remain silent

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Pictogram for rest areas
Allegory of Silence by Martin Gottlieb Klauer (around 1800) in the Weimar City Palace

Silence is a form of non-verbal communication in which no one speaks and in which no sounds are produced. In general, in spite of the silence, certain information and meanings can be shown by the individual as a sender . Silence is particularly widespread in religions and legal systems as well as in spirituality .

Delimitations

Silence as a conscious communicative act requires the ability to speak. In this respect, the silence of a deaf and mute person has a differentiated relevance, since communication via sign language is possible. Silence for psychopathological reasons, a language disorder or a mutism must still be distinguished . Related to the phenomenon of silence, but can also be delimited

Forms of silence

attention

Silence can mean tense attention . Quiet is often required depending on the situation . For example, employees in offices these days are silent to ensure the peace and quiet necessary for reflection . In theaters and cinemas viewers mostly silent, to focus on the action to focus and not to disturb the rest of the audience.

Silence as a pause for reflection allows the speaker and audience time to reflect. As a means of rhetoric , silence can be used as a conscious pause. It gives the speaker and the audience time to reflect and at the same time sends out signals as an invitation to think deeper.

Refusal to give evidence, information or testimony

Defendants have before court a right to remain silent . This is to prevent the accused from being forced to make incriminating statements against their will . The corresponding right for witnesses is the right to refuse to provide information . You can decline to answer a question if you would expose yourself to law enforcement if you answered truthfully. The right to refuse to testify goes even further for close relatives of a defendant and certain professionals. You can not only leave individual questions unanswered, but also refuse to be questioned as a whole, i.e. any questions.

Confidentiality

Members of certain professional groups are subject to confidentiality . They are not allowed to publish details of their professional activity that have been entrusted to them as professional secrets. These include the medical secrecy and the bank secrecy , secrecy of confession and trade secret .

Refusal to dialogue

Silence can specifically express the refusal to answer a question or a dialogue in general . This applies in particular to an icy silence in conflicts or a protracted silence in partnership conflicts . In the event of a conflict, unilateral silence is sometimes used as a punishment .

Silence also plays a role in politics . For a long time after the Iraq war , for example, the leading politicians in the USA and the Federal Republic of Germany did not speak to each other.

Consensus building

Depending on the situation, silence can signal approval or rejection of a question . If no one answers the question “Does anyone mind?” In a non-formal vote , this will be counted as approval .
The well-known quote from Pope Boniface VIII (around 1235 - 1303 ): “Qui tacet, consentire videtur.” (“Whoever is silent seems to agree.”) He expressed himself cautiously; because it could be, for example, that someone is forced to be silent.

On the other hand, silence in response to a request for consent (such as “Do you agree?”) Is more likely to be seen as a rejection. Silence on a question is usually understood to be the same or similar to a negative answer to the question.

Memorial events
Night of silence on Heldenplatz in Vienna . In memory of the " Anschluss of Austria " to the German Reich 70 years earlier, 80,000 candles were lit for the around 80,000 Austrian victims of the Nazi regime known by name and their names were projected on four screens throughout the night.

The conscious mutual silence to commemorate certain events is called a minute's silence . Even during a funeral ceremony, the mourners remain silent while the pastor or speaker speaks or prays .

uncertainty

A sudden silence can signal a tense mood . If everyone in a group is silent because nobody wants to start talking, an embarrassing situation often arises. This situation must be mastered by the participants in the conversation . This can be done, for example, by determining in advance who will ask the first questions . Often there is silence when asked: "Does anyone have a question?" Many do not want to be the first to speak in order not to attract attention. Once a discussion has started, it often develops a momentum of its own.

Vows of silence

Vows of silence are known for religious reasons, which apply at certain times of the day or over a longer period of time.

See also : Schweigerose

Isolation anxiety

The English social philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote in his book The Elements of Law, published in 1650 , that silence can be interpreted as a sign of consent, because it is so easy to say no if you do not agree. Hobbes is mistaken that it is easy to say no. Some people suffer when they feel that someone has expressed an opinion on them. The fear of isolation appears as the driving force that sets the process of the spiral of silence in motion. Silence is for people with low self-esteem and little interest in politics ; H. for followers , a way to stay well suffered and not be isolated by an expression of opinion . Silence is tempting for followers because it can also be interpreted as consent.

Silence

A person can be silenced by a court judgment . Even today, for example, it is customary in the Roman Catholic Church to condemn a priest to a temporary silence .

Punish

In ancient and medieval times there was a punishment for cutting out the tongue of a messenger or servant to silence them, to prevent them from speaking . The death penalty was also used to “silence” opponents. With tacit contempt , a person or group breaks off their conversation in the presence of an ostracized person and falls into silence.

In the present, human rights guarantee u. a. also freedom of the press and expression as well as the freedom of art , science , research and teaching in order to prevent censorship .

apparent silence

Through post-colonial studies , Spivak has shown that silence can be an illusion created by power relations. Those who are inferior in power seem to be silent; in fact, the reverse is true: people in a position of power, for example because of the colonial history of rule that leads to racism, do not hear what the discriminated against say. Spivak calls this phenomenon hegemonic hearing.

Silence in art

Fiction

In literature, silence is not uncommon as a topic, also as a title (for example, Das Schweigen des Meeres by Vercors, Doctor Murke's collected silence by Heinrich Böll ).

The Silence
Johann Heinrich Füssli
Oil Painting, 1799–1801
Visual arts

Numerous facets of silence from dismissive pride to terrifying silence have been thematized in the visual arts.

performing Arts

Silence is an important element in pantomime : an actor deliberately refrains from speaking and only expresses himself with gestures and facial expressions .

In the silent film no spoken word could be used because of technical possibilities. In most of these films, however, texts that could be thought of as spoken were faded in on intermediate panels, so that there is no real silence. Compared to sound films , the actors' expression was more pronounced in their gestures and facial expressions .

music

In the chamber opera White Rose (1986) by Udo Zimmermann, the instruments are sometimes completely silent, so that the music lacks its own language and even the singing has to stammer and resign.

Silence on legal matters

Main article: Silence (law)

In Germany, silence in legal transactions means neither “yes” nor “no”, neither approval nor rejection of a legal transaction , but nothing at all. It is the opposite of a declaration of will . German law ( BGB , Commercial Code and Code of Criminal Procedure ) is based on the principle that simple silence has no explanatory value and is therefore of no legal significance (so-called "legal nullum"). Silence neither articulates a will nor makes a declaration. In the case of silence, the other party is therefore neither known whether there is a legally binding will at all, nor is there any explanation, such as with other tacit actions . The old legal principle "Whoever remains silent where he should and could speak (contrary) is subject to consent" ("qui tacet consentire videtur, ubi loqui debuit atque potuit"; Pope Boniface VIII.) Only applies in German law in exceptional cases of "standardized silence", "eloquent silence" and in commercial transactions between merchants .

Conceal

Concealment of the identity

Some artists and writers use pseudonyms as their stage names. Secret services or intelligence services create a legend , i.e. H. a biography made up or altered in whole or in part to hide intentions and identities.

Obfuscation

Under obfuscation is understood, however, means the deletion of an object or in computer science and an information, so that the actual content is not obvious at first glance.

Encryption

With encryption , a text is converted into a ciphertext that the recipient can decrypt again with the help of a key.

Silence

If an event or a message is not socially desirable, it falls to the dead of silence . The event then apparently did not take place, appearances ensure existence.

Quotes

  • The rest is silence, says Hamlet in Act 5/2. Scene from the drama of William Shakespeare .
  • Speech is silver, silence is gold has its sources as a proverb in the Old Testament : Psalm 12 : 7 and Proverbs 10:20.
  • Maintain inner silence in the midst of the noise. Open, quiet, moist humus in the dark, where rain falls and seeds grow - no matter how many people trudge across the earth in swirling dust in dry daylight. ( Dag Hammarskjöld : Signs on the way. Droemer, Munich [among others] 1965, p. 79)

See also

literature

Monographs
  • Aleida Assmann and Jan Assman (eds.): Schweigen, Munich 2013.
  • Hans-Jürgen Baden: The silence . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1952.
  • Alfred Bellebaum: silence and silence. Meanings and diversity of forms of communication, Opladen 1992.
  • Peter Burke : Talk and be silent. On the history of linguistic identity. Wagenbach, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-8031-5146-5 .
  • Alain Corbin : Histoire du silence. De la Renaissance à nos jours, Paris 2016.
  • Stephanie Dietrich: The silent prayer. On the basis of understanding silent prayer from an ecumenical point of view. Evang. Verlag-Anstalt, Leipzig 2000. ISBN 3-374-01797-5 .
  • Franz Dodel : Instructions from the silence. Sit and be silent with the desert fathers . Benziger, Zurich 1999. ISBN 3-545-20139-2 .
  • Regine Elzenheimer: Pause. Remain silent. Silence. Dramaturgies of absence in post-dramatic music theater. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-8260-3441-1 .
  • Anselm Grün : The demand for silence . Four towers, Münsterschwarzach 1984, ISBN 3-87868-126-7 .
  • Adam Jaworski (Ed.), Silence. Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Berlin 1997.
  • Claudia Edith Kunz: Silence and Spirit. Biblical and Patristic Studies on a Spirituality of Silence. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1996. ISBN 3-451-26118-9 .
  • Robin Bruce Lockhart: Message of Silence. The hidden life of the Carthusians . Echter, Würzburg 1987, ISBN 3-429-01087-X .
  • Erika Lorenz: Word in silence. On the nature of Christian contemplation. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993. ISBN 3-451-23089-5 .
  • Gustav Mensching : The holy silence. A study of the history of religion . (Religious historical experiments and preliminary work 20.2), Gießen 1926.
  • Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann : Public opinion. The discovery of the spiral of silence . Extended third edition. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main a. Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-550-06511-6
  • Wolfram Nugel: Everything in us is silent. Experiences of silence . Claudius, Munich 1999.
  • Max Picard : The world of silence . Rentsch, Zurich 1948.
  • Stefan Raueiser: Pattern of silence. About the talk of holy silence. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1996.
  • Raimund Sesterhenn (Ed.): The silence and the religions . Schnell & Steiner, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-7954-0125-9
  • Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak : Can the subaltern speak? Post-colonialism and subaltern articulation. Vienna {[u. a.]: Turia & Kant, 2008.
  • Günter Stachel: Prayer - Meditation - Silence. Steps of spirituality. New edition. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993.
  • George Steiner : Langage et Silence . Paris 1969
    • German edition: Language and Silence. Essays on language, literature and the inhuman . Frankfurt am Main 1973.
  • Irmgard Sonnen : Balancing on the dash. Between silence and talking. Queredo-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-026961-5 .
  • Fleur Ulsamer: Linguistics of Silence. A cultural history of communicative silence, Frankfurt a. M. 2002.
Essays
  • Hans Urs von Balthasar : Word and Silence. In: Hans Urs von Balthasar: Verbum Caro. Sketches for theology . Johannes, Einsiedeln 1960, pp. 135–155.
  • Waltraud Herbstrith: Silence / silence . In: Christian Schütz (Ed.): Practical Lexicon of Spirituality. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1988, pp. 1108-1111.
  • Theo Jung: Silence . In: Daniel Morat and Hansjakob Ziemer (eds.): Handbook Sound. History - Terms - Approaches, Stuttgart 2018, pp. 414–418.
  • Jakobus Kaffanke OSB: The silence with Benedict of Nursia . In: Beuroner Hefte: Lectures - Essays, Issue 1, self-published by Geistlicher Treffpunkt Kloster Beuron, Beuron 1998, pp. 7-10.
  • Dieter Halcour: From the Silence of the Buddha to Silence in Zen Buddhism . In: Beuroner Hefte: Lectures - Essays, Issue 1, self-published by Geistlicher Treffpunkt Kloster Beuron, Beuron 1998, pp. 11–31.
  • Callistus Ware : Silence in Prayer. What " Hesychia " means. In: Erbe and order 51 (1985), pp. 427-447.
  • Philipp Wolff-Windegg: Symbol and Silence . In: Symbolon. Jahrbuch für Symbolforschung 3 (1968), pp. 77-88.
  • H. Wutz: silence and speaking in the retreat of St. Ignatius . In: Geist und Leben 41 (1968), pp. 266–285.

Web links

Wikiquote: Silence  - Quotes
Wiktionary: to be silent  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: Silence  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Commons : Silence  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Vazrik Bazil and Manfred Piwinger: silence as part of the communication.
  2. Vazrik Bazil and Manfred Piwinger: silence as part of the communication.
  3. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak : Can the subaltern speak? Post-colonialism and subaltern articulation. Vienna {[u. a.]: Turia & Kant, 2008.
  4. Attila Kornel: "Tief unter uns nur Schweigen." - The aesthetics of silence in Udo Zimmermann's chamber opera "White Rose" , in: DIE TONKUNST, magazine for classical music and musicology, vol. 11, no. 3, July 2017, p 368-377.
  5. Georg Büchmann : Winged words. Atlas, Cologne n.d. (1960), p. 25.