Haajar Boutafi

Silence Means Consent Haajar Boutafi

The study of silence as a non-verbal form of communication is gaining a wide scope in the sociolinguistic research area. Unlike speech, silence has long been considered a negative aspect of communication especially in situations where women in some cultural contexts had to unvoice their marital sufferings for fear of being judged from the social and religious dimensions. Other societies such as Japan highly value silence as a positive corner in their cultural beliefs and values. The invention of technology has contextualized the world as an entity of global connections where cross-cultural communication shapes its future challenges. Therefore, potential communication misunderstandings occur with regard to cultural differences. For that, it becomes important to study the different manifestations and functions of silence in different cultural contexts, as that of Morocco, to clearly enlighten speech and communicative patterns.