatics. It deals critically with the role of those who act as advocates of 'the public's' demand to speak out.

Silence in Philosophy, Literature, and Art demonstrates how silence as a form of indirect discourse provides us with access to hitherto inaccessible aspects of human experience.

With examples from a variety of contexts, this book provides a linguistic analysis of the role of silence in language.