This paper approaches silence as a pragmatically relevant component of the dialogue. Its aim is to illustrate the diversity of meanings and functions silence can discursively actualize, depending on the communicative situation. As a collectivistic, relationship oriented culture, Romanian culture is characterized by a preference for positive politeness strategies and accordingly by silence avoidance. Special attention will be given to the social, cultural, and individual parameters which determine the speaker to prefer silence to speech, as well as to the receiver’s position towards silence (accepted, rejected, or requested silences). The paper shall also have in view the relationship between the influence of individual factors and the socio-cultural tradition in actualizing silence. The data are excerpted from some corpora of spoken Romanian, as well as from a number of literary texts, given the fact that usually the latter reflect the prototypical behaviour of certain social groups or of some representatives of these groups.