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оригинальная статья
DOI: 10.26794/2226-7867-2022-12-3-30-35 УДК 316.772.4(045)
Межкультурная коммуникация: путь к солидарности между этническими сообществами
М. Р. Кармова, О. И. Максимова
Финансовый университет, Москва, Россия
аннотация
Статья посвящена анализу межкультурной коммуникации как инструменту солидарности между этническими сообществами в эпоху глобализационных процессов. Межкультурная коммуникация, являясь доминантой и детерминантом современного общества, приобретает еще большее значение в связи с процессами глобализации и интенсивной миграции, необходимостью взаимодействия и мирного сосуществования больших и малых этнических групп, а также формирования культурного разнообразия общества. Авторы рассматривают вопросы коммуникации на уровне различных этнокультурных групп. В статье описаны проблемы теоретических и практических подходов к формированию межкультурной коммуникации, которые разрабатывались на протяжении нескольких десятилетий, а также представлены различные модели межкультурной коммуникации и их компоненты. Ключевые слова: межкультурная коммуникация; солидарность; этнические сообщества; глобализация
Для цитирования: Кармова М. Р., Максимова О. И. Межкультурная коммуникация: путь к солидарности между этническими сообществами. Гуманитарные науки. Вестник Финансового университета. 2022;12(3):30-35. DOi: 10.26794/2226-7867-2022-12-3-30-35
orígínal paper
intercultural Communication: The Road to solidarity Between Ethnic Communities
M. R. Karmova, o. I. Maksimova
Financial University, Moscow, Russia
abstract
The article is devoted to the analysis of intercultural communication as solidarity between ethnic communities in the era of globalization processes. Intercultural communication, being the dominant and determinant of modern society, acquires even greater significance in connection with the processes of globalization and intensive migration, the need for interaction and peaceful coexistence of large and small ethnic groups and the formation of the cultural diversity of society. Authors discuss the problems of communication at the level of various ethnocultural groups. The article also describes the problems of theoretical and practical approaches to the formation of intercultural communication, which developed over several decades. In this paper, authors presented various models of intercultural communication and their components. The authors presented a short version of the definitions in the field of legislation. Keywords: intercultural communication; solidarity; ethnic communities; globalization
For citation: Karmova M. R., Maksimova o. i. intercultural communication: The road to solidarity between ethnic communities. Gumanitarnye Nauki. Vestnik Finasovogo Universiteta = Humanities and Social Sciences. Bulletin of the Financial University. 2022;12(3):30-35. (in Russ.). Doi: 10.26794/2226-7867-2022-12-3-30-35
Solidarity is not when you are forced to support, it is not when you are pressured, but when despite difficulties, despite circumstances, you support. These are different things.
M. V. Zakharova
Conflictogenic potential exists in the communication system always. Even if it is an interpersonal communication. Even if they are communicating with people close to
© Кармова М. Р., Максимова О. И., 2022
each other. In a certain sense, the algorithms of communication constitute in their totality a kind of program. But software products can conflict. And if culture is as a whole defined technically, using computer metaphor, as a collectively programmed brain, then software conflict can be easily explained by the differences in specific cultural communities of basic program elements: norms, values, attitudes, meanings as well as the means and forms of
implementation of all of the above in social practice. Incompatibility of programs is possible because there are different levels of cultural systems. In a sense, there is a global human culture — the culture of the species, then there are cultures that are less global, but similar within some huge and contingent communities — religious, natural-territorial, state, perhaps class, then there are ethnic communities, regional communities, then some real small groups — community, industrial, educational, then families as cultural systems, with their inherent traditions, values, norms, scenarios, intra-family roles, and, finally, the individual as a unique cultural system. There are also subcultures with their own characteristics, there is gender and age specificity within all of these systems. And all these mutually intersect and influence each other. At the same time, each individual is multi-identical, realizing and experiencing his or her identity to various cultural and social groups at the same time. What is surprising is not the program conflicts that lead to misunderstanding, but the very possibility of mutual understanding between people and groups. If we associate normativity with quantitative manifestations phenomena, then the question remains open as to whether constructive interaction or conflict is the norm? Knowledge of human history and analysis of events characteristic of contemporary processes of interaction between people and groups does not inspire optimism. Nevertheless, based on humanist orientation and just pragmatics, we believe that mutual understanding and cooperation should become the norm.
Modern sociocultural processes give rise to specific features of intercultural interaction, set new directions for theoretical research, and lead to a rethinking of traditional research methods and methodological approaches. In this context, there is a demand for a theoretical synthesizing of knowledge base acquired in the practice of cultural interaction, to identify more accurately intercultural differences, the specific characteristics of cultures, to reveal the mechanisms of intercultural interaction and the factors that contribute to an adequate understanding of what is happening.
The process of creating a multicultural environment is not easy, long, and sometimes contradictory, because a multicultural lifestyle has a high potential for conflict. This goal can only be achieved through the formation and development of intercultural communication skills among citizens of all ethnic groups.
For the first time, the term "intercultural communication" came into use in 1954 after the publication of the book "Culture as Communication" by E. Hall and V. Trager [1]. Subsequently, this concept received a deeper content. Theories of intercultural communication were developed, the most famous of them include: the theory of high and low contextual cultures of E. Hall [2], the theory of cultural dimensions of G. Hofsted [3], the theory of cultural literacy of E. Hirsch [4].
Problems of theoretical and practical approaches to the formation of intercultural communication have been developed over several decades. Foreign and domestic literature offers many definitions of the term "intercultural competence". Among them — "the ability to reach mutual understanding with representatives of other cultural communities as successfully as with representatives of their own socio-cultural environment" [5]. Another definition interprets intercultural competence as "mutual recognition / confirmation of the cultural identity of the participants in the communicative process, while their interaction properly contributes to the development and improvement of the cultural identity of each participant" [6].
Numerous cases of ethno-cultural clashes in our time show that the cultural factor largely determines both mutual understanding and the division of peoples. The division of ethnic groups occurs when the participants in the process do not perceive the specificity of each other's behaviour in view of the considerable cultural distance between them. In view of the above-mentioned reasons, the questions of the structure of intercultural competence, the mechanism of its formation, the creation of research methodology and methods of its teaching acquire special importance. However, today there is a conceptual vacuum in the cultural knowledge caused by the absence of new cognitive approaches and epistemological guidelines. Necessary for the study of intercultural interaction of its results. The relevance of the study of intercultural competence is due to the following circumstances:
The development of globalization processes
The growing sociocultural significance of the phenomenon of intercultural competence both in the global sociocultural space and in the theory of intercultural communication as a special cultural theory
The need to systematize the theoretical and methodological foundations, principles and
criteria of the concepts of intercultural competence developed by domestic and foreign researchers
Society's need for a personality type that possesses the necessary knowledge and skills of intercultural communication.
Intercultural communication is realized within various models. According to one of them, intercultural competence has six components, namely: tolerance towards uncertainty, behavioural flexibility, community awareness, knowledge acquisition, respect for others, empathy [7]. A more detailed model includes three interdependent aspects of intercultural communication:
1. Emotional (delicacy in matters of intercultural communication)
2. Cognitive (awareness of differences between cultures)
3. Behavioural (the ability to find a way out of a predicament).
The emotional aspect, the ability to express and accept a positive attitude in the framework of a dialogue of cultures, recognition, and respect for cultural differences, covers four components:
1.1. Self-assessment, the way a person perceives himself, interacting within the framework of intercultural communication. It determines how an individual communicates with people who are carriers of other cultures. It is known that the more positive self-esteem, the higher the likelihood that a person will be perceived with confidence.
1.2. Openness to new things, receptivity, and this desire to express one is position and to accept someone else's point of view, no matter how ambiguous it may seem, and no matter how contrasted with that which is accepted in the traditional culture of man. Anyone who is ready to combine established ideas with new ideas can interact more successfully within the framework of intercultural communication.
1.3. The aversion to judge others, the lack of categorization, is closely connected with the previous component, implies the absence of prejudice and the presence of a sincere desire to hear a person of a different culture.
1.4. The ability to ease tension, the absence of anxiety and anxiety associated with uncertainty and anticipation of the negative consequences of communication. The higher the expectation of an undesirable result of communication, the more anxious a person. As part of intercultural communication, this capable of causing feelings of fear, hatred, indignation, guilt, disgust.
The cognitive aspect of intercultural communication implies that in addition to the desire to communicate, a person must have knowledge of what can be appropriate and effective in the framework of this communication. It includes two components:
2.1. Knowledge of one's culture.
2.2. Knowledge of human culture of another ethnic group.
This knowledge will help to avoid uncertainty, help to perceive, and understand cultural differences and similarities.
The desire to find and learn about similarities in cultures reduces the risk of alienation and facilitates mutual understanding. In addition, they provide an opportunity to choose the behavioural forms of the faithful in terms of cultural adaptation. It is known that an individual belonging to two cultures is free to be limited in the choice of communication strategies and devoid of the need to reduce this communication to the performance of stereotypical roles.
The behavioural aspect of intercultural communication implies that, in addition to the delicacy in issues of intercultural communication and awareness of differences between cultures, one must be able to convey this attitude and use knowledge. This aspect includes five components:
3.1. The skill of transmitting a message, that is, knowledge of the language spoken by speakers of a different culture, to the extent and at a level that will help to avoid uncertainty and anxiety in communication.
3.2. Willingness to disclose information about yourself, the desire to dispel uncertainty to the extent that communication becomes comfortable. The amount of personal information provided should be monitored; in different cultures, its relevance is perceived differently.
3.3. Behavioural flexibility is a person's ability to adapt to different situations and contexts through the right choice of a behavioural model, especially considering that different cultures have different ideas about forms of social behaviour, such as speech etiquette, restrictions on the choice of topics for conversation, approaches to resolving conflict situations. The desire not to offend or offend the partner, the choice of behaviour that is expected, contributes to successful inter-ethnic communication.
3.4. Communication management implies the ability to build a smooth conversation, the art of starting and ending a conversation.
3.5. Sociability, sympathy, and the desire to support the self-esteem of the interlocutor [8].
It must be emphasized that any state should be a powerful tool to suppress interethnic conflicts, especially in the era of globalization processes.
The Russian authorities faced a serious obstacle — the absence of the very concept of "Russian nation", which would suit everyone. To solve this problem, scientists of the Russian Academy of Sciences developed a dictionary of basic concepts in the field of national politics and interethnic relations. Academician, Co-chair of the Council, Academic Supervisor, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences Valery Tishkov said that the created glossary establishes the priority of understanding the Russian nation as a political rather than ethnic community. It also says that the Russian Federation is a nation-state with a diverse ethnic and religious composition of the population and regional specifics.
A Scientific Council on complex problems of ethnicity and interethnic relations appeared at the RAS. It was created in accordance with the instructions of the president to discuss the most important problems in the field of interethnic (interethnic) relations and the implementation of the State National Policy Strategy. In recent decades, any public mention of such concepts has become the occasion for fierce debate that did not lead to anything.
After the October meeting 2016 of the Presidential Council on Interethnic Relations in Astrakhan, when the head of state was proposed to adopt the law "On the Russian nation", the media and social networks argued for a long time what it was and how it should be understood. Discussions continued on March 2, 2017, at a meeting of the working group to create the concept of law. Many were embarrassed in the name of the word "nation", which since Soviet times has caused negative associations in part of society. According to Valery Tishkov [9], the members of the working group have not yet reached a final decision on what the bill should be called. Among the options — "On the Russian nation" and "On the foundations of state national policy". It is possible that in the final version both names will be reflected.
Russian scientists have created a conceptual apparatus. A small terminology dictionary of state national policy has already been prepared for the first meeting of the Council. It reveals the following definitions: autonomy, including ethno-territorial and national-cultural; assimilation;
genocide; group rights; indigenous (aboriginal) peoples; xenophobia; interethnic (interethnic) harmony; minorities; nationalism; national state; national consciousness (identity); nation; racism; self-determination; separatism; ethnic community (ethnic group, ethnos).
For example, the national state is defined in the Glossary as a state with a common, controlled by the Central government economic and economic basis, with a common territory, common historical and cultural values of the inhabitants of the country. It is stipulated that the concept of "national state" should be distinguished from the concepts of "mono-ethnic state" and "multi-ethnic state".
"The Russian Federation is a national state that has a diverse ethnic and religious composition of the population and is characterized by a large regional specificity", the document says.
The article "Nation" notes that in modern science and law this means two types of human communities: a set of citizens of one state (political, or civil, nation) and ethnic community (ethno-nation). "Members of political Nations are distinguished by a General civil identity, or national identity, expressed in the correlation of the citizen with his country, which is reflected primarily in the name of its inhabitants (e.g., Americans, Indians, Spaniards, Chinese, Mexicans, Russians, French)", the dictionary says.
The Russian nation, according to the Glossary — is a civil-political community, consolidated based on the historical Russian statehood, whose members have equal rights regardless of ethnicity, race, and religion.
In addition, the Glossary gives three meanings of the word "people": it is a co-citizenship (Russian people, Russians), ethnic community (nationality), including indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation, or in general any gathering of people.
a short version of the concepts for the glossary of legislation
State national policy (state policy in the sphere of interethnic relations) — a system of targeted actions of state authorities, local self-government, civil society institutions to ensure the constitutional rights of the peoples and citizens of the Russian Federation for ethno-cultural development, ensuring harmonization of interethnic relations and strengthening on this basis the unity of the multinational people of the Russian Federation (Russian nation).
Civic identity — identification with the citizens of the country, the state-territorial space, the idea of the state, society, country, the image of "we" and a sense of community, solidarity, responsibility for the Affairs of the country.
Multinational people of the Russian Federation — the community of citizens of the Russian Federation of different nationalities, United by state unity, common interests, and historical and cultural values and aware of their belonging to the community of the Russian nation.
Interethnic relations — a set of political, socioeconomic, cultural, linguistic, and other relations between people of different ethnicity in business, social and other spheres of communication.
The Russian nation is a civil-political community, consolidated on the basis of historical Russian statehood, whose members have equal rights regardless of ethnic, racial, and religious affiliation, common historical and cultural values, a sense of belonging to one people, civic responsibility, and solidarity.
Ethnic community — (group) — formed on the basis of a common culture and language, compactly or dispersed settled on the territory of the Russian Federation community of people, whose members have a common consciousness.
National (ethnic) affiliation — the attribution of an individual himself to a certain ethnic community on the basis of free will.
The people — 1. As fellow citizens (Russian people, Russians). 2. As an ethnic community (nationality), including indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation. 3. Like any cluster of people1.
At the same time, scientists note that in Russia the ethnic understanding of the nation retains its influence, which is reflected in the political and scientific vocabulary and mass consciousness.
It is difficult to overestimate intercultural competencies: they expand the integration potential of the host society and increase the adaptive capabilities of migrants. Not possessing this competency can have extremely negative consequences in our dynamic, changeable transcultural and multi confessional world. It is appropriate to recall the novel "Fiasco" by the Polish writer and philosopher S. Lem, in which he expressed the idea of deep pessimism on the contact of various civilizations, because they are separated not by
1 English/Russian Legal Glossary 2005. Translated from English into Russian by Yana Berrier, Esq.
distance, but by culture and origin. He was echoed by the American political scientist S. Huntington, who in the article "Clash of Civilizations?" [10] predicted the third world war as a war of cultures, not political and economic systems. Thus, intercultural communication, being the dominant and determinant of modern society, acquires even greater significance in connection with the processes of globalization and intensive migration, the need for interaction and peaceful coexistence of large and small ethnic groups, overcoming closeness and cultural isolation, and the formation of the cultural diversity of society. This is especially true now, when "the mixture of peoples, languages, and cultures has reached unprecedented proportions and the problem of raising tolerance for foreign cultures, awakening interest and respect for them, overcoming the feeling of irritation from redundancy, insufficiency or simply the dissimilarity of other cultures" has become more acute than ever [11]. A favourable type of relationship between people of different cultures who do not infringe on the interests of a friend suddenly, in turn, characterizes the general state of society.
The experience and use of international languages and certain features of behavioural stereotypes can also be linked to the problem of globalization. We believe that external ethno-differentiating people can be attributed rather to the cognitive and spiritual sphere. For this reason, ethnic ideals and value orientations, all principles of worldview structure are manifested only when we say or do something. After all, our actions and linguistic expression of the evaluative categorization of the world are also ethnically or confessional specific, reflecting the results of our consciousness's activity on the classification of values. Mastering the structure and dynamics of intercultural communication is necessary in the process of understanding and interpreting the behaviour of the interaction partner. Therefore, when studying the institutionalization of ethnicity, it is important to understand the processes involved in its formation in terms of cognitive analysis. Such an approach can led us to the possibility or impossibility of institutional coherence in the absence or presence of communication errors and, consequently, conflicts. The public acceptance of even small ethnic groups through institutions such as public ethnocultural associations serves to shape the ideas of intercultural interaction at the level of civil society institutions in a poly-logical way, which in turn has specific goals, objectives,
M. Р. Кармова, О. И. Максимова
and methods. The semantics of such a polylogue contains both external prescriptions and internal rules, which over time will be able to define the
state cultural policy related to the recognition of the worldview credo that sets the goal of the ethnos and the meaning of its life.
references
1. Hall E. Trager G. Culture as communication: A model and analysis. Studies in Culture and Communication. 1954;(3):137-149.
2. Hall E. Beyond culture. Garden City. N.Y.: Anchor Press; 1976.
3. Hirsch, E. D. A first dictionary of cultural literacy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; 1989.
4. Hirsch, E. D. A first dictionary of cultural literacy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; 1989.
5. Gez N. I., Frolova G. M. History of foreign methods of teaching foreign languages. Moscow: Publishing centre "Academy"; 2008.
6. Collier M. J. Cultural and intercultural communicative competence. Current approaches and directions for future research. International Journal of Intercultural Relations. 1989;(13):287-302.
7. Amerdinov M. M. Intercultural communication and competence. Bulletin of Kyrgyzstate University. 2018;(1):102-109.
8. Chen G.-M., Starosta W. J. Intercultural communication competence: A synthesis. Communication Yearbook. 1996;(19):353-383.
9. Tishkov V.A, Stepanov V. V. Interethnic Relations, and Ethnocultural Education in Russia. Vestnik Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk. 2017;87(10):879-890.
10. Huntington S. P. The Clash of Civilization? Foreign Affairs. 1993;(3):22-49.
11. Ter-Minasova S. G. Language and intercultural communication. Moscow: Moscow State University; 2004.
информация об авторах / about the authors
Марьяна Ризоновна Кармова — старший преподаватель департамента английского языка и профессиональной коммуникации, Финансовый университет, Москва, Россия
Maryana R. Karmova — Senior Lecturer, Department of English Language and Professional Communication,
Financial University, Moscow, Russia
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7393-0119
mkarmova@fa.ru
Ольга Игоревна Максимова — старший преподаватель департамента английского языка и профессиональной коммуникации, Финансовый университет, Москва, Россия
Olga I. Maksimova — Senior Lecturer, Department of English Language and Professional Communication,
Financial University, Moscow, Russia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7096-4724
oimaksimova@fa.ru
Конфликт интересов: авторы заявляют об отсутствии конфликта интересов. Conflicts of Interest Statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Статья поступила 16.01.2022; принята к публикации 15.04.2022. Авторы прочитали и одобрили окончательный вариант рукописи. The article was received on 16.01.2022; accepted for publication on 15.04.2022. The authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
