Important figures in Welby’s time were influencedby significs, including Charles K. Ogden. He mentionsher theory of meaning in his 1923 book with IvorA. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, and signalsher correspondence with Peirce (which presentshis important writings on ‘‘existential graphs’’; seeHardwick, 1977).

Through mediation of the poet and psychologistFrederik van Eeden (1860–1932), Welby’s Significsgave rise to the Significs Movement in the Netherlandsin the first half of the twentieth century.

Welby’s published and unpublished writings, in-cluding her mostly unpublished correspondence, areavailable in the Welby Collection, York UniversityArchives and Special Collections, Toronto (Canada)and in the Lady Welby Library, University of LondonLibrary (England). For information on publicationsin Significs and the Significs Movement, see Petrilli(1990, 1998a, 1998b, 2005a); Schmitz (1985, 1988,1990); and Schmitz and Heijerman (1991).

See also: Anthroposemiotics; Body Language; Indexical-

ity: Philosophical Aspects; Indexicality: Theory; Structure

and Structuralism: Semiotic Approaches; Semiotics: His-

tory; Social Semiotics.

Bibliography

Hardwick C S & Cook J (eds.) (1977). Semiotic and signif-ics. The correspondence between Charles S. Peirce andVictoria Lady Welby. Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress.

Heijerman E & Schmitz W H (eds.) (1991). Significs, math-ematics and semiotics. The significs movement in theNetherlands. Munster: Nodus Publikationen.

Ogden C K (1994 [1911]). ‘The progress of significs.’ InGordon T W (ed.) C. K. Ogden and linguistics, 5 vols.London: Routledge-Thoemmes Press. 1, 1–47.

Petrilli S (1990). ‘The problem of signifying in Welby,Peirce, Vailati, Bakhtin.’ In Ponzio A (ed.) Man as a sign.Essays on the philosophy of language. Petrilli S (trans.and ed.). Appendixes I & II by Petrilli S. Berlin: Moutonde Gruyter. 313–363.

Petrilli S (1998a). Su Victoria Welby. Significs e filosofia dellinguaggio. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane.

Petrilli S & Sebeok T A (1998b). ‘Women in semiotics(Victoria Lady Welby 1837–1912).’ In Carr G F et al.(eds.) Interdigitations: Essays for Irmengard Rauch.Bristol: Thoemmes Publisher.

Petrilli S (2001). ‘Sign,’ p. 262; ‘Significs,’ p. 264; ‘Semi-otics,’ pp. 260–261; ‘Victoria Lady Welby,’ pp. 285–286.In Cobley P (ed.) The Routledge companion to semioticsand linguistics. London: Routledge.

Petrilli S (2005a). ‘Welby, Victoria Alexandrina, LadyWelby (1837–1912).’ In Colin M (ed.) Oxford new dic-tionary of national biography. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

Petrilli S (ed.) (2005b). ‘Introduction to Victoria Welby’ssignifics through a selection of her writings.’ Presentedand commented by Susan Petrilli. Semiotica. Journalof the International Association for Semiotic Studies.Special Issue.

Schmitz W H (1985). ‘Victoria Lady Welby’s significs: theorigin of the signific movement.’ In Welby (ed.). ix–ccxxxv.

Schmitz W H (1988). ‘Victoria Lady Welby and significs: aninterview with H. Walter Schmitz.’ In Sebeok T A &Umiker-Sebeok J (eds.) The semiotic web 1987. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter. 79–92.

Schmitz W H (ed.) (1990). Essays on significs. Amsterdam:John Benjamins.

Vailati G (1971). Epistolario 1891–1909. Lanaro G (ed.).Turin: Einaudi. Dal Pra M (intro.).

Welby V (1977 [1911]). ‘Significs.’ In The EncyclopaediaBritannica, 11th edn., vol. 25, 78–81. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. (Now in Hardwick, 1977,167–175.)

Welby V (1985[1893]). ‘Meaning and Metaphor.’ TheMonist 3(4), 510–525. (Now in Welby, 1985.)

Welby V (1985[1896]). ‘Sense, meaning and interpretation.’Mind 5(17), 24–37; 5(18), 186–202. (Now in Welby,1985.)

Welby V (1983[1903]). What is Meaning? Eschbach A(ed.). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Welby V (1985[1911]). Significs and language. SchmitzH W (ed.). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Welby V, Baldwin J M & Stout G F (1902). ‘Significs.’ InBaldwin J M (ed.) Dictionary of philosophy and psychol-ogy in three volumes. London: Macmillan. 1901–1905,2, 529.

Silence 377

Silence

A Jaworski, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

� 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

What monochrome painting, in its richness andmultitude of manifestations is to history of art, silenceis (or should be) to linguistics. Functionally, the

question what silence ‘does’ is best answered in thesame way as is the question what speech, or any othersemiotic system, can ‘do’ in communication. TakingHalliday’s (1978) view of semiotic systems, forexample, silence can be shown to fulfill three majorfunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual (seeSystemic Theory; Halliday, Michael A. K. (b. 1925)).

378 Silence

In its ideational function, i.e., describing or referringto the nonlinguistic reality, silence’s primary functionis to conceal information. But it can also allow idea-tional inferences to be made, as when a silent re-sponse follows a request for information. Considerthe following (constructed) example:

A: Who ate all the cookies?B: [silence]A: I knew you did!

Not unlike other forms of nonverbal communica-tion, what silence serves best is the interpersonalfunction, i.e., managing social actors’ relations ofpower and solidarity. Thus, silence can either markinterpersonal intimacy or extreme distance in situa-tions where ‘small talk’ is normally required betweencasual acquaintances (Jaworski, 2000); alternatively,it may signify an extreme power differential betweeninteractants (Braithwaite, 1990) (see Power and Prag-matics). In its textual function of organizing coher-ence, or the framing of talk, pauses are often used toadd emphasis to what is going to be said next (Duez,1982), or they may occur before and during a stretchof talk marked as a performance (e.g., when reciting apoem) (Bauman, 1997) (see Cohesion and Coherence:Linguistic Approaches).

Silence has been studied more or less explicitly inmost functionally oriented frameworks of linguisticanalysis. Saville-Troike (1985) has offered a holisticview of silence from an ethnographic perspective,arguing that silence in the form of pauses and hesita-tions carries predominantly affective and connotativemeaning, whereas silent communicative acts (such asresponses to greetings, queries or requests) may carrypropositional meanings on a par with other verbalcommunicative acts, such as questions, promises,denials, warnings, threats, insults, and so on (seeSpeech Acts; Pragmatic Acts; Speech Acts, Literaland Nonliteral). In Conversation Analysis, pauseshave been identified as ‘dispreferred seconds’ (e.g.,Davidson, 1984) such that, if an invitation is followedby a pause, other things being equal, it is most likelygoing to be interpreted as a ‘refusal’ (see Conversa-tion Analysis). Numerous versions of Critical Dis-course Analysis have focused on silence andsilencing as forms of sociopolitical control and op-pression (Gal, 1989; Theismeyer, 2003) (see CriticalApplied Linguistics). Other approaches have includedsemiotics (Kurzon, 1998) and politeness theory (Sifia-nou, 1997) (see Semiotics: History; Politeness). Manystudies have been concerned with crosscultural differ-ences in the use and ‘toleration’ of silence, includingdiffering attitudes to talk and nontalk, relative lengthof intra- and interturn pauses, and silence or volubili-ty as sources of miscommunication (e.g., Philips,

1976; Scollon, 1985; Enninger, 1987; Jaworski &Sachdev, 2004) (see Intercultural Pragmatics andCommunication).

Another productive way of studying silence isby examining specific domains of language use andgenres of communication in which silence plays aprominent communicative or expressive role. Theseinclude ritual (including religious) communication(cf. Bauman, 1983), censorship (Jaworski, 1993;Jaworski and Galasinski, 2000), literature and perfor-mance art (Tannen, 1990; Jaworski, 1998) (see Ritualand Religious Language; Narrativity and Voice; Lit-erary Pragmatics).

See also: Cohesion and Coherence: Linguistic Ap-

proaches; Conversation Analysis; Critical Applied Lin-

guistics; Halliday, Michael A. K. (b. 1925); Intercultural

Pragmatics and Communication; Literary Pragmatics;

Narrativity and Voice; Politeness; Power and Pragmatics;

Pragmatic Acts; Ritual and Religious Language; Semiot-

ics: History; Speech Acts; Speech Acts, Literal and Nonlit-

eral; Systemic Theory.

Bibliography

Basso K H (1972). ‘To give up on words: silence in WesternApache culture.’ In Giglioli P P (ed.) Language and socialcontext. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 67–86.

Bauman R (ed.) (1977). ‘The nature of performance.’ InVerbal art as performance. Rowley, MA: NewburyHouse. 3–58.

Bauman R (1983). Let your words be few: symbolismof speaking and silence among seventeenth-centuryQuakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bilmes J (1994). ‘Constituting silence: life in the world oftotal meaning.’ Semiotica 98, 73–89.

Braithwaite C A (1990). ‘Communicative silence: a cross-cultural study of Basso’s hypothesis.’ In Carbaugh D (ed.)Cultural communication and intercultural contact.Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 321–327.

Davidson J (1984). ‘Subsequent versions of invitations,offers, requests, and proposals dealing with potential oractual rejection.’ In Atkinson J M & Heritage J (eds.)Structures of social action: studies in conversational analy-sis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 102–128.

Duez D (1982). ‘Silent and non-silent pauses in three speechstyles.’ Language and Speech 25, 11–28.

Enninger W (1987). ‘What interactants do with non-talkacross cultures.’ In Knapp K, Enninger W & Knapp-Potthoff A (eds.) Analyzing intercultural communication.Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 269–302.

Gal S (1989). ‘Between speech and silence: the problematicsof research on language and gender.’ Papers in Pragmatics3, 1–39.

Halliday M A K (1978). Language as social semiotic.London: Edward Arnold.

Jaworski A (1993). The power of silence: social and prag-matic perspectives. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Silence: Cultural Aspects 379

Jaworski A (ed.) (1997). Silence: interdisciplinary perspec-tives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Jaworski A (1998). ‘The silence of power and solidarity inFallen sons.’ Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 33, 141–152.

Jaworski A (2000). ‘Silence and small talk.’ In Coupland J(ed.) Small talk. London: Pearson Education. 110–132.

Jaworski A & Galasinski D (2000). ‘Strategies of silence:omission and ambiguity in The black book of Polishcensorship.’ Semiotica 131, 185–200.

Jaworski A & Sachdev I (2004). ‘Teachers’ beliefs aboutstudents’ talk and silence: constructing academic successand failure through metapragmatic comments.’ InJaworski A, Coupland N & Galasinski D (eds.) Metalan-guage: social and ideological perspectives. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter. 227–244.

Kurzon D (1998). Discourse of Silence. Amsterdam/Phila-delphia: John Benjamins.

Philips S U (1976). Some sources of cultural variability inthe regulation of talk. Language in Society 5, 81–95.

Silence: Cultural AspectsM Saville-Troike, University of Arizona, Tucson,AZ, USA

� 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Silence as a Signifier

Silence, perhaps because it is typically defined as theabsence of acoustic signals, has long been neglected inlinguistics. Nevertheless, it is an essential componentof communication, and people who are members ofthe same speech community share as much in the usesand interpretations they give to silence as they do inregard to the linguistic forms that they use. Silence is a‘signifier’ in Saussure’s sense of a meaningful elementthat is linked to a referent by cultural convention. Aswith spoken language, the linkage between silenceand meaning may be symbolic, indexical, or iconic.The symbolic link of silence to meaning is arbitrary,with segments of silence assigned referential meaningmuch as speech segments are (e.g., /hors/ in Englishfor the four-legged creature that eats hay). Forexample, a moment of silence may mean ‘respect,’or silence in response to a request may mean either‘yes’ or ‘no,’ depending on which interpretation hasbeen assigned to it in particular contexts by thespeech community. The indexical link of silence tomeaning essentially involves the association of ideas.This level of signification goes beyond the literal con-tent of messages and requires understanding of theinterpretive frames within which they occur, as whensilence indexes social relationships. The iconic linkbetween form and meaning is a more direct and

Saville-Troike M (1985). ‘The place of silence in anintegrated theory of communication.’ In Tannen D &Saville-Troike M (eds.). 3–18.

Scollon R (1985). ‘The machine stops: silence in the meta-phor of malfunction.’ In Tannen D & Saville-Troike M(eds.). 21–30.

Sifianou M (1997). ‘Silence and politeness.’ In Jaworski A(ed.). 63–84.

Tannen D (1990). ‘Silence as conflict management in fictionand drama: Pinter’s Betrayal and a short story, ‘‘GreatWits.’’ ’ In Grimshaw A (ed.) Conflict Talk. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. 260–279.

Tannen D & Saville-Troike M (eds.) (1985). Perspectives onsilence. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Theismeyer L (ed.) (2003). Discourse and silencing: repre-sentation and the language of displacement. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

‘natural’ one, although it is also importantly relatedto cultural considerations. Silence has meaning at thislevel, for example, in its representation of ‘death.’This meaning is invoked in such metaphors as thesilence of the tomb, and in Hamlet’s final utterance:The rest is silence.

In contrast to its relative neglect within linguistics,silence has been accorded widespread attention inphilosophy, anthropology, and literary analysis.A search for silence and silent in the MLA Interna-tional Bibliography website, for example, yields over3000 entries, most related to the role of silence as asociocultural signifier.

Cultural Meanings andSocial Distribution

Ultimately all aspects of culture are potentially rele-vant to the domain of silence, but those that have themost direct bearing on this topic are social and insti-tutional structure, values and attitudes held aboutlanguage and speaking (or not speaking), and waysin which communicative knowledge and skills (in-cluding appropriate use of language and silence) aretransmitted from one generation to the next and tonew members of the group.

Aspects of social structure that are indexed by si-lence commonly involve interaction phenomena thatreflect status and role. Speech may be proscribed, forexample, from a commoner to a chief, or between aman and his mother-in-law. Where power is accordedvoice, silence is often indicative of powerlessness.