A Dissertation by GRACE HUI-CHIN LIN Submitted to the Office of ...

Cheng Chih showed his disapproving attitude toward “keeping silence” in both of his
interviews. In his first interview, he expressed “keeping silence” might not be the
best skill in changing topics. He pointed out that “polite language” could help him to
change a topic, and the pause in communication was a good time to alter a topic:
“Keeping silence” was a method that had shown “no respect” to the speaker.
In class, it made my classmates’ mood down and made my group’s
communication inactive. It was insolent if I just kept silence. If the topic
needed to be changed, we should be very careful and polite when changing
the topics. Some polite language such as, “Excuse me” and “I am sorry” were
necessary. I believed that we had to change the communication topic in a
“natural” way. We needed to observe and be aware of the pauses in a boring
communication. Whenever there was a pause appearing in the middle of a
boring communication, a new topic could be inserted into the intercourse, and
the interlocutors might start communicating with a new topic naturally.
Cheng Chih stated he was inspired by his working experience in a restaurant
where he worked as a part-time waiter. He learned to display the English menu to
foreigners and Chinese menu to Taiwanese; he knew that when the menu was in the
wrong languages or in wrong tastes of dishes, the customers always would ask him a
lot of questions and delay the time of ordering. For the same reason, he believed he
had to act according to his interlocutors’ backgrounds and select the right topic to
interact.
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