ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how silence in both interpersonal and public contexts discloses dramatically expressive and psychologically powerful meanings. Even when 'golden silence' is sought as a retreat, or is imposed as a discipline upon children, women or other groups, the context of gestural and symbolic meanings exposes moral commitments, political strategies and institutional subordination. Silence involves resistance, tension and opposition. The value placed upon silence, or indeed its necessity for disciplined cooperation, raises important questions about human communication. Scholars of communication generally take for granted that vigorous communication is a 'norm' and a 'good.' As a form of punctuation, silence gives order and structure to communication, rendering meanings in spatial, sequential and even 'logical' ways. Silence always threatens to close in and envelop speech within the interior of the individual mind. Whether afforded or denied, the 'right to silence' discloses how constitutional regimes acknowledge spheres of individual privacy and spiritual convictions and protect from coerced self-incrimination.
