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34ISSUE OF GENDER CONFLICT COMMUNICATION DEFINITION
Lukianets M.
Kyiv National Linguistic University, Associate Professor of Department of Foreign Languages,
PhD
Abstract
Gender conflict communication has several general characteristics. It arises because of people's miscommu-nication and develops in accordance with the speakers' goals and objectives. There exist numerous differences in gender conflict communication, which are revealed in male and female attitude towards conflict, the peculiarities of their speech styles and behavior. The traditional social roles and different occupations of men and women, their family status and psychological self-identification also determine these differences.
Keywords: conflict communication, communicative style, gender, male style of communication, female style of communication.
The primary data on gender peculiarities on conflict communication comes from two general sources social psychology studies and a linguistic research of conflict discourse. In social psychology studies this issue was explored by Allahverdova O.V., Andreev V.I., Antsupov F.Ya., Boulding K., Malyshev A.A., Isard K.E., Karmin A.S. and so on. Among linguists who researched conflict discourse were Cumming S., Ganova O.V., Ryabtsev N.K., Pocheptsov G.G., Zernetskiy P.V. and others.
Conflict develops for a multitude of reasons and takes a variety of forms. It can arise due to individuals' different needs, attitudes, or beliefs. Conflict tests each relationship which person shares with another individual and that in so doing helps measure each relationship effectiveness. Thus, conflicts have the ability to produce both highly constructive and highly destructive relational consequences.
The major argument is that the general approach recently developed for the study of difficulties in cross-gender conflict communication [3, p. 3-5] can be applied to cross-gender communication overall. It is preferable to think of the difficulties cross-gender communication as examples of gender differences in communication.
Conflict between people is an unpleasant fact -and it is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, a relationship with frequent conflict may be healthier than one with no observable conflict. David Johnson notes, "A conflict-free relationship is a sign that you really have no relationship at all, not that you have a good relationship." [8, p. 83]. Thus, to say there should be no conflict is akin to saying people should have no relationships. If a relationship is healthy, conflicts will occur regularly and will be handled effectively.
It is sharing of conversational strategies that create a feeling of satisfaction that accompanies a successful conversation: the sense of being understood, being on the same wavelength. Conversely, the lack of congruity in conversational strategies creates an opposite feeling: of dissonance, of not being understood.
It is widely recognized that conversational control processes operate on the automatic level [2, p. 107120]. However, it is far from certain that awareness of the existence of differences in communicative strategies makes them less troublesome, since their operation remains unconscious and habitual.
Sometimes people avoid conflicts, and the reasons for this are numerous. They may feel that their underlying anger may go out of control if they open the door to conflict. Thus, they may see conflict as an all-or-nothing situation (either they avoid it altogether or they end up in an all-out combative mode, regardless of the real severity of the conflict), or they may find it difficult to face conflict because they feel inadequate in general or in the particular relationship. They may have difficulty in positively asserting their views and feelings. Children who grow up surrounded by destructive conflict may, as adults, determine never to participate in discord. In this situation, the person may never have learned that there are effective, adaptive ways to communicate in the face of conflict.
In the recent years, the issue of conflict gender communication has been an area of study of many so-ciolinguists. Among them are D. Tannen, W. Labov, J. Coats, J. Pfeiffer, G. Delahunty, T. Gamble, S. Hybels and others.
Different scientists consider the problem from different points of view.
Linguistic research of the late 70-s Arnovick L.K., Burress L., Ryabtsev N.K., was concerned with the fact that interpretation of utterances in conversation often differs radically from the meaning that would be derived from the sentences in isolation. It can be often observed that sociocultural goals, broadly called politeness lead people to express opinions and preferences in widely varying linguistic forms so that characteristic choices with respect to indirectness give rise to the individual style of a person, and that an individual's style is a mixture of strategies that shift in response to shifting situations. The forms of utterances in actual interaction can be seen as linguistic means of satisfying the coexisting and often conflicting needs for negative face (the need to be left alone) and positive face (the need to be approved of by others) [1, p. 337-356]. As a result, people often prefer to express their wants and opinions off-record - that is, indirectly. This is natural, since individuals develop their patterns of behavior based on innumerable influences, such as where they grew up, ethnic background, religious or cultural affiliation, class and the vast reservoir of personal experience and genetic inheritance that makes each person's life and personality unique. Nevertheless, seeing a pattern
against which to evaluate individual differences provides a starting point to develop not only self-understanding but also flexibility - the freedom to try doing things differently if automatic ways of doing them do not have entirely successful results.
According to Deborah Tannen, men and women have almost completely different communicative styles. In fact, she maintains that their languages are so different that they might as well come from different worlds [13, p.43]. In her book, You Just Don't Understand Tannen examines the conversational styles of both genderes. She comes to conclusion that when women have conversations, their goal is the language of rapport- talk. This language is designed to lead to intimacy with others, to match experiences, and to establish relationships. Men, however, speak report- talk. In this type of speech the speaker's goal is to maintain status, to demonstrate knowledge and skills, and to keep the centre- stage position [12, p.76].
In the book, That's Not What I Meant! Deborah Tannen has investigated the influence of the linguistic differences of men and women on the relationships between genders. She has found that different expectations which men and women bring to interactions together with different conversational styles of males and females cause misunderstanding and miscommunica-tion between genders. "When styles differ, misunderstandings are always rife. But if you know about language differences, you can accept that there are differences in habits and assumptions about how to have conversation, show interest, be considerate, and so on. You may not always correctly interpret your partner's intentions. But the important thing is to know that what seem like bad intentions may really be good intentions expressed in a different conversational style" [12, p.143].
Professor Labov W. in The Study of Language in its Social Context looks at the differences in the language forms both genders use. He has found that in careful speech, women use fewer vernacular forms than men use, and are more sensitive than men to the prestige forms. He has also mentioned, "In case after case, we find that women use the most advanced forms and more of the newer linguistic forms than men do in their casual speech" [11, p. 30-31]. In the end he comes to conclusion that the gender differentiation of speakers is a product of a positional state which is socially more appropriate for one gender or the other [11, p.30-81].
Sociolinguist Hybels focused attention on the structural differences of male and female language. "Sometimes the gender of communicators affects not only the meaning we give to their utterances but also the very structure of those utterances", he mentioned in one of his works [7, p.84]. Hybels maintains that women use more tentative phrases or qualifiers in their speech than men do. "Women also tend to turn statements into questions more often. They use more disclaimers and more tag questions", he says.
John Pfeiffer agrees with Hybels adding that such tendencies reveal women's lack of confidence in their own opinions, that they continually need approval, and that they allow themselves to be bullied by men in conversations [7, p. 39]. Pfeiffer has also found that men
are in the lead of interrupting and prefer to play dominant roles in conversations. He sums up, "Such patterns could be changed; although the forces working to maintain gender roles are as diverse as they are powerful" [7, p.39].
Sociolinguists Delahunty, Hybels and others explain the origin of the linguistic differences between men and women. They say the differences start very early in life. "Children learn to speak male or female not long after learning to be male or female", says De-lahunty [6, p. 42-50]. "Children learn to speak gender -specific language from the media and literature, from their parents and peers", adds Hybels [7, p.50].
Indirectness is a necessary means for serving the needs for rapport and defensiveness, associated respectively with Brown and Levinson's positive and negative face. Rapport is the lovely satisfaction of being understood without explaining oneself, of getting what one wants without asking for it. Defensiveness is the need to be able to save face by revoking in case one's conversational contribution is not received well - the ability to say, perhaps sincerely, I never said that, or that isn't what I meant. [4, p. 56-289]. The goals of rapport and defensiveness correspond to Lakoff's politeness rules Maintain camaraderie and Don't impose [10, p. 35].
An individual learns conversational strategies in previous interactive experience, but chooses certain and rejects other strategies as inappropriate in a particular communicative situation. In other words, the range of strategies familiar to the speaker is socially and culturally determined, but any individual's set of habitual strategies is unique within that range.
Coates' research of the linguistic differences of men and women seems to be the most comprehensive. In her work Women, Men and Language the scientist examines not only the different varieties of English used by males and females. She explains why the gender - specific language exists and where it comes from. Coates has also demonstrated the significance of the linguistic differences between men and women for both genders." Neither style is better in any absolute sense than the other. Each style can be effective in specific situations", declares the researcher [5, p.65- 67].
Thus, the qualitative analyses of the sociolinguis-tic literature together with our own observation prove the importance of the issue under research. It is a topical problem nowadays as it concerns the process of communication.
It is very important to know about the linguistic differences between men and women and to study them because it helps to communicate avoiding unnecessary misunderstanding between communicators. It also enables the speakers to use the gender - specific language to their favour and helps them feel comfortable about speaking either male or female.
In the February 1979 issue of Sex Roles magazine it was noted that how people express themselves in conflict situations is frequently more important than what they disagree about. Sex Roles asked female readers how they were most likely to behave when displeased with their husbands and how their husbands were most likely to behave when displeased with them. Readers
were queried as to whether they were most apt to "say nothing, brood about it, hint they were unhappy, express their feelings, or start an argument." They were also questioned regarding the ways they handled themselves when they did argue with their spouses. For instance, were they most likely to leave the room, sulk, sit in silence, swear, shout, hit out, cry or break things? Survey results indicated that the most happily married wives were those who responded that both they and their husbands were able to reveal when they were displeased with each other, discuss it, and try to resolve the problem in a calm and rational manner. They also noted that they rarely, if ever, felt compelled to resort to active aggressive fighting (swearing, shouting, hitting out, crying, or breaking things) or to passive aggressive fighting (leaving the room, sulking, or keeping silent). Thus, it appears that avoiding conflicts, trying to settle them prematurely, or prohibiting the discussion of differences can lead to serious relationship problems [9, p. 51-62].
Of the strategies available, only discussion, or leveling can break impasses and solve difficulties. Thus, the fate of any conflict is related to the employed communication strategies. Conflict forces individuals to select from available response patterns in order to forge an effective network of communication. An individual can choose either disruptive or constructive responses.
To sum it up, conflict communication between genders is inherent to all societies and arises when two or more interlocutors pursue incompatible objectives. A dynamic process can lead to positive or negative changes. Certain forms of conflict are essential for developmental changes, such as trying to resolve the problem in a calm and rational manner.
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MULTIPLE SEMANTICS OF BLACK AND WHITE IN ONLINE FASHION DISCOURSE (BASED ON
CHANEL FASHION STORIES)
Lukianets H.
PhD, Associate Professor National University of Food Technologies, Kyiv, Ukraine
Abstract
The article presents multiple semantics of color terms black and white in Chanel online fashion discourse, including wide range of meanings, namely colorless, monochromatic, dark vs light, contextual and gray shades. Connection between color terms semantics and creation of brand image is established.
Keywords: color terms, contextual meaning, colorless, monochrome referential meaning
Color as one of the basic distinctive features of humans' visual perception of objects in the real world, alone with texture, shape and size, provides people with massive information about properties of things. Words for naming colors in a language are usually called color terms [4, p. 610] or color names [6, p. 129] and at present are used both to refer to color as optical phenomenon and nominate social categories associated with color.
Despite numerous linguistic studies connected with psychological [1, p. 134], cultural [9], political [5, p.371], etc. perspectives of color terms use, multiple semantics of black and white opposition in contemporary online fashion discourse has not been studied yet. Consequently, current research on the use of color terms in online discourse of modern fashion industry seems to be essential, as far as color itself and the words used to nominate it in the fashion industry discourse often go
