THE COMMUNICATIVE FUNCTIONS OF SILENCE IN CROSS-CULTURAL DISCREPANCIES: A CONTRASTIVE TYPOLOGY OF ENGLISH AND UZBEK DISCOURSE

Abstract

In classical structural linguistics, silence was long relegated to the periphery of research, frequently dismissed as a mere negative space—a passive intermission or an absolute absence of linguistic data. However, the paradigm shift toward pragmalinguistics, discourse analysis, and intercultural communication has fundamentally redefined silence. Modern scholars recognize silence not as a communicative void, but as an eloquent, multi-functional speech act laden with diverse illocutionary forces. Pragmatic competence demands that a speaker knows not only what to say and how to say it, but also when and how to remain silent within a specific socio-cultural ecosystem. When interacting across cultural boundaries, the decoding of silence becomes a frequent site of pragmatic friction. A communicative failure occurs when interlocutors misinterpret the structural, psychological, or socio-cultural weight of a conversational pause.