Language Matters | When silence speaks louder than words – in Hong Kong, blank Post-its and pages used to convey meaning
The Finnish use silence and observation to get to know a stranger, in Hong Kong, it is being used to draw attention to censorship
When one thinks of “language”, one usually considers speech, words, writing, gestures, even emojis. Yet silence – the gaps between all these productions – is not just the absence of speech; in many cases, it also constitutes communication, a “form of doing” in its own right.
Linguistic anthropological research has long studied the role of silence across cultures. Cultural anthropologist Keith Basso’s 1970 essay, “To Give Up On Words”, documented how, in Western Apache ideology, silence is deemed appropriate in certain socially ambiguous situations, including when meeting strangers, or during courtship, or mourning. Work on Finnish and Japanese cultures explores how the preference for silence relates to the high social value placed on privacy, discreetness, face saving and feedback.
And silence is used in different situations to achieve the same goals as talk is elsewhere: while getting to know a new person occurs in American English through (formulaic) talk, Finnish uses observation and silence.
In political science, silence has been increasingly studied as a means of engagement and contestation. Research has explored various ways in which silence can be mobilised and practised democratically, identifying four “insubordinate silences” with distinct functions – of resistance, refusal, protest and empowerment.
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Hong Kong national security law leaves ‘Lennon Walls’ in restaurants blank, protest posters out