A doctoral thesis was discussed in the Department of English, College of Arts, entitled " Silence in an Interactive Cross-Cultural Context: A Pragmatic Analysis of Televised Interviews in English and Arabic".
The thesis, submitted by the student Atiaf Hassan Ibrahim, has dealt with the use of silence as a non-verbal method and its effectiveness in interactive communication between cultures of languages such as English and Arabic.
The study discusses the show of the similarities and differences in the use of silence between the cultures of the two languages. It does so to reveal the cultures' convergence or dissonance in the use of silence during communication, as well as showing the forms and types of silence frequently used and highlighting the purpose of that use.
The study concluded that silence occupies a large space in interaction as an important non-verbal means of communication, and it is one of the types of communication whose effectiveness does not differ from the verbal
method of communication.
