Interaction Analysis of How Awkward Silences Are Dealt with

Abstract

This research investigates what awkward silences in conversation are and how people deal with them by using interaction analysis. Firstly, we intuitively classified silences into "awkward" and "non-awkward" and defined awkward silences as ones during which it is natural that someone should self-select and start to speak when the next speaker is not selected. Therefore, it became evident that when the orientation to the conversation is imbalanced among the participants, the silence can become awkward. Secondly, we analyzed how the awkward silences are dealt with and found that three methods were used: (1) someone speaks while disengaging from the conversation, (2) someone reorganizes the participation framework, making participants who have a stronger orientation to the conversation more involved, and (3) someone makes others orient themselves to the conversation more strongly. In this way, participants dealt with awkward silences by resolving or avoiding from getting noticeable the imbalance of the orientation to the conversation among the participants.