Abstention from speaking is called silence.
Silence comes from the Latin silentĭum and refers to the abstention from speaking or the absence of noise . Silence is also a paraverbal resource that can be used in the middle of communication .
In the middle of a conversation, silence can have different meanings, such as being part of the normal punctuation of a sentence or having a dramatic meaning. In this sense, a distinction can be made between objective silence (the absence of sound without another connotation) and subjective silence (the reflective pause or pause carried out to accentuate what was said previously or later). For example: “After several minutes of monologue, López made a pronounced silence and finally communicated his decision: 'I'm quitting, I'm leaving the company.'” “María was yelling at him angrily when, suddenly, she fell into silence for a moment. ” chest pain.”
Silence, on the other hand, can be about the decrease or lack of noise in a certain environment or moment : “The silence of the night frightened the young woman,” “My father always said that there is nothing more relaxing than the silence of the mountain.”
Phrases with the term silence
In addition to all this, we would have to highlight the fact that there is a series of expressions that we use colloquially and that make use of the term in question. This would be the case, for example, of the adverbial phrase “in silence” , which is used to express that something is being done without making any type of complaint.
In the same way, there is also the verbal phrase “to impose silence on someone.” With it, what we try to determine is that a person or institution forces another person to remain silent or to keep certain feelings to themselves.
It can be said that silence is the absence of noise.
a law
In this sense, we would have to highlight the existence of the so-called law of silence. This is not a legislative norm as such but it is a prison procedure that has been carried out in different prisons, such as Alcatraz, as a method of psychological torture.
Specifically, what this law established was that inmates had to be silent 24 hours a day and could not speak to each other. In this way, whoever broke this obligation had to be subjected to a series of important punishments.
Similar but different is the case of some religious women, specifically the cloistered ones. These usually belong to cloistered orders, which are those in which it is established that their sisters are locked in a convent where silence must reign at all times and where the entry of people from outside the convent is prohibited.
Silence in music and in other areas
In the field of music , silence is a sign that indicates the duration of a pause . All musical notes have their own silence, the values of which correspond to the duration of each note. It is possible to define silence as a note that is not played.
Other uses of the concept of silence are linked to the omission or lack of something in writing and to the passivity of the authorities when faced with a request from the Judiciary : “The silence of the press in the face of acts of corruption surprised certain sectors of the population.”