Some Complex Contributors

Abstract This chapter shifts away from focusing on silencing itself and explores instead phenomena that bring silencing about; in other words, this chapter investigates things that cause silencing. Since identifying all causes is impossible, the chapter narrows its focus to what are called complex contributors, things that causes each of the three broad types of silencing; recognition failure, attempt prevention, and impact silencing. Three global contributors are here identified and discussed: the widespread but false belief that there is only dialect of American English, a lack of shared conceptual resources, and mistakes about a speaker’s emotional state. Multiple examples are explored, interconnections identified, and additional lessons gleaned.