Identities in Transition

The Enkidu Summer Conference 2007

June 1 - 5, 2007

Mexico City

in:

Silence as indication of transitions in multi-cultural Israel

Michal Ephratt

Department of Hebrew Language, 

University of Haifa, Haifa,

Israel

From a communicative aspect 'silence' as a noun refers to the choice of the speaker to convey a verbal message lacking phonetic realization. This is different from 'pause' which has no conceptual meaning (Saville-Troike). The first is a case where the speaker prefers silence over speech since "there are no words to express" or "a thousand words will not express". The latter indicates "I have nothing to say" (momentarily or permanently). 'Silence' as a transitive verb brings in an authoritative agent which annuls the free choice of the speaker enforcing him/her to abstain from speaking. As all language practice and norms (performance), the actual manifestations and realizations of silence and silencing are culturally dependant as well as an outcome of specific personality characteristics. 

The state of Israel was founded in 1948 following the Holocaust and the United Nations resolution 'Partition plan of Palestine'. Beyond the macro religious and ethnicity Jewish versus Arab identities, micro investigation surfaces multi cultural groups: Muslim, Druze and Christian among the Arab citizens, and Ashkenazi versus oriental Jews, old-timers versus new-comers and among these immigrants belonging to the massive Russian immigration and those belonging to the Ethiopian massive immigration. Members of each and every such group also split among religious clusters from very orthodox to secular; and among other demographic clusters such as urban versus rural; well-being versus poor and educated versus uneducated. 

Silence and silencing being both cultural (in the above poly micro groups sense) dependent and personality dependent, and being socio-cultural sensitive seem unique phenomenon for the study of transitional behavior. Belonging to each such cultural group and cluster inflicts upon each individual in every specific socio-cultural and intersubjective circumstance behavioral codes regarding the application and interpretation of silence and silencing. As the group is more traditional and isolated its manifestation regarding group and personal silence and silencing would reflect archetypical identity preserving behavior. 

The current socio-cultural trends in Israel show ongoing assimilation between groups and individuals which until recently have been totally isolated and disjoint. Sharing now institutional and non-formal political involvement; economic and educational interests that bring such crowds together; sharing both actively and in a passive manner the same electronic and non-electronic communication media and resources, all contribute to diffusion of borders and enhance contact and affairs between sectors, which in-turn set out a process evoking social transition. We wish to present empirical findings regarding the question on how these transitional processes and states are manifested in the population attitudes towards silence and silencing, as well as their actual practice and use of silence and silencing. Analyzing findings from a questionnaire administer among members of the different groups we wish to trace the remains of group oriented archetypical codes regarding silence and silencing as well as codes that evolve within transition. The question then to be asked is whether these codes are majority codes predominating minority ones, or whether this merge and transition of groups and individuals within these groups result in something new reflecting Israeli (rather than sectarian) codes.

About Michal Ephratt

Michal Ephratt is a Professor in the Department of Hebrew Linguistics at the University of Haifa, Israel. Her research interests neologisms, transparency theories and pragmatics as well as linguistic models in non-linguistic disciplines and the study of silence. Her major publications include "Piaget's nominal realism from a linguistic point of view" (1991); "Word marks: Economic. Legal and linguistic entities" (1996); "The psycholinguistic status of the Hebrew root" (1997); "The pig's grunt: Grice's cooperation principle and the psychoanalytic discourse" (2004). Currently she is the editor of the Hebrew linguistic journal "HaIvrit WeAhyoteha".