Author: Radjabov, Diyor Rahmonberdiyevich

Annotation: This article examines silence as an interactional resource in Japanese conversational discourse. While earlier linguistic research concentrated primarily on spoken utterances, recent pragmatic studies emphasize that meaning is constructed through the management of interaction, including pauses and non-verbal responses. The present study explores how silence operates as an indirect communicative action in naturally occurring Japanese interaction. Using qualitative discourse analysis, conversational episodes from peer, institutional, and workplace settings were examined. The analysis demonstrates that silence functions as an interpretable communicative move rather than a communicative absence. It indexes stance, mitigates dispreferred responses, preserves social alignment, and enables participants to negotiate interpersonal relationships. The findings suggest that Japanese speakers rely on shared inferential frameworks to interpret silent turns. The study contributes to interactional pragmatics by showing that silence is a structured component of turn-taking organization and a culturally shaped strategy for maintaining relational harmony.

Keywords: silence, interactional pragmatics, Japanese discourse, indirectness, turn-taking, politeness.

Pages in journal: 137 - 143