Pacing and Pausing
Sara tried to befriend her old friend Steve's new
wife, but Betty never seemed to have anything to say. While Sara felt Betty
didn't hold up her end of the conversation, Betty complained to Steve that Sara
never gave her a chance to talk. The problem had to do with expectations about
pacing and pausing.
Conversation is a turn-taking game. When our habits
are similar, there's no problem. But if our habits are different, you may start
to talk before I'm finished or fail to take your turn when I'm finished. That's
what was happening with Betty and Sara.
It may not be coincidental that Betty, who expected
relatively longer pauses between turns, is British, and Sara, who expected
relatively shorter pauses, is American. Betty often felt interrupted by Sara.
But Betty herself became an interrupter and found herself doing most of the
talking when she met a visitor from Finland. And Sara had a hard time cutting
in on some speakers from Latin America or Israel.
The general phenomenon, then, is that the small
conversation techniques, like pacing and pausing, lead people to draw
conclusions not about conversational style but about personality and abilities.
These habitual differences are often the basis for dangerous stereotyping (思维定式). And these social phenomena can have very personal consequences.
For example, a woman from the southwestern part of the US went to live in an
eastern city to take up a job in personnel. When the Personnel Department got
together for meetings, she kept searching for the right time to break in ---
and never found it. Although back home she was considered outgoing and
confident, in Washington she was viewed as shy and retiring. When she was
evaluated at the end of the year, she was told to take a training course
because of her inability to speak up.
That's why slight differences in conversational style
--- tiny little things like microseconds of pause --- can have a great effect
on one's life. The result in this case was a judgment of psychological problems
--- even in the mind of the woman herself, who really wondered what was wrong
with her and registered for assertiveness training.
1.What
did Sara think of Betty when talking with her?
A. Betty was talkative.
B. Betty was an interrupter.
C. Betty did not take her turn.
D. Betty paid no attention to Sara.
2.According
to the passage, who are likely to expect the shortest pauses between turns?
A. Americans. B.
Israelis. C. The British. D.
The Finns.
3.We
can learn from the passage that ______.
A. communication breakdown results from short pauses
and fast pacing
B. women are unfavorably stereotyped in eastern cities
of the US
C. one's inability to speak up is culturally
determined sometimes
D. one should receive training to build up one's
confidence
