POLITENESS AND SILENCE IN JAPANESE INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Abstract

Intercultural communication is frequently examined within formal educational, institutional, or workplace contexts, while everyday intercultural encounters during travel remain comparatively underexplored. This paper presents an autoethnographic reflection on intercultural communication experiences during a short visit to Japan, focusing on how cultural norms and communicative practices shape social interaction in public and service-oriented spaces. Drawing on personal observations, reflective journaling, and interpretive analysis, the study examines how silence, politeness, indirectness, and non-verbal communication mediate meaning-making between individuals from different cultural backgrounds. Guided by intercultural communication frameworks and politeness theory, the paper explores how culturally embedded practices such as bowing, queuing etiquette, minimal verbal exchanges, and technology-assisted communication influence interactional expectations and perceptions. The analysis demonstrates that effective intercultural communication extends beyond linguistic proficiency and requires sensitivity toward implicit social cues, contextual appropriateness, and culturally preferred interactional styles. The findings further highlight the role of adaptive communicative strategies and reflective awareness in reducing misunderstanding and promoting respectful engagement across cultures. In addition, the study underscores the pedagogical value of travel-based autoethnography in fostering intercultural competence, critical self-reflection, and context-aware communication practices in English as a lingua franca settings within increasingly globalised and technology-mediated societies.