Ongoing controversies over perceived taboos, censorship and ‘cancel culture’ reflect an opposition of voice and silence which underpins conflicts over the value and functions of communication in democratic, pluralistic societies. The research literature on silence and communication history indicates that since the beginning of the 20th century, engaging in communication has increasingly become valued positively, as a way towards a just, healthy, and peaceful society. Where communication is valued as the basis for democratic participation and representation, for the overcoming of trauma, for conflict resolution, and for competitive success in the context of attention- and information-based economies, silence became negatively charged as a sign of impotence or passivity, as lack of social orientation, or as a consequence of oppression. Although this shift in communicative norms has often been noted, it is still little understood.
Our project addresses this gap by analysing the historical emergence and development of such norms from a longitudinal perspective, linking changing communicative norms and ideals to broader socio-political developments, and to changes in thinking about what communication can do for us as individuals, as groups, and as societies, and what it means to speak or stay silent in the modern era. We assume that six major trends were decisive in shaping and changing communicative norms in this era: i) widening political participation and increasing freedom and public distribution of speech; ii) the development of mass media and its role in safeguarding political accountability and transparency and fostering a social culture of publicity and celebrity; iii) emerging new subcultures and social movements that emphasize voice and create wider platforms for articulation; iv) a liberalised ‘talking culture’ reducing taboos about various aspects of personal life; v) increasing encouragement of introspection for maintaining mental health and using communication as a means for solving interpersonal and social conflicts; vi) an increasing intellectual focus on language as determining thought, behaviour, and social practices and social hierarchies, both in academic and public debates since the 1960s. We hypothesise that these changes influence ordinary people’s perceptions of what communication can or should do for them.
Our project sets out to investigate metalinguistic reflection about communicative opportunities and constraints in ordinary people’s diaries over a time span between 1840 and 1990, during which developments captured in i)-vi) above occurred. We will draw on material in both the The Great Diary Project, London, and the German Diary Archive, Emmendingen. Based on a detailed textual analysis of metacommunicative reflection in diaries, we aim at identifying diarists’ attitudes as to what communication can (not) do for them, and at capturing how communicative practices and the norms towards which diarists orientate changed over time.
Our research questions are:
1. How did ordinary people reflect on and practice communicative opportunities and constraints in British and German diary writing between 1840 and 1990?
2. Towards which communicative norms and ideals do diarists orientate in their reflections and practices of communicative opportunities and constraints?
3. How did these norms change over time and how did this influence the practice of diary writing itself?
4. How do these changes relate to broader socio-cultural and political changes?
We will study these changes based on reflections in ordinary people’s diaries on communicative opportunities and constraints that mattered to the diarists in their everyday lives. Our project will a) historically underpin the study of silence, b) inject further empiricism into the study of silence, c) add a view on silence and voice to communication history, d) add an account of language history from below, and e) bring a novel approach to working with diaries beyond individual diarists, or specific settings in time and place.