Focusing on silence as means of expression, we first weed out other phenomena termed ‘silence’, some of which have nothing to do with language, while others form part of interaction but are not a means of expression. The primary measure serving this distinction is whether the referent so denoted is situated within interaction or external to it. Stillness, being external to interaction, includes numerous states external to the human body, such as the stillness of nature. The chapter includes an examination of silences referring to absence of speech and so falling in the realm of interaction in terms of their place and role within interaction, the matter of choice and the nature of the silence exposes diverse sorts of silences. Somatic and mental symptoms such as muteness are such that silence being its signifier is not the product of the speaker’s choice and does not serve interaction. Paralinguistic pauses constitute the temporal suspension of speech. Some such pauses serve interaction and some not. Moving to the content plane, the unsaid and empty speech are silences in terms of context, chosen by the speaker to conceal rather than communicate. Unlike the above, silencing is silence externally imposed on the potential speaker.

We open the book by showing – briefly, by a consideration of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission – how our social worlds are structured around silences and absences; and how even the process of unsilencing can lay down new absences. We explain why qualitative research in the social and human sciences has often neglected studying silences as it focused on the presences in talk, discourse, and interaction. We then provide a quick roadmap of the silence literature that has begun to gain momentum as part of what we cal, “a turn to silence.” Finally, we outline the perspectives and objectives of this book, arguing that qualitative studies are well suited to explore the unsaid, which we conceptualized as a slippery and multilayered form of social action. The chapter provides an overview of the collection and introduces the two broad questions answered by each of its contributors, namely: (1) “What is unsaid?” – focusing attention on methods, practices, and perspectives for identifying absence, and (2) “What is the unsaid doing (here)?” – focusing attention on the ideological significance of absence.