The Sound of Silence

This book offers one of the first case studies of silent and filled pauses (''er/m'') in English as a lingua franca (ELF) business interaction, i.e. in English used as a contact language between people for whom it is not the first language. The theoretical section provides the background as to how silent and filled pauses can be approached. This has so far mainly been done in the area of first language research and psycholinguistics. From a cross-cultural perspective, culture-related differences in the evaluation of silence are outlined. The analytical section then illustrates that apart from primarily serving the speaker as time-gaining device in the cognitive process of speech production, pauses also seem to be involved in the creation of meaning and comprehension (in ELF), function as mitigation devices related to hierarchical aspects of the business interaction and may feature as a topical device structuring a meeting. Reflecting on the limitations involved in the analysis of conversational ''silences'', this volume provides a good account of the factors to be taken into consideration when trying to pin down the significance of such a volatile and ''semantically empty'' phenomenon.