ATLANTIC JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, 14(4), 247–266Copyright © 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Agonistic Depictions of Communication:Vaikeneminen [Silence] Versus Puhuminen

[Speaking] in Classroom Settings forAdult Education in Finland

Richard J. WilkinsDepartment of Communication Studies

Baruch College, City University of New York

This study uses ethnographic methods to examine how an agonistic form occurringin a community of adult learners in Finland constitutes a scene for dramatic depic-tions of communication. The terms puhuminen [speaking] and vaikeneminen[silence] are examined as a situated antithesis. The data present two competing waysof communicating in scenes of adult education: an exigency of subject matter talk,governed by a silent listener orientation juxtaposed with a desire for more expressiveways of speaking, communicating openness and individual meaning. Through ananalysis of the ongoing dramas in civic contexts in Finland, I show what models forcommunication are contested and how these inform interpretations of change to thelarger strategic communication culture.

In nearly all communities, the validity of an act of communication is neverentirely stable. At one level, calculated strategies for communication are ofteninstrumental in purpose, achieving the various goals of the practitioner. Atanother level, these calculations lend themselves easily to public examination andevaluation in terms of what is considered an appropriate act to achieve desiredoutcomes. My ethnographic research reveals an intense debate about a traditionalFinnish communication culture in the process of change. The general social con-text is the current period of Finland’s modernization—its opening up to commu-nication and trade with the rest of the world, especially Europe; its urbanization,

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Richard J. Wilkins, Department ofCommunication Studies, Baruch College, One Bernard Baruch Way, New York, NY–10010–5585.E-mail: richard_wilkins@baruch.cuny.edu

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especially the growth and sophistication of its cities; and concomitant abandonmentof a romanticized agrarian way of life in which acts of speech are not necessaryand “silence is golden.” The positions people take in this debate often reflect theirdispositions toward the relative values of acts of speech and silence.

There are a number of communication-related characteristics that are known astraditionally Finnish or Nordic in nature (Lehtonen & Sajavaara, 1985; Wilkins,2005). Many of the features tend to reinforce the image of “The Silent Finn.” Someof the depictions take the form of maxims for acts of speaking, such as speak only ifyou have got something to say (Sajavaara & Lehtonen, 1997). Others depict nor-mative expectations about social interaction, such as a desire for privacy, of respect-ing the opinions of others, of social silence as a form of passive public participation,and of a harmonious being together without speaking (Sajavaara & Lehtonen,1997). In Finland, long pauses in discourse are not only common, but also accept-able. Traditionally, a silent, serious attitude, especially to work-related matters, leadsto the interpretation that persons are luotettava [trustworthy] (Lehtonen, 1994).Participants really do take their work seriously and their silent attitude depicts com-mitment to a task at hand (Laine-Sveiby, 1991). This tactic is grounded within apremise of instrumentality valuing work and hierarchy, rather than words or equalopportunity for turns at talk (Klinge, 1986; Lehtonen, 1994).

Work and hierarchy have long traditions in the Finnish culture. Portrayals ofFinns in a silent, serious attitude, especially to work-related matters, have their rootsin works of literary fiction, epic poetry, public speeches, and other journalistic writ-ings of the latter part of the 19th century (Apo, 1998). This mythic and heroic Finnwas a person of noble character, born into the peasantry, devout, hardworking, withan unwavering ability to overcome the most difficult obstacles. At the turn of thecentury leading up to independence in 1917, the intellectual elite saw the “White”peasantry [talonpoika] as acceptable, hard working Finns, but the “Red” farm andindustrial laborers as not (Alapuro, 1980). The talonpoika was romanticized as themythic and heroic Finn. The laborers were depicted as drunks, incapable of control-ling their behavior, primitive and ignorant. Although the social categories of thetalonpoika and laborers have given way to a more complex division of labor andsocial status, the ethical grounds on which persons are evaluated have not done so.Expressiveness is an indication of slickness, which serves as a signal for unreliabilityfor Finns (Sajavaara & Lehtonen, 1997). The desire to be vocal can also be veryirritating and is “more representative of the drunk, not important discussion”(Lehtonen, 1984, p. 89). Recently, however, these interactive and interpretivenorms for silent communication have been challenged as the basis of Finn’s com-mon strategic communication culture (Isotalus, 1995).

Daily editorials in the Finnish national newspapers call for a more avoin [open]communication. The academic press, when defining Finns as part of a kansainväli-nen [international] environment, is often critical of the vaikeneva [silent] Finn(Sajavaara & Lehtonen, 1997). In the 1980s, there were already expressed hopesthat the silent Finn will grow into a communicative and language proficient Finn,

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where “wisdom is no longer the premise of succeeding in silence, but now meansan active participation in discussion” (Lehtonen, 1984, p. 91). In a popular TVnewsmagazine, an all-female group of singers called Sitruunapippuri [LemonPepper] is asked about their group dynamics; they respond by saying, asioistapuhutaan, kurttunaamoja ei katsella [matters are talked about, we don’t look atwrinkles in the brow]. Matters that were once considered unworthy or too diffi-cult for public consumption in the 1990s found their way onto popular TV talkshows: the program Sunnuntaivekkari drew an audience, says one informant,because it talked about human relationships such as divorce, the death of aspouse, giving birth to a disabled child, living with AIDS, and infertility. At theend of these programs, the moderator thanked the interviewees for their rohkeutta[courage] and uskoa itseensa [belief in oneself]. In the 1970s, Finnish mediaresearchers heralded the coming of the pocket telephone and the impact it wouldhave on professionalism through an ever increasing distribution of informationand efficient management of affairs. At that time, the concept of information waslinked to highbrowed prestige; owners of pocket telephones would be users ofdatabases and users of databases are executives and the intellectual elite(Kasesniemi, 2003). In 2001, more than 88% of Finnish households possessed atleast one mobile phone, and it is considered as common as owning a wrist watch(Nurmela, 2001). Debates have emerged over the use of the mobile phone for adistribution of information and management of one’s affairs versus its use as asource and expression of entertainment, experience, and social networking(Kasesniemi, 2003). Text messaging has become a far-reaching phenomenon. Inaddition to using it for everyday information needs, the younger generation uses itas a pastime, as entertainment, and to initiate and maintain social relationships(Kasesniemi, 2003). Short Message Service (SMS) chat appears on television,aired outside of actual program time and on different television channels. The sub-jects of the chats are varied and a typical day might see discussions of military andalternate civil service and problems with child care in the morning, the contempla-tion of death at midday, and alcohol and sex in the late evening (Kasesniemi, 2003).Finally, television programs about presidential elections, such as Presitentti, utilizea very different style of interviewing candidates for public office from in the past(Isotalus, 1995). Where the interviewer once played the role of listener, listeningpolitely to what candidates had to say about a specific issue, there is now con-frontation. An interviewer will actively formulate questions implicating a candi-date’s lack of knowledge, an inability to answer a question, or basic incompetence.

Acts of speech and silence are also juxtaposed in the context of the classroomin some scenes for adult education in Finland. On the one hand, many partici-pants want to preserve what they call a traditional communication cultureemphasizing a silent listener orientation, where acts of speaking are motivatedprimarily by a premise of informationality. Others promote an expressive speakingorientation where the spoken word animates individual purpose, meaning, andintention. When the two proposals are ignited in a dramatic play, they create

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contrasting depictions of communication and conflicted outcomes for speakingbetween participants. This article highlights the possibilities and problemsinvolved with these competing depictions of communication. I show how newmodels for communication are negotiated, bringing into being an agonistic tension.The resolution of such tension is social and constantly open to reinterpretation(Scott, 1993). In addition to the scenes described earlier, one such place I haveobserved the tension play out are scenes for adult education.

RATIONALE

Recent studies within cultural pragmatics have shown how a situated enactmentof an agonistic form can be analyzed as a cultural discourse. Geertz’s (1976) studyof the lexical antithesis for the Javanese reveals a lair–batin [inside–outside] cluster-agon. Subjective feeling resides in the domain of the lair [inside] and expressionsof public comportment to the batin [outside]. An impulse from the lair to beuncivilized and vulgar is repeatedly tempered by the batin’s constraints of civilityand refinement. Conduct is deemed proper when it conforms to an establishedmoral order, independent of and distinct from common feeling. Carbaugh’s(1988/1989) ethnographic treatment of deep agony on the Donahue talk showdemonstrated how participants animate the native concepts of individuality,being a person, and having a self through acts of being honest, sharing, nonjudg-mental, and tolerant speech. These tactical choices for speaking are often con-trasted with what society or what somebody else says which, in the nativeterminology, reflect traditional social roles. Amplified in the agonistic tension arethe meanings about individuality, such as uniqueness and separateness. Mutedare the communal forms that help support such constructions, such as common-ness and connectedness expressing collectivity. Baxter (1993) has shown how, inan academic institution in Oregon, collegiality is constructed in the strategy talk-ing things through. An alternative and often competing strategy, named asputting it in writing, identifies something that professional management would do.In his ethnographic studies of Teamsterville communication, Philipsen (1992)showed how the code of honor illuminates a persona or a positional identity, lay-ing out strategic courses of action that can and oftentimes must be taken. Whenthe persona is pitched against a code of dignity that foregrounds individuality,equal opportunity, and self-worth, tension ensues over how to manage persons,their positions in society, and the expected rhetorical bases for strategic action.

My working assumption is that a situated agony mediates a basic impulsebetween what Burke (1969) has called division and identification, where personssituated in the ongoing dramas of social life try to divide from and identify withone another. This process of division and identification, although universal as aform of human communication, is at the same time highly localized. As anabstract claim, a fair amount of knowledge is required of when, to whom, and how

to speak (Scott, 1993). When juxtaposed, speaking and silence can be understoodas antitheses, generating a dialectic where “the resolution of tension in decision isrhetoric” (Scott, 1993, p. 18). Few studies, however, have studied the indigenousrhetoric that grounds the choice of silence over speaking. Studies on linguisticappropriations from the natural surroundings and the occasions for silence,thought, and imagination (Basso, 1990a, 1990b, 1996); acts of reticence, permissi-ble and required silences as expressions of ethnic identity (Wieder & Pratt, 1990);and linguistic references to listening and its actual enactment (Carbaugh, 1999),are notable exceptions. These ethnographic studies show how identification in acommunity requires both knowing how to create intelligible utterances and when,to whom, and how one can incorporate the use of silence. How persons becomedivided and subsequently unified over the legitimacy of speech and silent commu-nication practices is partly the basis on which ethnographers can describe andinterpret the cultural in communication.

An analysis of clusters and agons (Berthold, 1976; Burke, 1961, 1973), vacil-lating plays (Carbaugh, 1996), and lexical antithesis (Geertz, 1976), presumeclusters of terms that are played in opposition to each other, where the resultantdivisions are used to discover an object’s identity. Historically, a play of termsthat are in opposition is understood to be a method of argumentation. Withrefutation as its goal, the expressed opposition in discursive meaning renders anopponent’s argument untenable by showing its logical impossibility. It is morefamously known as Platonic dialectics due to its introduction in the Phaedrus.As a form of contemporary rhetorical critique, such argumentation was turnedon itself through the use of Kenneth Burke’s cluster-agon method (Berthold,1976). This method asks us to consider argument as a “strategy for encompass-ing a situation” (Burke, 1973, p. 109). An articulation of an alternative commu-nicative act cannot be considered in isolation. Articulations are answersor rejoinders to assertions current in the situation in which the alternativeshave arisen.

One way to describe a process of division and identification is to examinedepictions of communication choices. Honko (1996) has suggested that a groupidentity can be understood where there are “shared identity symbols, selectedfrom the mass of tradition and elevated to the status of an emblem representativeof the group in question” (p. 35). My interest in this article is on a recent negotia-tion and contestation of a set of Finnish cultural symbols in the form of commu-nication practices. These come in the shape of communication choices inpublic and civic contexts often insignificant in their formal content, but full oflarger cultural meaning. I ask the following research questions to explore thesemeanings:

1. What differentiates acts of vaikeneminen [silence] from acts of puhuminen[speaking]?

2. To what uses are these cultural terms for communication put in this discourse?

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A cluster-agon analysis will yield an answer to the first question by examiningdepictions of communication choices and how these are crafted through a play ofcontrast. This ethnography is designed, therefore, to explore an agonistic dis-course in a specific cultural communication system where the analytical task is to(a) examine ethnographically derived data for a play of competing communicationchoices, and (b) explore the outcomes in selecting one choice rather than theother. To answer these questions, I examine the talk about communication and itsmeanings in settings of adult education in the Häme Province of Finland.

My claims about the agonistic form and its particularity are qualified in twoways. First, I explore the use of the indigenous terms within the general Finnishdiscourse of strategic communication, where clusters of terms depicting acts ofvaikeneminen [silence] and puhuminen [speaking] co-occur. As Carbaugh(1988/1989) noted, the term agony may evoke for some readers a clash of charac-ters in a drama. My study, however, is concerned with the “clash of cultural termsand the systems of meanings they contrastively construct” (Carbaugh, 1988/1989,p. 207). Linked with an emphasis in the study of a folk high school experience, Iaim to study the patterns of strategic communication animated by the agonisticform. Second, I do not claim that all Finns use the discourse pattern describedherein. What I do claim is that as a prominent form, it is commonly intelligible byFinns in many scenes for public and civic communication. In this way, my study(a) addresses a language underresearched, (b) that evokes globalization issuessuch as the universal (talk culture) versus the particular (silence culture), and (c)I offer an insight into a (vanishing) folk classroom experience. This article aims toadvance an understanding of communication practice in a changing speech com-munity, viewing it as a process of naming, justifying, and persuading by people inachieving various functional outcomes of division and identification.

METHOD

The following analyses are based on several years of participant observations con-ducted primarily in classes for adult education in the Häme region of SouthernFinland. I observed adult students in folk high school settings undertaking course-work in the areas of social and humanistic subjects, art subjects, and languages.There are 90 folk high schools in operation in Finland offering studies in general,liberal, and vocational education. The students that I observed were in their early20s and expressed a variety of motivations for attending a folk high school. Somewanted initial vocational training. Others wanted to meet more general educationrequirements for getting into universities and polytechnics. Folk high schools arealso a popular choice for those fresh out of high school who are yet undecidedabout what course of studies to pursue. Folk high schools are unique in Finland asthey offer a residential environment coupled with a course of study. All of the folkhigh schools that I observed were situated in rural environments with the nearestcities some 40 to 100 km away.

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I conducted fieldwork for this report from the mid-1990s to the present.During the initial phases of data collection, my goal was to generate some initialhypotheses about patterns of public communication in these contexts for adulteducation. Within scenes marked as julkinen [public] or yleisötilaisuus [publicoccasion], participants are often understood as placed in a position to speak aboutor listen to matters of the day in the presence of relatively unknown others.Primary data for this initial phase included observations of 72 classes ranging from45 to 90 min each with follow-up interviews with participants. Key segments ofthe audiotape were transcribed with the assistance of a Finnish research assistant.A total of 6,198 lines of transcription formed the primary data for further analyses,along with 1,269 lines of associated fieldnotes. My primary data also includedpresent-day attitudes about a communication culture in Finland as expressed inacademic, local, and national mediated discourse.

Based on this initial phase of data collection, I noted a pervasive use of an ago-nistic pattern to render a communication culture in Finland. To explore thispattern, I analyzed the data largely within the social dramatic form (Turner,1980), and further refined the analyses by attending to agonistic depictions ofcommunication. Social drama is the analysis of a form through which communi-ties of speakers manifest violations, negotiations, revisions, and reassertions ofcultural codes. I uncovered the cluster-agon by attending to (a) utterances thatcontrast acts of speaking with acts of silence, (b) statements that blame explicitlyacts of silence, and praise implicitly acts of speaking or vice versa, and (3) reflex-ive utterances that highlight acts of speaking over acts of silence. The followingdescriptive analyses focus on classroom dramas and are exemplary of the agonisticdepictions of communication in question. I discovered how listening to differentversions of this form would help me track the particulars of the discourse ofchange. I choose this focus because of the potent meanings this kind of depictivepractice carried for this community. My claim in the analyses is that a speaking-silence cluster-agon involves depictions of communication and illustrates howeach depiction consists in local terms, their meanings and uses. FollowingCaubaugh (1996) and his studies of vacillating plays, dramatic uses of these prac-tices construct various social identities, social relations among these, and distinctsets of motives, as well as conflicting proposals for communication.

RESULTS

Vaikeneminen [Silence] Versus Puhuminen [Speaking]

Within the varied contexts for classroom participation within adult education,instructors often address the role and meaning of silence in the classroom.Consider the following instance where one instructor is repeatedly heard toremind students to ask questions in class:

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Extract (1)1. Sit hey (.5) ho ho (.) hu (1) totta (1) epätoivoinen yritys taas ((each syllable

amplified))2. muistakaa että yrittäkää tunnilla kysyy silloin kun on jotain epäselvää (1) totta se on3. parempi et’ kysytään tunnilla koska ne jotka (.) ne asiat mitkä (on) epäselvä

(1) on4. luultavasti monelle muullekin (3) ((unclear)) ihmeellistä tässä vaiheissa

((unclear)) kun5. mä tiedän (koulutunnilla) kuitenkaan ette oppinut kysymään ((falling intonation)).6. Oppikaa kyysyy tunnin aikana jos on jotain epäselvää (1) älkää tu’ko sitten7. tau’on aikana ja ((unclear)) kysymään jotain sellaista mistä mä on just kertonut8. kun ((laughter from students)) eli kysykää tunnilla ja keskustellaan nimittäin9. (2) ottakaa huomion että (.) kun mä seison tässä luennolla ((unclear)) niin mä

10. voin unohtaa jonkun (.) asian (1) eli muuta jää väliin (.) mutta tulee varmastiesille

11. silloin kun joku tulee kysymään sen (3) eli kysykää tunnilla se on paljonreilumpi

12. peli kun et’ kysytte sitten tauolla.

1. Hey, hey. Ummm, Well. A hopeless attempt once again ((each syllableamplified)).

2. Remember, when something is unclear try to ask during the lecture. It is3. better that you ask during the lecture, because those things that are unclear are4. probably unclear also to others. I just wonder at this moment when5. I know during a school lesson that you have not6. learned to ask questions. Learn to ask questions during the7. lecture if there is something unclear. Just remember that don’t come asking me8. during the break and ask about something that I have just been telling you9. here ((laughter from students)). So, ask during the lecture and discuss.

10. Make note that I might forget something or something is left but for sure will11. come up when you ask. So, ask during the lecture. It is much better then12. that you don’t ask during the break.

In this excerpt, there are four different occasions where the teacher repeats hiscall for students to kysykää tunnilla [ask questions in class] (lines 2, 6, 8, and 11).A rationale is given that a student should have a reason to ask questions in classwhen matters are epäselvä [unclear]. The subject matter of the class is more thanlikely to also be unclear to others as well and it is much fairer to him [the instruc-tor] if he were to receive questions in the lecture and not at the break. He offersthe knowledge that he realizes students have not learned to ask questions in aregular grade school environment, but requests that they learn that skill here. Hedepicts keskustella [discussion] as an alternative way to participate in the contextof a lecture. The key or tone expressed in this depiction has an underlying serious-ness to it (note the repeated emphasis in lines 2, 6, 8, and 11).

The Finnish communication culture is often depicted using the term kuuli-jakeskeinen [listener-centered] (Isotalus, 1995; Lehtonen, 1984). Informants point

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to the grade school as one of the chief bearers of the listener-centered communi-cation culture and this is also emphasized in line 5 of the instructor’s remarks inExtract 1. The depiction of communication as listener-centered generallyinvolves further depictions of an implicit style of speaking referring to a discom-fort with an expressive speech; an interpersonal orientation emphasizing thestatuses of host and guest roles, titles, power, and gender; a show of politeness toothers through respect for privacy; not disclosing certain matters that one haslearned to keep as confidential; an ability to understand and to interpret situa-tions and expressions via an implicit channeling of message content; and a prefer-ence for a slow pace of speaking with long turns at speaking with a low tolerancefor interruption (Lehtonen, 1984). Silence on the part of the listener is under-stood to be meaningful in scenes such as classrooms, where the speech of instruc-tors is asiakeskeinen [centered on the subject matter], respecting the listenerorientation identified earlier (Wilkins, 2005). Lehtonen and Sajavaara (1985)pointed out the following:

Communicatively meaningful silence may result from a speaker’s intentional switchfrom the verbal to the nonverbal communication channel: silence can make up asilent speech act and thus becomes the message itself or part of it. In many cases, itcan be the silence that contains the most important cues for the meaning of themessage. (p. 199)

To be designated a listener, the student falls into silence when instructors begintheir lectures. If there is to be talk, it is preferred (for the student) that one asksduring the break. We know this because the teacher refers to questions that havebeen asked of him during the break.

Interpreted through the agonistic form, participants are addressing theirshared cultural standards where an event structure implied in the term keskustella[discussion] is pitched against more established coparticipatory events, whereteachers speak and students listen. In Extract 1, the instructor is trying to breachthe listener-centered communication code and encourage the students to ask inclass. We get some sense of the tension invoked by the difficulty for students toviolate the expectation for a silent listening, where in lines 7 and 8 there is laugh-ter revolving around the widely known fact that teachers are trying to get theirstudents to ask questions and discuss in the classroom. A possible source of thetension that generates this laughter on the part of the students is the intentionalswitch from the verbal to the nonverbal on the part of the student. The term usedto describe this act of falling into silence is vaieta (Lehtonen, 1994). One instruc-tor later described vaieta as the “evil of Finnish national culture:”

Extract (2)1. T: Tää vaikeneminen on tämä suomalaiskansallinen pahe2. ((laughs)) taikka tuota.3. RW: se on pahe.

4. T: Se on pahe koska tuota silloin ohjaaja esimerkiksi, minä joka pidän siellä nyt5. puhetta niin olen epävarma kun ihmiset vaikenevat mä en tiedä mitä ne ajattelevat.6. Mutta kun tää yks puhuu, niin silloin mä voin saada kontaktin häneen paremmin.7. Se on kaikissa ryhmissä aina tämä sama riesa että …1. T: This falling into silence is one of the bad habits of Finnish national culture2. ((laughs)) or well3. RW: it’s a bad habit4. T: it’s a bad habit because then the instructor, for example me who is giving a talk,5. well I am unsure when people fall into silence, I do not know what they are thinking.6. But when someone speaks I can then get better contact. Its the same in all the groups,7. this same nuisance . . .

In naming vaieta as a bad habit, this teacher is negotiating the moral standardsof the community. In a similar response to that of the teacher in Extract 1, thisteacher finds that vaieta in class gives senses of insecurity about what students arethinking. In line 4, he says that he does not know what they are thinking. Hencethere is a looming tension over the value of the act of vaieta for this teacher.Another instructor also expressed this concern over this perusluonne [basic char-acter] of his students and suggests a need for change:

Extract (3)1. T: Mä oon aina yrittänyt mä oon kovasti yrittänyt sitä kato että saisi tämmöisen2. keskustelun opettajan ja oppilaiden välillä silloin kun luennoi mutta tuota se ei se3. on kyllä toi suomalainen koulu joka on pilannut eikä opettanut . . . kai4. nyt pyritään koulussa siihen että niin kuin syntyisi keskustelua mutta vois olla ihan5. tämmöinen perusluonne ettei keskustella ja sen on huono.1. T: I have always tried, I have really tried you know, to get discussion between2. students and teacher going when I lecture, but its the school, the Finnish school3. system that has damaged students and not taught them . . . well, they are trying4. now in school that, well, that discussion would begin, but perhaps its this basic5. nature [of Finns] that one does not discuss, and that is bad.

One prominent class of terms activates the native semantics of silence andinvolves institutional and nationalistic forces. Such terms are the school system andbasic Finnish character. When these forces are discussed and all but condemned,puhuminen [speaking] is offered as a more credible alternative.

Asiakeskeinen [Subject Matter Centered] Versus Omaperäinen[Individual] Meaning

Some teachers apparently juxtapose their desire to know what students are think-ing to asking them to violate the norm of silence. The ways in which somestudents respond to this call to discuss in class often causes further tensions over

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the meaningfulness and purpose of such an enactment within the public arenaof a classroom. If one does speak, it has the qualities of sanoma- and asiakeskeisyys[subject matter] meanings (Isotalus, 1995). One of my informants put it asfollows:

Extract (4)1. niin se menee tietysti se että on vaan sellainen puhuminen arvostettu joka2. johon liittyy asiaan että aika suoraan . . . johonkin tarkoitukseen1. well, of course it is said that this kind of speaking is valued since it2. is very much linked in a direct way to the matter . . . to some purpose

Sanoma- and asiakeskeisyys in speech historically inspires a neutral, dispassion-ate, and nonsubjective tone where utterances are informationally dense (Nikula,1992). Within educational scenes, participants expect utterances to be informa-tionally worthy to the group (Sajavaara & Lehtonen, 1997). The code is alsofound in news broadcasts, newspapers, lectures, and anywhere where the informa-tion contained in the message is the most import feature (Salo-Lee & Winter-Tarvainen, 1995). The code is subject to a high degree of formal structuring andthe informative role that language plays in these public scenes is more sociallyworthy than its interpersonal role (Nikula, 1992). The sanoma- and asiakeskeisyyscode demands that spoken utterances carry significant informational content.

In the following, an instructor calls on students to relinquish the norm of silenceand calls on students to enter into speech. At the first task of the day, the studentsbreak into smaller groups of three and four each. The groups leave the room, meetfor 10 to 15 min, and return to the classroom for a larger group discussion on the taskassigned. Throughout the course of the day, this pattern of events occurs threetimes. During the day, a noticeable tension starts to creep into the interaction. Inthe instructor’s words, the students are “not offering freely to verbalize the outcomesof the smaller group discussions.” She repeatedly asks for comments. When nobodyoffers comments, she says that she will have to resort to “using names.” She calls outa name. It’s a first name, not a surname. The designated student nervously shifts inhis seat. His comments are brief, but strained. The teacher begins a pattern of callingon students to take turns on the floor, addressing them by their first names:

Extract (5)1. T: Ja sitten Outi2. S: joo, apua!

1. T: and then Outi2. S: yes, help!

Extract (6)1. T:Mikä sun nimi on (.) mä on taas unohtanut sen2. S:Riina (.) tää on taas omaperäinen . . .

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1. T: what is your name (.) I have forgotten once again2. S: Riina (.) this is somewhat individual . . .

The instructor, by using the names of students and requesting that they saysomething, runs the risk of breaching a referential focus on subject matter to afocus on personal content. Line 2 of Extract 6 is saying, this is as much me as it iscontent; tää on taas omaperäinen [this is somewhat individual] is a disclaimer andmeant to divert a listening for subject matter, to a listening more for the person whotakes the turn at speaking. Asiasta puhumisen [speaking to the fact of the matter] isthe developing achievement of the participants’ thoughts moving forward to apaikkansapitävä [tenable, correct or holding its truth or valid] version about thesubject matter. Drawing the link between the words one speaks and the truth thewords represent (Salo-Lee, 1993) may also be part of the reason why Nikula (1992)has observed that the public speech of many Finns is “more densely packed withinformation since almost all words carry referential rather than interpersonal mean-ings” (p. 147). The student here knows that she cannot live up to the expectationsof the sanoma- and asiakeskeisyys code and line 2 of Extract 6 forces a listening for“me,” the person speaking, rather than “it,” the content of what is being said.

Itsesensuuri [Self-Censorship] Versus Avoimuus [Openness]

The teacher assigns another task. Students are asked to write sentences “that theyshould not write,” or “should not think.” It is an unexpected task. Some studentsask for clarification and the instructor elaborates further by asking them to writesomething that “they would normally self-censor.” The activity is done in concen-trated silence over a period of 5 min. The instructor then asks students to publiclyreport on what they wrote. Some students glance around and appear very uneasywith what is now expected of them. One student reports that he wrote minä tiedänkaikki [I know everything]. The report causes some smiles. The student himselfblushes profusely. Follow-up interviews revealed that for a student to suggest thathe or she knows everything means to profess enormous amounts of knowledge. Italso codes arrogance on the student’s part, because no student could ever knowall there is to know about a matter. That is the realm of the asiantuntija [expert]and no student could ever profess to such a status in relation to a matter he or shewas studying.

Another student reports mua väsyttää tää homma [I am tired of this work]. Theinstructor replies, vai niin [I see]. The student launches into a course of apologiesand explanations. The imperative not to disclose certain matters that one haslearned to keep confidential has quite clearly been breached, both by the instruc-tor and this student. The student’s comment of self-disclosure transforms thesanoma- and asiakeskeisyys code into a theme of feelings towards the teacher andthe subject matter. The instructor’s reply publicly acknowledges these feelings.The subsequent apology by the student indicates an interpretation that the

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teacher has assessed the student comments for personal worth. The interactionmakes a public matter of what is usually in the private realm of student sensibility.It is not that one does not have feelings on the matter, it is just that they are notpublicized. As many informants were to say, “feelings are like our National Flag,only to be displayed on special occasions.”

Asiallisuus [Businesslike Manner] VersusIlmeikäs [Expressive] Speech

In Aristotelian terms, informants speak more about speaker ethos more than theydo to pathos. Speakers in the classroom are often evaluated in terms of their fail-ure or inability to address the topic of the class. If they cannot stick to the topic inquestion, they are judged to be epäluotettava [untrustworthy]. My cluster-agonanalysis revealed several clusters of terms that informants used to identify thisuntrustworthiness. At the interpersonal level, informants juxtaposed acts oftyhjänpuhuminen [empty talking] and teeskenteleminen [putting on an act] to themore important act of subject matter talk. Informants depicted the use of irony,tangential discussions, expressions of personal opinion, efforts to open up conver-sations, extensive interruptions of designated speakers, and exaggerated gesturesand movements on the part of speakers as acts that might endanger the correctexecution of subject matter talk. Yet, grouping these under the umbrella terms ofvähän verbalisoitua [little verbal expression] and vähäeleista [minimal gestures],Salo-Lee (1993) saw such acts as primary indicators of a strategy to introducemoderate expressiveness in speech. Like this researcher, most of my informantsdescribe communication in terms of an aesthetic code rule where simplicity inexpression is preferred:

Extract (7)1. Joo mä esimerkiksi joskus kauan aikaa sitten sain palautetta siitä, kun olin filosofiassa.2. Musta tuntuu että opiskelijat (unclear) on aika varovaisia jos käyttää voimakkaita3. nonverbaalisia keinoja niin siis elehtii ja pyrkii niin kun niin se on kauhean

herkkää siinä4. ja sanoo mitä toi nyt yrittää ja sain semmosta palautetta että aina kun mä puhuin ja5. mä en muista nyt aina kun mä puhuin asiallisesti se oli ihan hyvä mut sitten kun mä6. käytin semmoista ironiaa tai vähän niin kun yritin kärjistää niin silloin he eivät

pitäneet7. siitä he koki sen liian voimakkaaksi

1. Well, some time ago I for example received feedback, I was teaching philosophyat the

2. time. I felt that students are very wary of strong nonverbal means, I mean if you3. gesticulated wildly a lot, it gets very sensitive. They would say, what is he up to,

what is4. he trying to prove? I got the kind of feedback that they would always say that as

long as I

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5. spoke sensibly it was good, but if I used irony or I tried to excite the situation, well then6. they didn’t like it they thought it was too strong.

Participants within these classes exercise careful choices around speaker and lis-tener movements and the degree of syntactic elaboration in speech. Gesticulatingwidely, using irony, and aggravating the situation through speech are not deemedappropriate to subject matter talk. This aesthetic code rule regulates the perfor-mance in speech in public situations so that the designated matter can receive thelisteners’ full attention. The function of the aesthetic code in general is to providea framework for an asiallisuus [businesslike manner] and puolueeton [impartial]talk. The code is illuminated—although very seldom in ongoing subject mattertalk—with calls to order, such as pysy nyt asiassa! [stick to the point] or throughacts of falling into silence. These calls to order and falls into silence are appropri-ate in situations where the talk is deemed by participants to have strayed from thepoint. This framework provides for the impartial formulation of thoughts con-cerning the matter at hand.

The sanoma- and asiakeskeisyys code distinguishes concerns for face from concernsfor information. A male student, having just given a short, but information-packedpresentation—as is proper to the sanoma- and asiakeskeisyys code—receives thefollowing feedback:

Extract (8)1. T: Se kuulostaa tosi hyvältä2. (2)3. sä oot itte kiinnostunut aiheesta4. S: Joo (thunderous laughter from the students)

1. T: That sounds really great2. (2)3. you are yourself interested in the matter4. S: Yes (thunderous laughter from the students)

Lines 1 through 3 in Extract 8 are an explicit acknowledgement of a personalface in the Finnish sense. The message reads as follows: You have shown personalinvolvement and that is good. In a follow-up interview, the student in questionfound it incomprehensible that personal involvement should be the attention of averbal exchange. At one level, the student described his utterance in line 4 assar-casm and a reaction to the instructor stepping into a more expressive way of speak-ing. At another level, the student expressed disbelief that the teacher had found itvaluable to put praise into words. In the abstract sense, ideas about face-work indi-cate that an informational concern is also, at some level, a face concern. The thun-derous laughter from the students reaffirms (a) the expectation of the sanoma- andasiakeskeisyys code for not putting expressive concerns for face, such as praise andcompliments, into the verbal realm; and (b) the breach of that code by the teacher.

COMPETING WAYS OF DEPICTING COMMUNICATION

The general method of this article thus far has been to build a scene organized throughthe interpretive frame of an agonistic form. The data present two competing ways ofcommunicating in these scenes for adult education: an exigency of subject mattertalk, governed by a silent listener orientation juxtaposed with a desire for moreexpressive ways of speaking, communicating openness and individual meaning.

Part of a discourse that is kuulijakeskeinen [listener centered] is the depiction ofspeech as subject matter centered. When stepping into this kind of speech, aspeaker should be direct, factual, goal directed, controlled, and unemotional. Asthere are models for those who speak, so too are there models for those who listen.The expectation is that one listens with a silent, serious attitude. Although strate-gically positioning the listener, a silent serious attitude is not without its problems.As Laine-Sveiby (1991) pointed out and as some instructors have pointed out,silence can lead other participants to the interpretation that persons are sulkeu-tunut [withdrawn]; one never really knows if the interactions are genuine or ifthey are public performances with underlying ulterior motives.

In Extracts 5 and 6, the instructor uses first names to cue a turn at speaking.The instructor also asks that students write down something that they would nor-mally censor. She asks them to publicize what they have written. In both extracts,she asks students to breach the rule that one should not disclose certain mattersthat one has learned to keep confidential. Taking the place of this rule is thepremise that persons should feel free to say what is on their minds. Persons shouldfeel free, as one instructor put it, to express themselves. It is probably part of amore complex and ongoing drama over social identification on various levels. Inthis situation, a more progressive social identity is emphasized over the more tra-ditional national one. The discord between the two is played out in the form ofagonistic tensions across opposing symbol clusters such as agrarian–industrial,peasantry–manufacturing, and country–urban. The change may also have beenprompted by positive reactions to a modern, global technosystem; a prevailingmode of Americanization across its cultural institutions; and the entry of Finlandinto the European Union (Honko, 1996; Sarmella, 1996). As a depiction of com-munication, however, freedom of expression has a very different meaning forthose who value the sanoma- and asiakeskeinen code. Things get said that arelargely of the private realm, such as ideas lacking forethought, feelings, and taboosubjects. This way of speaking places a great deal of stress on a listener-centeredcommunication culture. Persons are forced to listen to more personalized com-mentaries. Persons begin to hear feelings enter into the matter-at-hand. This isnot easy for those who ascribe to the asiakeskeinen style of communication. It alsothrows into relief different ways of relating to others in these educational scenes.

The listener-centered way of communicating draws a sharp distinction betweenlistening for information and listening for personal matters. Participants listen not for“who we are,” but “what we are talking about.” Having something to say and having

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something to listen to is the interactional matter. Listening for what is personal in thecommunication is very much tangential to the ongoing interactions. It is not to saythat it is irrelevant, but at a cultural level, it is not what participants who interpretthrough the listener-centered code think they should do.

It is important to make these distinctions between the interpretive forces of thetwo codes because we can see in a number of these extracts that instructors try tomake the interactional matter a personal one. In Extract 8, a teacher does thisthrough using first names and by complimenting a student on his interest in hiswork. The instructor makes of the interaction a personal face-concern ratherthan an informational concern and discursively, that should not be what is donehere. The student in this case, sarcastically at least, makes the point.

Informational matters are, in the abstract sense, socially based. In the case pre-sented here, speaking should benefit those present in an educational way. Withinscenes for adult education, speaking in such a way informs persons of a subjectmatter which is considered to their general benefit. Persons are linked through,and in, relations to a subject matter. This renders persons, and conceptions of per-sons, as highly infocentric. But in the agonistic form analyzed here, this premise ofpersonhood also forms the basis for contention. Attending to expressiveness andpersonal content in speech makes the ongoing interaction highly personal. Thestudent and teacher identity that was once informationally oriented is now indi-vidual. In Extract 8, the line sä oot itte kiinostunyt aiheistä [you are yourself inter-ested in the matter] implies an individual psychology animated with personalintentions. The utterance is treated with contempt as the presentation givenby the student, when heard through the sanoma- and asiakeskeinen code, is anexigency of info-talk in educational scenes.

DISCUSSION

Those students and instructors that I observed in classrooms of adult education inFinland propose two contrasting solutions about how to best communicate in aneducational way. On the one hand, participants could preserve a communicationculture emphasizing a listener orientation, where acts of speaking are motivatedby a premise of informationality. On the other hand, participants could promotean expressive speaking community, where the spoken word animates individualpurpose, meaning, and intention. When the two proposals are ignited in a dra-matic play, they create agonistic depictions of communication and conflictedmotivations for speaking between participants. What is the extent to which edu-cational scenes will be governed by the sanoma- and asiakeskeisyys code versus theamount of expressive talk that is integrated into the educational scene? That is,how much should participants discuss things that are not normally talked aboutsuch as personal matters and feelings?

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Ethnographers of communication began to use the cluster-agon method whenPhilipsen (1987) posited a basic dialectic that grounds communication systems:

Every people manages somehow to deal with the inevitable tension between theimpulse of individuals to be free and the constraints of communal life . . . Locating aculture on this axis reveals a partial truth about it, a kind of snapshot, but in order toperceive the culture fully, one must also know the culture’s direction of movementalong the axis and the relative strengths of the competing forces pushing it one wayor another. (p. 245)

Ethnographic studies have tended to explore the social ramifications of this dialec-tic with interpersonal relations and social institutions as the basis of the agonistic ten-sion. The dialectic functions culturally through models of personhood and sociality,which mediate the social tensions of autonomy and union. As Carbaugh (1988/1989)elaborated, “the models of personhood and sociation, the valuing and elaboration ofautonomy and union, the juxtaposed symbols and their meanings, vary from scene toscene, culture to culture, time to time” (p. 206). Put simply, although the agonisticform is a universal dialectic, every time it is enacted it remains distinctively real.

Within Finland, the cluster-agon is not so much about juxtaposing individualitywith societal forces (although the implication is there). The tension is expressedwhen depictions of spoken communication are pitched against depictions of silentcommunication. Depictions of silence and speaking may be interpreted initially byexploring the folk uses that differentiate the two communication choices. The mostprominent meaning expressed with silence was that it is a bad habit and one that iswidely distributed within the Finnish communication culture. Yet there are some forwhom silence, as a means of communication, “represents strength, wisdom, andstrength in mind in which to be social doesn’t require a constant vocal accompani-ment” (Lehtonen, 1984, p. 89). Over the last 20 years, however, many would saythat the Finnish communication culture is moving toward the speaking side of thetwo clusters, suggesting a new way of depicting the use of speech in communication.

My analysis has used cluster-agon to help read the pieces of what, at times,appear to be incoherent and isolated incidents of drama. What I was observing asmoments in the classroom are really contesting ways of communicating: the silentway and a speaking way. On one level, the interactional outcome was that someteachers were not good teachers. Those informants who participated in or witnessedExtracts 5, 6, and 8 described how they felt distanced from the instructor by the wayshe tried to invoke a new and often foreign expressive order. As a student said to meafterward, “We are here simply because we have a subject matter and not becausethe teacher has her feelings hurt.” On another level, from a cultural communicationperspective, the outcome of these dramas points to the strength of the code ofsilence and its associated meanings active in some scenes for adult education inFinland. The dramas reaffirm the highly crystallized norms of listener-centeredcommunication in connection with the sanoma- and asiakeskeisyys code for

designated speakers. Further, these traditional ways of communicating point to boththe benefits for communication when the codes are upheld and the consequencesfor communication when the codes are dropped for something else.

With new models of speech come new ways of understanding communication.With preferences for silence coming under fire, so too are understandings of thereferential and individual meanings, notions of confidentiality and openness, andaesthetic codes of a businesslike manner and expressiveness in speech. Replacinga traditional choice of silence with a spoken activity is not without its problems.At this time, communication in these scenes for adult education is largely defined,negotiated, and transformed via this enactment of a drama over the value ofsilence. My analysis of a cluster-agon serves to affirm that the silent communica-tion culture is a vital force in the negotiation of models of communication, socialrelations, and personhood. Yet observations in a variety of classroom settingsstrongly suggest that things are changing in Finland. Competing ways of demon-strating and acquiring knowledge are starting to challenge established codes. Thecase that I have presented indicates that things don’t change so easily or soquickly.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article is part of a larger dissertation study and completed in 1999 under Dr.Carbaugh at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Subsequent fieldwork forthis paper was supported (in part) by a grant from the City University New YorkPSC-CUNY Research Award Program.

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