






































Sebuah Kajian Pustaka:


English Language Teaching Educational Journal (ELTEJ) 
Vol. 3, No. 1, 2020, pp. 1-13 
E-ISSN: 2621-6485  

  

Exploring How Silence Communicates 

 
Dat Bao 

Monash University, Australia 

dat.bao@monash.edu 

 
Abstract 

This article argues that silence as communication can be academically practised in the classroom as much 

as talk, simply because talk and silence are both essential components of everyday interaction (Nakane, 

2012). These two constructs are interdependent in the sense that one would not exist without the other. 

Silence can be practised in two different ways: one is to employ it as a mental processing process in 

learning; two is to observe and discuss how silence is used in communication. The article begins by 

sharing the literature review on how silence works in education, how it deserves a place in SLS 

theorisation, and how it constitutes communication competence. Secondly, it highlights classroom tasks 

that trigger silent processing and explain why this is the case. Thirdly, the discussion recommends an 

activity which addresses the value of silence, which was developed by the author through research and 

experience. Finally, there are recommendations for task design in which similar activity types are 

introduced to assist the learning of reflective students. 

Keywords: silence, talk, mental processing, inner speech, private speech 

 

How to Cite: Bao, D. (2020). Exploring how silence communicates. English Language Teaching 

Educational Journal, 3(1), 1-13.  

  

 

INTRODUCTION  

The duality of speech and silence in communication deserve more attention in 

academic discourse. Language teaching is not always about talk. In the real world, effective 

communication is both about speech and silence. Sometimes, we express ourselves through 

words but at other times, we speak better without them. For example, when a friend is 

internalising from the loss of a loved relative at a funeral, quiet sympathy would be 

essential unless one finds helpful words to say and locates the right moment. Because of 

this duality in the nature interaction, it is absurd to only rely on what we hear to make sense 

of the world, but there is the need to rely on feeling, observation, understanding, 

knowledge, empathy, and other non-verbal clues such as eye contacts, gestures, movement, 

tone, posture, and artefacts. In a word, while speaking out fluently is an essential ability; 

employing silence productively represents another major capability as well (Bao, 2014). 

 

The discourse on how silence works  

The silence and talk can be equal in communication values. If we ask two people: ‘Do 

you agree?’ One person may say ‘no’; while the other person may simply keep silent. Both 

responses seem to denote the same attitude, that they do not agree. As Zembylas & 

Michaelides (2004: 207) explain, ‘silence can be colonized by talk, of course, but meaning 

cannot. suggests that while talk might dominate as an utterance system, silence can operate 

as a productive system of its own. In many cases, it is the structure of silence among talk 

intervals that help enhance articulation quality. Because of this, in reviewing silence, it 

would be unreasonable to remove talk from the background of the discussion, simply 

because without the presence of talk, one cannot recognise how silence really occurs. This 

project investigates students’ ways of responding to classroom tasks and documents their 

justification when a decision on participating modes is made. Based on this, 

mailto:dat.bao@monash.edu


 

 

 

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recommendations are offered to task design. Being able to comprehend the rationale behind 

decisions to cope with a task will benefit tasks in optimising students’ learning strengths. 

To understand classroom silence is one step forward in uncovering the learning 

mechanism. As educators, we need to ‘hear’ and interpret silence attentively, not only from 

experience but also on the foundation of research, without which we might, in the words of 

Zembylas & Michaelides (2004: 207), happen to conduct ‘teaching with ignorance’. 

Although the current discourse has expressed appreciation for the silent mode of learning 

(see, for example, Creelman, 2017) and has recognised students’ choices to be either silent 

or verbal, not much research has unpacked the process of students’ verbal or non-verbal 

behaviour as tactically influenced by task characteristics. This article responds to this gap 

through an empirical project that sheds light on the relationship between the nature of the 

task and students’ responses in either spoken or reflective ways. 

 

In search of silence in SLA theories 

Silence is an under-explored theme in the mainstream literature on second language 

acquisition and on the methodology of teaching a second language (Bao, 2019). Silence is a 

hard topic to deal with when it comes to empirical research, simply because when learners 

talk, the research can record data for analysis, yet when learners are speechless, data hardly 

exist for one to collect and read. In fact, the association between words and silence have 

historically divided Eastern and Western social, educational, and academic attitudes over 

the past century toward which one is the more cherished mode of communication 

(Zembylas, 2008; Belanoff, 2001). While in some non-Western cultures, silence may be 

required to express a role or a voice, in many Western contexts, the obsession with words 

sometimes causes one to be intolerant toward silence and view the wordless person as 

subordinate, or in Karmen’s (2001, p. 4) words, as being ‘inadequately educated’.  

Believe it or not, more research on silence has come from other disciplines including 

psychology and sociology than research in second language acquisition. Although the 

discourse has embraced rich discussion on the silent period (Krashen, 1985), the inner-

speech stage (Vygotsky, 1986), internalisation (Winegar, 1997), private speech (Saville-

Troike, 1988), and inner voice (Tomlinson, 2001), it has been acknowledged that today’s 

research on inner speech is not much easier than such research in Vygotsky’s time (Ehrich, 

2006). Given all the subtleties and complexities of human talk that makes it hard to research 

on talk (Edwards & Westgate, 1987), research on silence is many times more difficult as 

there is virtually no scientific method to transcribe silence.  

As a constantly evolving discipline in the fields of linguistics and psycholinguistics, 

second language acquisition was initially concerned with cognition and over the years has 

moved to exploring affect (Chambers, 2007) as well as other areas in language 

development. Despite such dynamics, the role of silence in L2 education has been treated 

with great caution and, as far as research findings are concerned, has hardly been connected 

to learning abilities in optimistic ways. Scholarly research during the 1960s and 1970s 

pointed out that children who remain reticent in class were often perceived as socially and 

intellectually incompetent (Gordon & Thomas, 1967) as they make poorer school progress 

than their peers (Feshback et al., 1974; Stevenson et al., 1976; Colligan, 1979). In fact, 

silence in SLA discourse until the 1980s was mentioned as resistance to speech (Harder, 

1980), difficulty in performance, and lack of comprehension (Dulay et al., 1982; Gibbons, 

1985). While acknowledging silence as the initial stage of language study, SLA scholarly 

research until recently remains uncertain about how to proceed to address the continuing 



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role of silence in the ‘post-silent era’ – a term which indicates the end of silent film era and 

which is mentioned to criticise how excessive talk can weaken the subtlety of 

communicative silence. Although this debate in the movie industry seems irrelevant to 

language learning, it reminds us that silence should be seen more than just a period when 

we were hopeless due to the inability to produce speech and that silence continues to play a 

significant role in L2 development. In fact, SLA shows less interest in private speech than 

overt production (Saville-Troike, 1988) and seems ‘insufficiently curious about silence as 

part of the second language learning process’ (Granger, 2004, p. 30). 

 

Silence as communicative competence 

It is important to note that silence, historically, has an integral role in communicative 

competence ever since the 1960s. According to Hymes (1967; 1972), language competence 

comprises three elements: knowledge, ability and actual use. Although silence may allow 

space for the construction of knowledge and ability, it may not show evidence of the actual 

use of language. The gap between silence and actual verbal communication, however, is not 

always clear-cut due to the existence of private speech and internalisation. Private speech 

can happen in silence, through whispering to oneself or others, or in spoken and written 

form. It serves to draw one’s own attention (Frawley, 1997) and has a self-regulatory nature 

(John-Steiner, 1992). All of these skills are able to function thanks to learners’ exposure to 

social interaction and therefore it is hard to say that silence is far removed from verbal 

communication. Instead, the internal world and the social world can be quietly negotiated in 

learners’ mental processes. Such negotiation, which is known as internalisation (Winegar, 

1997), has the potential to become useful in future communication.  

Although it is commonly acknowledged that silence plays a role in monitoring 

language, it remains a mystery how exactly that role can help develop communication 

strategies. Strategic competence is the ability to make conversational plans and compensate 

for difficulties in verbal communication (Canale & Swan, 1980). Even though one can 

quietly internalise such strategies through attentive listening, observing others’ 

communication, and engaging in self-directed speech, the development of such competence 

needs to be negotiated within the framework of language use (Bachman & Palmer, 1996). 

So far, the relationship between silent observation and strategy development has rarely been 

a concern in second language acquisition research.  

Oxford (2001) argues that there is a connection between learning and social skills: 

those who are good at social communication strategies often tend to be good at language 

learning strategies. Based on this understanding, if silent learners develop effective ways to 

learn L2, they have potential to develop social skills. These abilities, which Celce-Murcia et 

al. (1995) refer to as interactional competence, requires practical actions such as managing 

social introduction, turn-taking, initiation of talk, closing conversation, changing topics, 

interrupting, recognising the difference between L1 and L2 social norms, and so on. 

Someone who remains silent from such practice may experience difficulty in 

communication.  

One may need to keep in mind that silence, in a similar vein to talk, is not context- 

free. If talk has to be socioculturally appropriate depending on who, where, when, what role 

and what content, silence as part of language also shares similar needs in order for one to be 

welcome, accepted, valued and understood rather than to cause confusion and 

misinterpretation. Celce-Murcia et al. (1995) maintain that social competence includes 

factors such as power, politeness, and cultural awareness. Arguably, if these elements play a 

role in how one communicates through talk, they also must play a role in how one 

appropriately keeps silent. In other words, to keep silent cannot be a decision made by the 

silent language user alone but is contingent upon social situations. In the context of the 



 

 

 

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classroom where the regulation to moderate between silence and talk is negotiated and co- 

decided by both the teachers and students, silence needs to take place within the expectation 

of the class society rather than occur accidentally.  

On an additional note, today’s changing globalised contexts may prompt the need to 

research on silence beyond a face-to-face learning mode, that is, online silence. Nowadays 

as words such as ‘interaction’ and ‘chat’ are placed on Google search, their meanings often 

take on a digital connotation. Likewise, the concept silence has altered its meaning as the 

nature of communication in the digital age constantly changes. As much as the concepts of 

social presence and social interaction have been modified (Gunawardena et al., 2001; Leh, 

2001), silence can also refer to the state of being quiet from writing rather than from talking 

(Zembylas & Vrasidas, 2007). When someone is not making written comments during 

engagement with online discussion, the person is considered as keeping quiet. Silence in 

this sense indicates social and psychological distance between humans, that is, the lack of 

attentiveness, engagement, responsiveness, and participation. The need to understand the 

nature of and reasons for such types of silence should be studied alongside the need to 

improve online learning and communication. 

 

RESEARCH METHOD  

This article itself is not a research study, but it follows up on two empirical projects 

conducted by the authors. The former took place during 2009 - 2013 (Bao, 2014) and the 

latter happened during 2018 – 2019 (Bao, 2014). Both of the studies have been 

systematically reported in academic publications. The first project was a qualitative, 

phenomenological study in which Bao (2014) interviewed 100 participants for two years to 

find out how these learners developed their language proficiency through silence. It was 

followed up with the author’s connection of the study outcome with the current debate in 

SLA discourse (Bao, 2019). The second project is also a qualitative, phenomenological 

study in which 10 East-Asian participants were interviewed about how they responded to 

classroom tasks through the use of both silence and talk, with analysis related to when 

silence and talk occur respectively. 

The article, which is a follow-up on the above projects, responds to the appeal for 

knowledge about silence to be pushed further and becomes classroom pedagogy. The article 

focuses on a new activity, whose type is extremely rare in English language education. The 

activity, again, is founded upon the author’s two previous research studies, as mentioned 

above, about the use and value of the silent learning style in second language acquisition. In 

particular, two important research findings lay the foundation for the activity propose in this 

article. One is the need for silence to enter into task design; and two is the need to 

understand task types which allow for silent processing of information. These needs, which 

come from research effort, are explained in the subsequent section. 

 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

The first finding, which comes from the project conducted by Bao (2014), concluded 

that silence needs to be incorporated in classroom tasks. Without this awareness and 

practice, communication would be unreal. Teachers would continue to pretend that talk 

makes up 100% of everyone’s communicative repertoire. Bao (2014; 2019) has discovered 

that in many teachers’ practical experiences, not every individual student who is highly 

articulate would demonstrate better academic skills than those who speak sparingly. For this 

reason, relying solely on students’ verbal participation to judge their ability and learning 



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enthusiasm would seem to be an inadequate approach to educational practice. Even when 

we become aware of this reality, to be able to comprehend how students learn effectively in 

silence remains a challenging task.  

The second finding, which arrives from an empirical study by Bao (2020), highlights 

that a number of classroom tasks actually trigger silent learning and intense mental 

processing, a reality that many teachers are unaware of. Collecting narrative data from 10 

East-Asian students in Australia, Bao was discovered that there are certain types of 

classrooms that actually require more silent processing than spontaneous talk; and if the 

teacher unknowing stress students out to come up with immediate responses, that pedagogy 

would ruin the discussion, risking low understanding of the learning process and risking 

poor quality contribution from students. Such tasks would offer personal space and wait 

time, not requiring peer interaction, challenging the mind, inviting personal reflection, 

asking for a written response, and organising cognitive processing of rules or methods. 

They encourage students to work alone and produce output such as a written summary, an 

idea, an account of experience, and solutions to problems. 

Of course, there are tasks that would that elicit verbalisation right away. They 

include, for example, fluency tasks (which involve spontaneous responses for verbal skills 

development), exploratory tasks (which involve peer discussion), communication and 

feedback tasks (which involve mutual support), collaborative projects (such as producing a 

poster, a video clip, or a summary), post-tasks (which follow up a main task for sharing 

further thoughts), and game-like tasks (which encourage teamwork, competition, and 

enjoyment). The common characteristic of these activities is that they involve collaborating 

with classmates rather than functioning alone, with clear emphasis on fluency, rehearsal, 

communication, collaboration, and sharing. They prompt talk by requiring quick, 

spontaneous answers or reactions, which focus on the process rather than outcome and are 

often not of a cognitively demanding type. Arguably, tasks that go well with their 

knowledge and experience will give them the confidence to speak out more; and tasks of an 

informal nature that require no right or wrong answer also make students feel relaxed 

enough to participate. 

 

The proposed activity 

This section, which is the main part of the article, proposes a classroom activity in 

which silence is used as a discussion topic. In addition, silence is also employed as part of 

the learning process whereby learners watch a video clip from a movie, reflect on the 

content, take notes, and later on join a verbal discussion if they wish. Observing and 

listening to silence attentively is an important skill in communication. This is an activity 

which the author designed and implemented for the first time in 2020 at Monash University. 

The task has four steps: experience sharing, observation, reflection and discussion, as will 

be elaborated below. 

 

Sharing your experience 

Think about moments of tension or conflict in your life. When was the last time you 

experience such a moment? Where? In what situation? With who? How long did tension 

last? How was it resolved? 

Ex. You are waiting for someone or some news anxiously, not knowing when or even 

if at all that person/news will arrive. 

Ex. You are struggling to express yourself in a specific situation and not sure if you 

should speak out or keep quiet. You want a promotion; someone bullies you, etc. 

Share that with the person next to you. 



 

 

 

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In that experience, which tool seemed work for you: talk to explain, or silence to let 

things work.   

 

Observe a movie scene 

Watch this movie scene, as in the link below, to see an interesting example of the 

above. Please also refer to the Appendix at the end of this article to form an idea of what the 

conversation in the movie scene is about. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hvc1Ae-YCU 

You will notice that the first half of this scene is filled with words: you need to listen. 

The second half take place almost without words: you need to observe. 

  

Discussion questions 

 1. Which detail in this scene is your favourite moment?  

 2. In the end, why didn’t Akatsuka kill Ichi with his sword when Ichi had no 

weapon? 

 3. Suppose you are to add more dialogues into this scene, what you would add? 

Would those make this scene better? 

 4. How would you comment on the use of words and that of silence? 

 5. What elements helps build tension and climax? 

 6. In your view, what content carries the most weigh in this scene? 

(ex. honour, manhood, sacrifice, respect, hypocrisy, tyranny, resolution, etc.) 

 7. In your imagination, how would Hollywood movie depict this scene differently? 

(ex. Consider gymnastics, clashes of words, dramatic dialogues, ways of telling 

the story, camera work, expression of emotion, etc.) 

If you like, watch the last scene of Blind Fury, a 1989’s American remake of Zatoichi 

Challenged to see a different interpretation of the scene. 

  

Productive follow-up 

Some people feel that the best part about the last scene is not words: it is the frugality 

of them. Do you have a moment in your life which points to the same value where not 

talking out at the moment seems to be the best thing to practise? For example, one of my 

friends suffered from the loss of someone he loved. To comfort him I said very little but 

stay with him in silence to show that I was there for him, understood what he was going 

through, and share the pain with him by not verbally disturbing too much. 

 

Would you like to write a comment, share a life anecdote, or create a poem about this 

scene or even part of it? 

 

Here is an example: 

Like paper lanterns 

flowing down the river 

The souls of two warriors 

torn apart in the winter 

Steel and snow, cold. 

  

 

 



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Recommendations for task design  

Task developers might consider providing explicit suggestions for silent processing, 

verbal responses, or self-talk when necessary. One example provided by Wilkinson and 

Olliver-Gray (2006) is an instruction that guides students to write down how they feel 

during exam time and then compare their responses with peers. Stickler, Batstone, Duensing 

and Heins (2007) suggest that task designers can specify which part of a task does not 

involve speaking; and can allocate specific moments when students are expected to reflect 

or silently type their thoughts. Such instructions show the evidence that materials 

developers can consider including learning strategies to assist students in coping with the 

learning process.  

Sometimes, to avoid disrupting students’ productive silent processing, teachers also 

need to keep silent to ensure that the shared space is observed and respected. It is noted that 

experienced teachers tend to use silence in their pedagogy more than novice teachers 

(Vassilopoulos & Konstantinidis, 2012). Silence may not benefit learning unless teachers 

can monitor the ways in which learning takes place before, during, and after the productive 

silent moment. This requires thoughtful task design, clear expectation, and a well-planned 

management procedure. Such a procedure includes explicit instruction, appropriate wait 

time, timely support, relevant follow-up strategies, and effective assessment policy. All 

these strategies should be included in task design with guidance for teachers to use the 

material. 

The challenge of the pedagogy above is that silence, unfortunately, might not be 

equally favoured by all members in a learning community depending on who shares the 

learning environment and its broader social norms. It is therefore important for teachers to 

handle such diverse preferences, with clear expectations when conducting multiple sub-

tasks that allow various learning modes to come into play.  

 

Similar activity design for reflective learners 

Of course, the task introduced in this article is not the only one of its kind. Below 

are some of my suggestions for working with both highly articulate and less verbal students 

in the English classroom: 

• Asking students yes/no and either/or questions and accept brief responses 

• Giving students the opportunity to participate in whole class activities whereby 

everyone takes note from both conversation and observation 

• Using artefacts or props such as video clips, pictures and realia to encourage 

thinking and questions  

• Having small groups of students present new vocabulary to the class by using 

pictures 

• Providing listening activities and reflection time before verbal response 

• Creating tasks that involve prediction, such as showing a picture and asking wait 

happens next, telling a story and pausing for guessing the continuation, and so on.  

These tasks allow for thoughtful responses and high-quality discussion. 

• Supporting learning with graphic organizers, charts and graphs as frames to scaffold 

writing.  

• Creating tasks that require memorisation, such as showing a detailed picture and 

having students report what they remember.  

Classroom tasks sometimes exhibit a stimulating quality that inspires students’ 

thinking. At other times, they might have a routine and humdrum characteristic. When 



 

 

 

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learners are inspired, some mind find themselves spending more time in silent thinking; 

while others may prefer to speak out more with others. 

Arguably, learners’ silent processing might occur quietly or at times it might 

develop into the occasional verbal articulation. For example, some reflective students prefer 

to quietly work on a written task, while other reflective counterparts might switch learning 

modes and share their thought with peers, especially when the task seems to require some 

exchange of ideas. Some learners experience such moments of adjusting their participation 

mode. Empirical research has found that peer influence is a factor which governs how much 

a learner is willing to participate in classroom discussion (see, for example, Bao, 2014). 

However, findings from various case studies are often so diverse that they show no 

consistent formula with regards to what personality leads to talk and silence respectively. 

You might wish to reflect on your individual inclination in working with peers. To some 

extent, learners’ decision to speak out or to remain quite during a discussion might have to 

do with peers’ behaviour. 
 

CONCLUSION  

Once I was told this anecdote where an eloquent student was telling a classmate: ‘I 

can train you to become more confident at speaking in front of the class’; to which, the 

other student replied: ‘I can train you to become better at listening to others’. As can be 

inferred from this exchange, since different individuals have their own prioritised ways of 

learning best, it is hard to assume everyone would benefit from learning in the same 

manner. In many cases, not talking in class may not denote low confidence but could mean 

one simply feels confident enough to contemplate a less assertive disposition. 

Teachers need to be unbiased about the various ways in which students respond to the 

demand of a task and should not hold on to any pre-determined expectations, such as 

assuming that talk is the natural route of learning. In many cases, it is teachers’ flexibility, 

supportive attitudes, and innovative pedagogical strategies that would improve task design 

by allowing both mental and verbal rehearsal to reach its optimum. Although many 

communicative tasks might expect learners to switch to an impulsive learning mode, during 

the actual classroom process, some learners might choose to handle them in a more 

reflective manner. This is because some might need more self-monitoring time than others 

before verbal exchange can take place. When this happens, the quality of classroom tasks 

should not be measured by how much speaking occurs but by the depth of learner 

engagement. 

Silence as mental rehearsal provides conditions for self-directed learning which may 

be either connected to or independent from the teaching. Pedagogy founded on a profound 

understanding of productive silence can liberate learners from the constraint of having to 

produce impulsive, low-quality participation. Silence needs to be managed with acute 

awareness of why, how, when and how long a student needs it to support their own learning 

and when the verbal mode of learning should take over. Obligatory talk can be frustrating 

when learners are required to publicise their half-baked thoughts when they are unprepared 

to do so. Silence training should be organised to include reflectivity, concentration, outcome 

and avoidance of idle, unproductive moments–the same way as talk that needs to be 

directed to enhance learning rather than become mere social time in the classroom. The 

structure of learning might fundamentally change when this knowledge is applied so that 

learners can employ both silence and talk as learning tools in conscious, informed ways.  

 



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Appendix: Transcript from the video clip 

 

The following script, which was documented by the author, is for the teacher to use as a 

way of keeping track what is said in the movie, if you would lie to try out the activity 

recommended in this article in your classroom. The section ‘Using silence as a discussion 

topic’ in the article, including items A, B, C and D, can be printed out as handouts for your 

students to use. If you have feedback from the implementation, please email it to 

<dat.bao@monash.edu> for further conversation. 

 



ELTEJ  ISSN: 2621-6485 ◼ 

 

Bao 

11 

Dialogue from the last scene of Zatoichi Challenged (1967) 

座頭市血煙り街道 Zatōichi chikemurikaidō – 17th episode of 26 

 

Akatsuka: Ichi 

Ichi: Master Akatsuka. Is there something I can do for you? 

  

Akatsuka: I want you to hand Shokichi over to me 

Ichi: I beg your pardon? 

  

Akatsuka: Just hand him over 

Ichi: What’s this about, all of a sudden? 

(turning to Shokichi) Shokichi, do you have some history with this samurai? 

Shokichi: (silent) No, I’ve never seen him before 

  

Ichi: What’s your business with Shokichi, Master Akatsuka? 

Akatsuka: (silent) 

  

Ichi: If you don’t tell me that, how do you expect me to comply? 

Akatsuka: I’m going to kill him. 

  

Ichi: (silent) Have you gone mad? 

Akatsuka: I’m on official government business. When I cut down Torikoshi, that, too, was 

official business. I would have killed Gonzo as well, but you saved me the trouble. Perhaps 

now you can understand my position. 

  

Ichi: I can understand why you go after Gonzo and the corrupt officals, but this man’s only 

crime was being forced by Gonzo to - 

Akatsuka: Forced or not, he’s guilty of creating designs for the forbidden items. It was his 

misfortune to have been born with such a gift. 

  

Ichi: I still do’t understand why drawing a few pictures should - 

Akatsuka: My orders are to destroy all traces of the plot, whether man or object, to prevent 

it from becoming a scandal. 

  

Ichi: Master Akatsuka, though they only met today, Shokochi is that boy’s father. This is 

their first chance to live happy as a family. Please just look the other way and let them go. 

Please have mercy on them. 

Akatsuka: The law has no mercy. If you refuse to turn him over, I will have to kill you as 

well. 

  

Omitsu: (down on her knees bowing) Please let Shokichi go. For the sake of the child, I beg 

you. 

  

Akatsuka: Stand in my way and I won’t hesitate to kill even a woman or child. 

  

Shikochi: Wait! Master Ichi, I’ll accept this as my fate. Please look after Ryota and Omitsu. 

Ichi: (throwing Shikochi to the ground) Shikochi stay with me. 

  

Akatsuka: Ichi! 

  



 

 

 

12    ◼ E-ISSN: 2621-6485   

 

 

Ichi: You samurai are so full of yourselves. So long as you have orders, you don’t care what 

you do to people. 

Akatsuka: (angrily) Step aside. 

  

Ichi: (pause) You have to take shokichi (pause) over my dead body. So long as you’ve got 

orders, you don’t care what you do to people. 

Akatsuka: (more angrily) Step aside. 

  

Ichi: (long pause) (slowly with emphasis) You have to take Shokichi over my deadbody. 

Akatsuka: (with emphasis) I’m warning you. 

  

Ichi: (to the family) Don’t let Ryota see this. 

  

(Fighting scene) 

  

A servant (running in from a distance): Master Akatsuka!  

Akatsuka: That’s Shikochi! Kill him! 

(Ichi killed the man) 

  

 (Ichi and Akatsuka wrestled, then stopped in long silence) 

  

Akatsuka: Ichi (long pause), you win. 

(Long silence – Akatsuka put his sword back into his sheath/scabbard and walked away. 

Tension eases; mood changes) 

  

End of scene 

 


