Abstract
Qualitative Studies of Silence explores and interprets the unsaid: those absences diagnosed in discursive environment as units that could have been used but were not. Analysing silence is challenging for two reasons: first, establishing that these units of analyses and their multilayered characteristics and functions actually exist; second, explaining how to access the unsaid using systematic methods. The burden lies with the researchers to prove that despite their slippery nature, these units do project ideologies associated with differential power structures. The contributions to this book develop a broad range of qualitative studies on the unsaid that attempt to do this and more.
The primary goals of the book are to describe the forms and function of the unsaid, interpret how the discursive terrain is produced with the unsaid, and finally explain how each context – be it social, cultural or political – values these forms of absence. At the same time, the book introduces the reader to a set of analytical tools that are used to examine the unsaid with the aim of uncovering or discovering the ideologies that sustain them. The unsaid is primarily seen in terms of its functional value for performing certain social actions.
The chapters in the volume address two main issues: how the form and functions of these units of analysis are realised, and the transformative value available in context for these forms of the unsaid. A first group of papers develops the argument that these units can be operationalised both in terms of being identifiable in their varied forms, and in terms of the methods used to access them. Billing and Marinho’s observation of literal and metaphorical silences along with Zerubavel’s analysis of discursive absences direct our attention to the presence of these unsaid units of analyses. Other authors help us understand how these forms can be approached systematically. Toerien and Jackson offer observations on using conversation analysis to uncover absences; Murray and Lambert provide an insight into triangulation as a way to understand how silences are tip-toed around; Sue and Robertson’s chapter shows us how to listen for silences in ethnographic research; and Richardson and Allison’s contribution offers alternative pathways to listen to the silences of trauma patients.
A second group of papers highlights specific contexts where forms of the unsaid perform certain functions. Opotow, Ilyes and Fine focus on instances of silences in the court room, where the dominant narrative provides a context for erasure of already marginalised voices in the justice system. Fivush and Pasuoathi focus on autobiographical narratives that provide context for gendered silences. Extending the context to include power differentials between genders, Coles and Glenn provide a contextual explanation for rhetorical possibilities of gendered identities. Alford’s focus on silencing whistleblowers captures the essence of context, which in the case of organisational power is fluid. In each of the papers above, to observe the unsaid is to detail its context explicitly, for it is in these specific contexts that silence performs specific social actions.
Two papers focus on larger corpora where absences and silences in public discourse and propaganda serve an ideological function that needs to be teased out. Schröter’s examination of metadiscourse in Germany and Huckin’s approach to propaganda by omission develop the argument that vested interests in maintaining these absences are systematic ways by which people avoid ideological conflict or enhance a certain point of view. The articles by Winter and Frosh provide an effective counterargument to study the unsaid. What these contributors acknowledge is that some absences elude expression or even acknowledgment, be it in museums after catastrophic events or among trauma patients who are not able to articulate their suffering. These absences may be categorised as those that elude linguistic expression, those that have been lost and are forever silenced. Yet a rebuttal is also provided by Frosh, who says that the first step to understanding the unsaid is to take the ethical responsibility to listen to it.
Overall, the book offers useful explorations of how forms and functions of the unsaid work within specific socio-political contexts. Comprehensive processes of analysis detail individual acts of silences that have the potential to transform collective structures of the unsaid. These include examples from apartheid, the #MeToo movement and whistleblowers working within an organisation. Qualitative analyses of the manifestations of the unsaid are held to the same rigorous examination of discourse elements as the said, if not more, as the researchers have to first prove they exist.
While every contributor in this book has worked hard to prove the importance of the unsaid, the concluding chapter that brings together the argument on silences fails to remind the reader that the unsaid by its very nature directs attention away by its non-presence or absence in a discursive environment. It is only the interested researcher who redirects attention towards it. The unsaid remains an absence and plays the primary role of enhancing the salience of the said until an interested researcher foregrounds its value.
In this book, the semiotic signification of the unsaid and the ideological burden that the unsaid carries move in every chapter from the confines of shadow boxing with the salience of the said to becoming a central thesis. The book empowers readers with an understanding that every context is capable of transformative value, while some unsaid items perform social action with their unique characteristics, other contexts help the said gain credence in the social world. The book encourages the readers to understand that discourse is made up a complex interaction of plurality of different signifying practices, it demystifies the unsaid and promotes the idea that social action is possible if one examines things closely enough.