Culture of silence

[loctantruong]

it seems to me that Americans talk a lot and they speak breathlessly. Is that American culture that I dont know. Do English and American people value silence?

Thanks for your help

[Tdol]

While I wouldn't say that silence isn't valued at all, people tend to try to keep a conversation going and do not like long breaks, so in that sense, yes.

[Claire Redfield]

I agree with tdol

[SunnyDay]

Silence is valued by teachers in a classroom. Not that they ever get any. ;P

I have friends that don't like loud people, but they still don't like total silence. Then there's people that enjoy silence, and there's the people that have to have noise all the time and are constantly talking loudly. It all depends on the person, but there are more people, especially younger people, that don't like long pauses in conversation. I know I don't.

[nikenike]

To be silence or not depends on their personality. People who speak much called extrovet(please check the spelling) and the oppsite people who like silence most is introvet. This is related with their language aptitude, introvet good in english text analysis but poor in pronounciation and it happens to my lecturers :D. How about extrovet? He like practice English much than studying grammar a lot ;)

What is your language aptitude? :)

[twostep]

Originally Posted by nikenike

To be silence or not depends on their personality. People who speak much called extrovet(please check the spelling) and the oppsite people who like silence most is introvet. This is related with their language aptitude, introvet good in english text analysis but poor in pronounciation and it happens to my lecturers :D. How about extrovet? He like practice English much than studying grammar a lot ;)

What is your language aptitude? :)

extrovert - introvert
It should not affect language skills. According to the famous/infamous (depending on your point of view) Myers-Briggs Type Indicator extroverts tend to focus their attention on the outer world of people and things while introverts focus their attention on the inner world of ideas and impressions.
ex - not very outgoing, detail oriented
in - happy go lucky

[siafay]

i do believe silence is valued differently in different cultures. but i think that also has a lot to do with the personalilties of the speakers involved in a conversation. extroverted ppl tend to talk more while introverted ppl would hold their stance as the practice of "silence is gold"

sometimes i myself feel uneasy for the sudden silence in an ongoing conversation, and mostly i would even consider it a failure of not having quick responses of having something to say...

[Tdol]

There are ways in which British and Americans differ- the British are less likely to start up conversations in certain sittuations, like elevators, where we'll happily travel in complete silence, which Americans seem to start talking.

[SunnyDay]

We'll travel in silence, too, but we won't like it. :P It's a really uncomfortable silence and is the butt of many commercial jokes (they even make fun of it in Spiderman 2).

[Tdol]

I find it very difficult to talk in such circumstances- I find the silence much more comfortable than trying to fill a journey down four floors with words.