Silencing is not only a physically coercive act. It is also an act of language involving forms of selection, representation and compliance. Discourse and Silencing weaves together theories and examples of discourse from different disciplines in order to put forward a theory of silencing in language: that discursive systems filter, represent and displace types of knowledge into other forms of expression.Each chapter of the book analyses examples of silencing through discourse in various social and political fields. The examples cover courtroom trials, government censorship, domestic violence, marital conversations, penal institutions, news media, and political rhetoric. They cover societies ranging from Eastern and Central Europe, Canada and the U.S. to New Zealand and Japan. The contributors clarify the difference between chosen silences and the silencing that, as a practice, seeks to limit, alter or de-legitimise another’s discourse. The book also examines the continuous resistances and shifts in discourse and silencing within the social and political frameworks in which interlocutors negotiate their relations to each other. Table of contentsAcknowledgements ix 1. Introduction: Silencing in discourse Lynn Thiesmeyer 1–33 I. Gender and the discourses of privacy Introduction Lynn Thiesmeyer 37–41 2. Silencing talk of men’s violence towards women Alison Towns, Peter Adams and Nicola Gavey 43–77 3. Conversational styles and ellipsis in Japanese couples’ conversations Shoko Okazaki Yohena 79–110 II. Law and institutional discourses Introduction Lynn Thiesmeyer 113–118 4. uiet in the court: Attorneys’ silencing strategies during courtroom cross-examination Valérie Fridland 119–138 5. Telling bits: Silencing and the narratives behind prison walls Patricia E. O'Connor 139–169 III. National politics and the discourses of exclusion Introduction Lynn Thiesmeyer 173–177 6. Discourses of silence: Anti-Semitic discourse in post-war Austria Ruth Wodak 179–209 7. Silencing by law: The 1981 Polish ‘performances and publications control act’ Dariusz Galasinski 211–232 8. News discourse of Aboriginal resistance in Canada Sandra Lambertus 233–272 IV. Coda: Performance discourse and meta-commentaries on silencing Introduction Lynn Thiesmeyer 275–278 9. Political silencing: A view from Laurie Anderson’s performance art Adam Jaworski 279–296 Notes on contributors 297–298 Name index 299–303 Subject index 305–315