CC BY
26UNDERSTANDING AS BASIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION: PSYCHOLINGUISTIC, ETHNOSOCIOCULTURAL ASPECTS AND EDUCATIONAL SOLUTIONS
Suvirova A.Yu., Kabakhidze K.K.
Abstract. The authors of the article analyze cross-cultural communication from the viewpoint of social philosophy defining invariant features of cross-cultural communication based on dialogue (Mikhail Bakhtin) and dialect nature of human communication. Theoretical description of the nature of cross-cultural communication is illustrated by live examples of the cultural conflicts borrowed from the history of the Russian diplomacy. Since the consciousness has the communicative nature, whereas cross-cultural understanding is rooted in neuropsychological aspects of cognition, antinomy of "sign-symbol", the article depicts the mechanisms of speech production and speech perception divided between the strata of consciousness and cognition. The article underlines the hermeneutic essence of the intercultural dialogue, which is born through understanding between communicators on the conceptual and semantic level, although more importantly intercultural and civilization dimension in the context of the multipolar world, taking into account global tendencies in socioeconomic, ethnocultural, political worldorder of the different countries around the world.
Internalization of education, information and telecommunication technologies catalyze intercultural communication, as a result form knowledge society inhabited by "homoloquens".
Intensive intercultural contacts quite often give rise to cultural conflicts. The author categorizes this phenomenon by ranging the mistakes, insufficient understanding, embarrassments and conflicts of intercultural communication, reveals in-depth socio-cultural paradigm, axiological, world outlook and religious aspects that cause negative outcomes of intercultural contacts.
Understanding in intercultural dialogue is composed of ethnosociocultural context and psycholinguistic mechanisms of speech perception and speech production. Theoperationalitemofunderstandingisconsideredtobeacodewhichhasasymbolic nature. The article depicts the interconnection between symbol, code, act of communication, consciousness and national world view.
Key words: understanding, cognition, intercultural dialogue, consciousness, symbol, national worldview, hermeneutics, ethnos, communication, information society, culture, globalization.
For citation: Suvirova A. Yu., Kabakhidze K. K.Understanding as basis of intercultural communication: psycholinguistic, ethnosociocultural aspects and educational solutions// Communicology: electronic scientific journal. 2019. Volume 4. No. 2.
Inf. about the authors: Anastasia Yu. Suvirova, PhD in Philosophical Sciences, Head of the Laboratory of International Projects of Moscow City University, Address: 129226, Moscow, 2ndSelskokhozyastvennyproezd, Bld. 4. E-mail:
[email protected]. Phone: 89197232317; Katerina K. Kabakhidze,PhD in Pedagogical Sciences, Senior Researcher of the Laboratory of International Projects of Moscow City University. Address: 129226, Moscow, 2ndSelskokhozyastvennyproezd, Bld. 4. E-mail: [email protected]. Phone: 89858319282.
Received: 10.05. 2019. Accepted: 28.06.2009.
To know another language and not his culture is a very good way to make a fluent fool of himself W. Brembeck
Globalization has significantly diminished spaciotemporal boundaries of communication through modern means of IT technologies, transport and last but not least by the mobility of students and teaching staff and internalization of education in general, the latter resulting from globalization and simultaneously enhancing it.
Communication represented in the language and culture remains to be the main impediment of globalization. To overcome the language barrier, linguists have undertaken several attempts to create an artificial language like Esperanto but in the long run those attempts failed due to one circumstance - the language cannot exist without a culture and the nation it belongs to. "Language is unified spiritual energy of people" [Humboldt: 346-350]. Language serves not only for communication but most of all it serves as a provider for the world perception of one nation as a prerequisite pf communication. The language is an outstanding mark of a nation (=Kennzeichen), it forms unique world outlook (=Weltbild) [11, p. 120-135]. Every language is a treasury of the people's history, the main indicator of its uniqueness (D. Crystal).
On the other hand, language by itself cannot serve as a powerful unifying instrument to bring peoples and nations together (we know a lot of examples when homogeneous monolingual societies fell apart being torn by conflicts and wars).
This is why the problems and challenges of globalization cannot be solved with the help of the common language - a universe language for all the people of the world. We would like to try and show that understanding is the key to efficient intercultural dialogue, providing access to the ethnic mentality and true communication.
Communication, dialoguepavetheeverydaylife of a humane being, enable his existence in a society - Language is the house of Being (M. Heidegger).
81
PostindustrialsocietyonthevergeoftheXXcenturyenteredtheeraof'knowledge society", which keeps accumulating, transforming and managing the information flows to improve the social institutes, conditions of living. Ingeneral, informationplaysthe crucial role in the knowledge society.
An outstanding Americanwriterandfuturist John Naisbitt marked the importance of the transition to information society as a key transformation of the Western society and economics, whereas another American scientist -sociologist D. Bell when describing the major features of the information society, outlined such qualities as value and meaning as well as its role in formation of the scientific knowledge.
Thenatureofthecommunicativeenvironmentofthemodernsocietyispolycultu ralandmultinationalasaresultoftheglobalintegrationandinterconnectionbetweenna tionaleconomics, ethnos,
culturesandpoliciesofsoftpowerappliedbythegovernmentofdifferentcountriesinth eirforeignpoliciesstrivingtohaveanimpactonsocialaspoliticalaffairsofotherstatesth rougheducationandculture.
Preconditionedbytheabove-mentionedfacts, communicationbecomesanontological form of the modern society, whereas interlocutory (dialogue) and dialectical essence of intercultural communication become invariant characteristics of the global communication. Theword "dialectic" wasintroducedinphilosophyinthewakeofthe "Dialogues" by Plato, where their participants could defend different viewpoints pursuing the truth through an exchange of opinions, at the same time interlocutory appeared in the wake of works by M. Bakhtin who stated that this is a universal foundation for understanding between human beings as the dialogue penetrates through the life being of a person, all that has a sense and meaning...where the consciousness starts the dialogue begins [Bahtin: 19].
Tosumitup,
dialogueanddialectichavebecomeaphilosophicalgroundforinterculturalcontactsint heXXIcentury, whereanaspiration for understanding has become a basis for intercultural communication of the XXI century: "International relations have spread significantly, now to solve this or another international problem the majority of the countries have to be engaged". It is muchmoredifficultnowtobringdifferentopinionsto one and the same denominator and it takes more time now [Popov: 91]. FamousRussiandiplomat -underlinesthenecessityto include
anumberofstatestopsliveglobalproblemsofetchnoculture, bymeetingnational mentalities andcrushofstereotypes, clashofdifferentlanguages and world pictures.
Takingthisintoaccountthemechanism of understanding is becoming key condition of the successful intercultural dialogue.
Intensiveexternalinterculturalcontacts may
resultinconflictsofculturesanddiplomaticembarrassing situations as diplomacy is a field of negotiations, climax of interrelations of mentalities, value and culture attitude, world outlooks.
Interculturalmistakescanberegardedassituationswheremisunderstandingbet weenthepartiesdidnotcausepersonalinsulttoarepresentativeofanotherculture, thatcanbeequated to the communication mistake.
Interculturalmistakesresultfromunawarenessthatbehaviouralmodelsindiffer entculturesarenotequal, onthecontrary"every culture has its unique set of rules, conventions, models of behavior, that reflect in general the set of values of the given society" [Molchanova: 12]. Suchaphenomenoniscalledsociolinguistic relativity.
Thehistoryofcivilizationsknowsagreatdealofexamplesofinterculturalconfli cts that have had dreadful consequences along with intercultural pratfalls that ended up withconventional apologies or jokes.
Thefundamentalreasonliesinthefieldofabsenceofunderstandingbetweenther epresentativeofdifferentcultures, whichcanbearesultofa)
unawarenessofsociocultural,
ethnopsycologicalandotherparadigmsofothercultures; b)
sociolinguisticandpragmatictransferofthenormsandrulesfromdifferentcultures; c) rejection/abruption of the norms and rules, models of behaviour and conventions of other cultures HopMHnpaBHn,
моrцепенповеrценнflнконвенцннrцругонкупbтурbI ( as a rule, this is typical of the situations where communication target is not being pursued) d) linguistic barriers of communication preconditioned by insufficient knowledge of a foreign language, business etiquette of communication, improper use of the stylistic devices and otherse) psycholinguistic and neuronslinguistic aspects of the coding and decoding of the speech message to/from foreign language.
As a result understanding in intercultural communication can be characterized by the two key aspects: psycholinguistic and ethnosociocultural.
It is important to notice the contingency, synergy of two concepts: understanding and cognition, the latter as a step to understanding, and to constitute the epistemological nature of understanding: "The initial form of spiritual needs in the ontogenetic development seems to be delivered in the functional necessityfor self-orientation and cognitive activity, also in the need
for external impressions, and never the material needs for food, clothing and shelter" [Ufimceva: 174]. Understanding is the reflection of higher spiritual need, at the same time it is possible to understand only those things that have been previously cognized and now are known to an individual, without the latter understanding cannot exist (even an emotional response in the soul can be caused only by those phenomena that were previously understood or experienced by the individual). According to Rene Descartes, the understanding is identified with cognition, intelligence, and thinking, and in its turn, implicitly includes what is now usually called consciousness. We can build the following chain of cognitive processes: perception (rational or irrational, i.e., feeling) -cognition- understanding - consciousness.
We have touched upon the ethnosociocultural characteristics of understanding above, now we will consider more psycholinguistic aspects of understanding.
According to R. Penrose, consciousness is continued in the intellect.
Operating unit of understanding is the code that has a symbolic nature: "Symbol is always something that we do not fully understand, but what we are as someone who understand, who exist"[Mamardashvili :35]. Thus, from our point of view, the understanding and consciousness operate with one and the same instrument -symbol. The act of communication cannot take place if the message is not encoded (i.e. not transformed into symbol): "Code is a key concept in intercultural communication.^ message should be coded, i.e., to be expressed by the code and decoded, i.e. be understood...thus the encoding in intercultural communication is the conversion of the first signal system to another by using the internal (the "language of thought") and external (verbal and non-verbal forms) codes. Cultural and language codes depend on the national picture of the world" [Molchanova: 71].
There are lots of great works about consciousness from the philosophical, psychological, socio-cultural points of view, in this article we will touch upon only two facts of consciousness: 1) consciousness is social by its nature (there are public and individual consciousness), it arose in the process of collective human existence, reflection of reality 2) consciousness has a communicative nature (as a consequence of socialization of the individual), which is reflected in the word consciousness (co-knowledge), i.e. a joint knowledge that can be passed to the recipient by means of words, signs, or other visual images, charts, gestures, facial expressions, etc. [Sedov: 138].
According to M. M. Bakhtin, "consciousness is developed and performed in symbols created in the process of social communication of organized
team...Individual consciousness feeds on the signs, rooted in them, reflects their logics and regularity. National language is thus composed of ideal symbolic content of consciousness".
By relying on the theories of speech production of prominent Russian and Soviet scientists, we will present a scheme of the verbal statement production in the conditions of intercultural dialogue.
1. Behind any verbal statement lies the idea or motive. Thus, the motive of the speech act is the starting point of the formation of thoughts. The motive lies outside of consciousness, according to K. F. Sedov, and appeals to both hemispheres. Of course, there are cases when the motive is quite conscious and is lying in a field of consciousness. But most often the motive is a result of subconscious activities, and in this case it is directly linked with the right hemisphere of the brain [Sedov: 114].
2. The primary stage of the formation of thought also includes the next stage - the formation of communicative intention, which is located in the right part of the brain. The communicant at this stage makes decisions such as willingness/unwillingness to communicate. We can claim with certain degree of probability, that at this stage the leading role belongs to the right hemisphere of the brain that is responsible for thinking processes, in this case, this is the stage where a decision about the emotional color of the future utterance, intonation and modality is made. At this stage the mind of the speaker defines for itself the aim of statement. It is most likely that here thought in the bright field of consciousness is transformed in understanding intention, i.e. the communicant, knowing his personal idea, encodes it in a particular sign system. This stage also takes place in the right hemisphere and here there are not any traces of the national language.
3. The next stage is the primary idea when the speaker already knows for what purpose he intends to say, which extra-linguistic features of discourse to involve, but does not know what he will say exactly. Here a coherent semantic model of the utterance it formed, the semantic content of the utterance is formalized. This stage is a line between thought and word. Future speech here is encoded in the form of diagrams, signs, sensations, images.
4. The next step is verbalization of the idea. It is here where the language of sense shaped in images, diagrams, signs is translated into specific national language - the language of values, understandable for the recipient. One should say that the whole scheme of speech production is a race where the real war is
between personal meaning and the conventional meaning. Verbalized statement construction at this stage consists of phrases' parts, carrying core sense of key concepts, i.e. a communicative core of future statement is formed. This stage has reference with internal speech of L.S. Vygotsky.
5. At the subsequent stages occurs the unfolding of the communicative semantic core into speech utterance: the thought is reborn in the word. It is reborn, formed, it does not transit ready-made.
6. The grammatical construction of the phrase begins with the syntax. Internal words-images find their place in the syntax of the national language. If on the 4th stage the right hemisphere's grammar was used, here left-hemisphere's grammar is involved, by means of which sense becomes the meaning, here appear the syntax and lexical variation.
7. Next such grammatical categories as the vocabulary and morphemes are used.
8. As a result, there goes syllable motor development of speech carried out by the left hemisphere of the brain.
9. As a final part of this long chain of speech development is control over semantic and formal sides of discourse. This function is divided between the left and right hemispheres where the left is responsible for the formal-grammatical design of the discourse, and the right - for the semantic content.
Thus, the path from thought to word is a transformation of the sensory image into disembodied thought, and undifferentiated word - into dismembered sentence with subject-object structure. In this way the unconscious becomes conscious.
Idea/Motive
Communicative intention
Field of Conscious
Interferencewithan other foreign language (recoding)
V_Z
Inner Speech (thought-word)
Grammatical construction of phrase (syntax)
Field of Cognition
Grammaticalshaping (lexis-morphemes) f \ syllable motor development of ( N Control
V I * )
J
Field of Cognition
Scheme 1. Scheme of Speech Production Scheme of Speech Perception
Acoustic or another signal / sign
Understanding
Identification/recogniti on of sign
Interference of consciousness (awareness of excess-intent of the speaker )
Scheme 2. Scheme of Speech Production
Understanding, most probably, is the form of existence of the individual in the social world: "And since human is conceived as ... free being, the interaction with their own kind is built not according to the principle of "stimulus-reaction", but the principle of "addressing-understanding". Therefore, human interaction becomes communication"Ufimceva: 19]. Thus, understanding is primary in relation to communication. Human as being a "social animal" with the natural intention to understand themselves and the world, faced the need to create a language, where understanding, by contrast, has pre-language basis.
References:
Averincev S.S., Davydov Yu.N., Turbin V.N. i dr. M M. Bahtin kakfilosof: Sb. Statej / Ros. Akademiya nauk, Institut filosofii. M.: Nauka, 1992. 176 p.(In Rus.).
Bahtin M.M. Ehstetika slovesnogo tvorchestva. M.: Hudozhestvennaya Literature, 1979. 424 p. (In Rus.).
Humboldt V., Language and Philosophy of Culture. M.: Academic prospect, 1985. P.346 -350/ (In Rus.).
Mamardashvili M.K. Soznanie I civilizaciya - SPb.: Azbuka, Azbuka-Attikus, 2011. -288 p. ((In Rus.).
Molchanova G.G. Kognitivnaya polikodovost' mezhkul'turnoj kommunikacii: verbalika I neverbalika. Uchebnoe posobie. M.: OLMA Media Grupp, 2014. 384 p. (In Rus.).
Popov V.I. Sovremennaya diplomatiya: teoriya I praktika. Diplomatiya - nauka I iskusstvo: Kurs lekcij. 2-e izd., dop. M.: Mezhdunar. Otnosheniya, 2016. 576 p.(In Rus.).
Sedov K.F. Nejropsiholingvistika. M.: Labirint, 2009. 224 p. (in Russian)
Ufimceva N.V. Yazykovoe soznanie dinamika I variativnost M.: Kaluga-Institut yazykoznaniya RAN, 2011. 252 p. (In Rus.).
Chelovek vchera I segodnya: mezhdisciplinarnye issledovaniya. Vyp. 8/Ros.akad.nauk, In-t filosofii; Otv. Red.M.S. Kiseleva. - M.: IFRAN, 2014. 18 - 29 p.(In Rus.). (
Bell D. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. A Venture in Social Forecasting. N.Y., Basic Books, Inc., 1973
Weisgerber I. Native Language and Spirit Formation, M.: Publishing House "Lobrikom", 2009, p. 120-135. (In Rus.).
ПОНИМАНИЕ КАК ОСНОВА МЕЖКУЛЬТУРНОЙ КОММУНИКАЦИИ: ПСИХОЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЕ,
ЭТНОСОЦИОКУЛЬТУРНЫЕ АСПЕКТЫ И
ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНЫЕ РЕШЕНИЯ
Сувирова А. Ю., Кабахидзе К. К.
Аннотация. Авторы статьи анализируют межкультурную коммуникацию с позиций социальной философии, определяя инвариантные особенности межкультурной коммуникации на основе диалога (М. А. Бахтин) и диалектной природы человеческого общения. Теоретическое описание природы межкультурной коммуникации иллюстрируется живыми примерами культурных конфликтов, заимствованными из истории российской дипломатии. Поскольку сознание имеет коммуникативную природу, а кросс-культурное понимание коренится в нейропсихологических аспектах познания, антиномии "знак-символ", в статье показаны механизмы речепроизводства и восприятия речи, разделенные между пластами сознания и познания.
В статье подчеркивается герменевтическая сущность межкультурного диалога, который рождается через взаимопонимание между коммуникантами на концептуальном и семантическом уровне, хотя важнее межкультурное и цивилизационное измерение в контексте многополярного мира с учетом глобальных тенденций в социально-экономическом, этнокультурном, политическом мироустройстве разных стран мира.
Интернализация образования, информационные и телекоммуникационные технологии катализируют межкультурную коммуникацию, в результате формируют общество знаний, населенное "гомологами".
Интенсивные межкультурные контакты нередко порождают социальные конфликты. Автор категоризирует данное явление путем ранжирования ошибок, недостаточного понимания, конфузов и конфликтов межкультурной коммуникации,
раскрывает глубинные социокультурные парадигмы, аксиологические, мировоззренческие и религиозные аспекты, обусловливающие негативные исходы межкультурных контактов.
Понимание в межкультурном диалоге складывается из этносоциокультурного контекста и психолингвистических механизмов восприятия и производства речи. Theoperationalitemofunderstandingisconsideredtobeacodewhichhasymbolic природы. В статье показана взаимосвязь символа, кода, акта коммуникации, сознания и национального мировоззрения.
Ключевые слова: понимание, познание, межкультурный диалог, сознание, символ, национальное мировоззрение, герменевтика, этнос, коммуникация, информационное общество, культура, глобализация.
Для цитирования: Сувирова А. Ю. Кабахидзе К. К. Понимание как основа межкультурной коммуникации: психолингвистические, этносоциокультурные аспекты и образовательные решения // Коммуникология: электронный научный журнал. 2019. Том 4. Дело № 2.
Сведения об авторах: Анастасия Юрьевна Сувирова, кандидат философских наук, заведующая лабораторией международных проектов МГУ им.М. В. Ломоносова, адрес: 129226, Москва, 2-й сельскохозяственный проезд, д. т. н. 4. E-mail: [email protected]. Телефон: 89197232317; Кабахидзе Катерина Константиновна, кандидат педагогических наук, старший научный сотрудник лаборатории международных проектов Московского Городского университета. Адрес: 129226, Москва, 2-й сельскохозяственный проезд, Д. 4. E-mail: [email protected]. Телефон: 89858319282.
Статья поступила в редакцию: 10.05. 2019. Принята к печати: 28.06.2009.
