A Socio-pragmatic Interpretation of the Communicative Silence in Asong Linus’ “The Crown of Thorns”

Abstract

The current consensus is that speech is an innate human capability, and in essence, provides instances by which speakers of a language use different speech acts to perform a variety of communicative functions. Where verbal language is often used, the non-verbal silence is regarded as inarticulate and uncommunicative. However, Asong Linus, for the most part in his novel ‘The Crown of Thorns’ [1], makes effective use of various forms of silence as a more powerful style of expression than words. Few writers have succeeded to use this technique of communicative silence effectively the way Asong Linus does in this novel, developing the plot, characters and his craftsmanship around this theme. In this paper, it is aimed to shed light on the significance of silence as an effective tool in communication that is no less powerful than speech or writing. The attempt is to show how verbal language sometimes fails as a means of communication in conveying the relevant message. Silence, therefore, is an important and complementary alternative for verbal language. How can one say a lot by not uttering a word and, yet create a greater impact is the objective of this investigation. To achieve this, various forms of silence elicited from the narration were collected after several readings of the novel, classified as different instances and analyzed. Particular attention is given to such instances as silence, short and long pauses employed by some major characters. To analyse the data, a combination of the critical Discourse analysis, Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance theory, and socio-pragmatics proved adequate and useful tools capable of highlighting on how speakers use these non-verbal signals to effectively communicate meaningfully within the Nweh social and cultural contexts. After the analysis, several findings were made; two major categories of silences were discovered, namely; the destructive or negative silences styled awkward, appalling, embarrassing, defensive, and fearful silences associated with deep feelings of frustration, barriers that shuts down communication, and constructive or positive silences that are golden, and which moves the conversational objectives forward establishing confidence, comfort, is reflective, peaceful, respectful, self-mastery. In conclusion, communicative silence is a helpful tool to enhance intentionality, by being silent, a speaker is expressing real deep intentions and emotional thoughts; indicate empathy, promote and maintain the existing social relationship. It further reveals that faced with a new challenge, silence is the first response that gives you a chance to reflect before you speak, increasing the likelihood that what you say and do will be on target, intelligent, and useful. In this text, silence is more powerful than words.