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elatively little overlap, and a general willingness to concede the floor - i. e. stop
talking and allow another participant to take a turn at talk - should overlap
occur. Conversely, German conversation was marked by significantly more
overlapping, shorter or no pauses between turn-taking, and loud and emotional
speaker contributions.
In an attempt to access the underlying motivational bases for such
differences in style, Byrnes drew on differing prevailing social values in the
two cultures. A prevalent value underlying the German data was that of
'truth searching', where'... disagreement and confrontation are valued, and
have become ritualised, in that they are deemed to further the process of
establishing the truth (Byrnes 1986,201). This observation reflects similar
comments by Wierzbicka (1991) who more recently noted that this Teutonic
value not only contrasts with the American culture, but also the British-
English speech community:
Anglo-American culture appears to be more 'pragmatic' in its attitude
to truth than European culture. This is reflected, for example, in the
concept of 'a white lie', which doesn't seem to have any equivalents in
German [ ] (VVierzbicka 1991,103).
...
Similar to Wafts's (1989) comments on the relationship between face
from conversational performance, Byrnes also pointed to the consequences
for participants' images by engaging in such truth seeking episodes. To
participate in such activity, the German speaker must'... put his or her ego on
the line in defense of a particular position whose validity often can only be
ascertained if the position of others is proven flawed' (Byrnes 1986,202).
However, similar to Watts's observations, Byrnes noted the positive
interpersonal functions that German interactional style could have for those
participating in it. Far from resulting in disaffiliative and potentially face-
threatening and disequilibric, episodes of interaction, such conversational
activity may be perceived as solidarity enhancing, and thereby carry positive
personal rewards for the individual ego:
Perhaps, in its own way, [disagreement and confrontation] becomes a
form of social bonding for those who customarily engage in it ... On one
level, it is knowledge of the topic at hand, which drives the discussion,
and not the concern about maintaining social bonds. But on another
level, such agreement on the broad goals and directions for
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