The Sociolinguistic Roles of Silence in Jordanian Spoken Arabic

Abstract

The study of silence has not got much concern in the Arab world in general and in Jordanian Arabic in particular. The purpose of the current study is to seek to understand the practice and perception of silence in casual conversation in Jordanian society. Twelve dyadic conversations were conducted for 30 minutes each. The participants were 24 university students at Yarmouk University (Jordan-Irbid): twelve males and 12 females. They were categorised into two main groups: friends and strangers. Ninety seconds are analysed from the beginning, the middle, and the end of each conversation. The theoretical framework of this study draws on Turn-Taking system, ethnography of communication Speech Act Theory and Grice's Conversational. One of the more significant findings to emerge from this study is that silence is functional and meaningful in Jordanian society. It also has different interpretations in different contexts depending on the relationship between the interlocutors, the context of situation and the topic.