Portrait or Silhouette?

In a recent class of my photography course I demonstrated portraiture through a silhouette. It caused much discussion.
One student said it was not a portrait because the sitter was not looking at the camera. He revised his opinion when shown an image by another student in which the sitter was clearly looking at something out of frame. Some discussion of that photo led to the discovery that it was one in a series of mum and daughter. As the daughter's expression was not perfect, the photographer had taken a picture of the mum alone but she was still looking over her shoulder at the child.
Another student said Geraldine was not identifiable. If you knew her she would be. We talked about classic portraits of filmstars taken in the studio showing one side of their face, the other being in shadow.
It was felt a portrait had to show the character of the face enabling a viewer to "read" the face.
Settings for this picture - exposed for the sky with a pocket 4 megapixel compact without manual.
The camera set 1/500ths f4.9 Iso 50 about 80mm(35mm equivalent) after the camera was told to compensate -2.0 stops on the +/- button.

Sean Bean, photographed in a throng of people, at the preview of "When Saturday Comes" qualifies as a "news portrait."
Originated on film - Fuji 800 Press, 180mm lens from a set of stepladders, 1/60th f2.8 + flash. The copy here was photographed from a colour original picture with my 4 megapixel compact on a tripod in daylight.
Again he is not looking at the camera which caused some consternation in class but his "character" as it was in 1996 can be read from the details of his face. Back then he even looked like a footballer.