CC BY
24
DOI: 10.12731/2218-7405-2013-7-44
PROBLEMS OF MODERN DOCUMENTAL COMMUNICATION
(cultural-and-social aspects)
Kushneruk S.P.
Some results of the official-and-business texts' qualities revealed on communication level are presented in this article. The system of axes used for national-and-social evaluations of the business communicative instruments is under analysis. The influences of unstable social-and-cultural conditions on technological and organizational circumstances of document-oriented communication are analyzed. Some results of the out-of-officinal factors origin' and level's evaluation in their influence on unified forms and textual peculiarities of communicative acts in the forms of "business papers" are presented.
Keywords: business communication; document; official communication's conditions; social and cultural dominants; social context of communication.
ПРОБЛЕМЫ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ДОКУМЕНТНОЙ КОММУНИКАЦИИ
(культурно-социальный контекст)
Кушнерук С.П.
В статье представлены результаты анализа культурно-социальных свойств официально-деловых текстов. Рассмотрена система координат, в которых проявляются национально-культурные свойства инструментов официально-деловой коммуникации. Исследовано влияние меняющихся социально-культурных условий на технологические и организационные условия документной коммуникации. Приведены результаты оценки характера
и степени влияния внедокументных факторов на параметры унифицированных форм и на речевые особенности коммуникативных актов, оформляемых официально-деловыми документами.
Ключевые слова: деловая коммуникация; документ; условия официальной коммуникации; социальные и культурные доминанты; социальный контекст коммуникации.
The attitude to records culture characterizes society. In this difficult communicative sphere features of national culture, condition of actual speech standards and level of technological development may be revealed. However a dominant, defining communicative quality and efficiency of documents' based activity in all its manifestations, leaves a hardly described many-sided (as a result of its internal complexity), set of the cultural-and-national obvious and hidden regulators. These regulators do not feel influence of standardization processes, rituals and the conditions, connected with internationalization of communicative processes, based on documents and formal communicative rules.
Undoubtedly, society changed considerably during last 15-20 years. The results of these changes and the changes themselves can be estimated, counted, we can praise or abuse them, placing time's derivatives in various cause-and-effect coordinates. One of the most interesting and all-embracing changes lies in the field of communication and linguistics. Here we can see a only short list of the relevant situations, there analysis within one article is impossible; each reader can estimate these phenomena, irrespective of, he is the expert in the field of communication, the cultural and linguistic sphere, or is professionally far from these fields.
1. It's evident, that public criteria, used for evaluation of speech quality, its ethical parameters is sufficiently decreased. Part of speech units with the reduced and impermissible parameters in the ethic and stylistics considerably increased. It's too pity, but this situation the noticeable part of society "got used".
2. Level of punctuation and spelling literacy has fallen considerably, at the same time, respectfulness degree to language, as to the communicative system demanding efforts on the development and careful use, decreased. And, this phenomenon is observed on the background of an active bore and reason finding in the situations connected with protection of national culture, savings of language wealth and with development of national and language traditions.
3. At the same time, under the influence of developing economic, financial, legal factors, accompanied with introduction in extending institutionally supported social groups of society with conventionally establish attitudes, some kind of socially caused document communicative culture (in many respects compelled) is spreading. Indirect indicator of technology and culture development in this communicative sphere is more and more realized efforts on opening of the academic specialty "Documents, Records Science and Documentation Management" which curricula, containing such subjects as "Ethics of business relations", "Culture of business international communication", "Russian and the standard of speech", "Ethics of negotiation process" and others.
This set of subjects' studying in the light of the stressed circumstance is an actual interdisciplinary task.
Research of various official interactions' forms good grounds to state strong proposal, that efficiency of document communication, its pragmatical parameters depend substantially on the understanding and observance of cultural and communicative conditions. Practical importance of this business interaction's aspect could be shown on the example of the USA practice. An aspiration to instill the most significant elements of national communicative and behavioural culture consistently and actively (may be sometimes even aggressively) together with professional training - it is evidentially may be watched in educational system of the USA, in the country, where the universities, by estimates of 2011, contain more than 5% of foreign students, bringing in treasury of this country about 21 billion dollars [6].
Manifestations of cultures' collision in official and business communication have various forms and realization levels. It is important for Russia wide-focused consideration of the influence brought by another cultures, which have come in close bundle with technological, organizational and administrative, production and cultural and other realities in the course of Russian society's reforming. Despite sufficient influence of North American and West European cultural models and sign systems' contents on business procedures and communicative tools, the Russian cultural-and-mental dominants, created on the basis of national cultural and historical experience, build specific axiomatic of communicative business relations.
The analysis of cultural and communicative signs, formed in the Russian and international document activity, allow us to reveal structure and the importance of the factors creating conditions for the framing of an evaluation of a cultural and communicative originality for official and business fields of activity.
Documental reflection of the relations' formalization. The Russian communicative culture, despite rich history and the influence constantly working modernizing rules, remains in a condition of substantial reforming. Inside it there are no any manifestations of internal conflictness which would be well noticeable while appealing to almost demonstrative North American informality or to ritual communicative cultures of the East. The national-and-cultural traditions, defining nature of business communication in Russia in the conditions of the western reference points and rules' influence, create a wide range of an ethic and cultural environments of communicative situations, from egalitarian, realizing the principles of conditional communicative equality (examples: branches of the European and North American firms in Russia) to "family-shaped", more typical for the Latin American and some Asian business cultures (private small and medium-sized enterprises in the provinces of Russia).
Influence of national and cultural dominants. Components of this substantial background are significantly "color" and form general appearance of business contacts. Right here systems of the behavioral complexes in the forms of
nonverbal signs (for example, depth of bow and its kinetics, energetic of handshake, color registration of the card), and in a choice of ritual clichés of the document text become significant. Customs are the most relevant manifestation of national and cultural dominants. The customs accompanying acts of business communication are, in fact, parts of them. Customs are directly or indirectly develop themselves in such parties of business communication as type and cost of souvenirs, contents of the informal agenda of business interaction, obligation of the protocol and a dress code observance. Almost imperceptible signs, indirect reflections of national and cultural features may be revealed in written documents, in some their parts or structures; these aspects of signs could be referred to design of the text. Some choice of the font or a choice of nonverbal symbolic, composite and graphic decisions, the visual organization of the text and some other parameters, which we can estimate as "native" or "nonnative" (sometimes at intuitive level) [5] will be significant. There is a basis to believe that, except the national formal regulators, forming any appearance and content of business communication and its components, steady ideas of color scores are dominating in the Russian document and business practice (black, as a rule), in crating of national communicative tools.
National-and-cultural time-based coordinates. The universal unity of time-based coordinates is oddly splitting up in national cultures and even in the formalized, international areas of their manifestations. We don't mean various understanding of subject contents and of some sort of obligations which have their quite certain manifestations. For example, the dead-line of agreement's implementation is September 15. The disciplinary-and-cultural relativity allows or doesn't allow to break agreed time frames even if they are fixed in any formal document. The monochronous culture isn't an imperative in communicative practice of Russia. Here we are close to cultures characterized with more free relations with time-limiting document indicators, with lower obligation in observance of time-marking indicators of business relations is. For example, manifestations of these qualities in business communicative cultures we are facing in different degree in
Latin America and Southern Europe, also this peculiarity is noticeable in some countries of the Middle East. Communicative punctuality also isn't a strong side of the Russian communicative culture.
Speaking about time in aspect of national-and-cultural traditions of business communication, we will note two significant indications more.
The first is related with national interpretation of the popular maxim "time is money". Its literalness is dissolved in national pragmatisms, but synchronously time does not act as a continuum with money-making inside, but also as a parameter of the business communication which contents has to be understood equally by participants of cross-cultural business communication.
The second important circumstance has both national and supranational sense. It is change of time-based scales of communication this action is connected with development of the electronic document media. On practical level disappears or, at least, changes the contents of the time barrier which, according to of Gennady Vorobyov, was one of the most significant 20-25 years ago [2, p. 15-23].
Speaking about time in aspect of national and cultural traditions of business communication, we will note two more significant moments.
Communicative relevance of conflict situations. Based on the theory of conflicts' analysis of document communications in aspect of various cultures is often resuming to an assessment of modalities and expressions' demonstrations, permitted in texts of records. The deliberate or casual, obviously expressed or internal, hidden conflictness of the Russian document texts we can oppose to supersensitivity of the Koreans, for example, avoiding even a potential conflictness. Fieriness and attempt to ego-trip using conflict forms of communication, the fashion of acts supporting a conflict and reckless manner of business behavior and communication all these and other reasons relating to area of psychology, are significant as temporary components of communicative culture. They find their expressions in an incorrect choice of lexicological and idiomatic means in the texts of records, in irrelevant forms and types of text itself.
Gender relations as reflection of cultural and ethnic features. The gender researches been quite popular in recent years, practically have no relation to business communication, they present the exaggerated attention to manifestation of all-times combat of the human beginnings. Searches of gender distinctions in business communication are neutralized by high unifying and standard usage in communicative tools applying. That neutralize possible influences caused by attempts "to make more feministic" society, or to create conditions for formal functional-and-communicative equality. First-step analysis of cultural and ethnic models by features' detection of the gender relations for Russia, gets most often the form of estimation of business independence and a solvency of women, their self-affirmation through communicative and business opportunities equal with men. It is very important that in document and speech practice, after the loaning of communicative behavior's set of models, Russia didn't go on extreme forms of formalization in the field of the relations, when in the context of the habitual, natural relations, all forms of interactions between persons of different sexes would be considered as relations contradicting ethical standards in their hypertrophied forms. The Russian practice of the communicative relations does not use the criteria, based on the practice of an event's qualification from the positions of the super stable American concept "sexual harassment" which often has artificial and formal content and a little hypocritical (by sight the Russian) interpreting.
Intensity of a communicative context. Here we are discussing some principles of communication when no unified components of the document texts are formulated by directly, clearly as far as the substantial ethical standards which have developed in society allow, or other speech units excluding direct naming of concepts - allegories, euphemisms, parallels - are used with the aim to eliminate unpleasant or undesirable speech signs addressed to the second member of communication. It is ambiguous phenomenon for Russian communicative culture, reflecting, more likely, ability to feel reactions of the communicative partner depending on message's form and content. Probably, Russian communicators, unlike Japanese for example, don't
know all aspects of communicative sufferings on the base of the choice 'right' means for the formulation of the rigid negative answer in the various types of records, as far as this sort of choice is a specific communicative feature.
Individualism and collectivism as cultural and communicative characteristics. Individualistic cultures suppose domination of personal interests over the public. Collectivists' cultures focus on understanding of the positive public phenomena practically always leading to positive results for individuals. It is eternal and insoluble antinomy for the Russian society's members. Its contradictions and multi-containing were developed especially in the research of documents' modeling of human life. This is short period of time marked by two extreme milestones, the birth certificate and the certificate on death [3]. There is an opportunity to present the main documented stages of life in the form of a records' matrix; this matrix is very individual human life's model including both general and private communicative signs of the definite personality. Internal filling of a matrix in any degree reflects level of the relation between individual and personal in "a document tide of life".
Communicative abilities of distant- and close organized authority's functions. We have reasons to talk about an inequality in realization of authority's functions and of the inequality's reflection in used records and in the forms of communication. Cultures, in which the bigger distances of authority's functions are realized, assume more distinctions in realization of these functions by members of society. In other words, it is important how long the chain is presenting the operating will of the functional subject. For Russia this aspect is very urgent: entered rules sufficiently extend a chain of authorization functions. also, From the records communicative technology's point of view this indicator determines the length of the bureaucratic chains expressed in quantity and sequence of records producing operations which members of society have to carry out defending their interests. Correlative lengthening of record's chains reflects quality of the changes take place inside communicative culture, its formalization and bureaucratization.
Problem of certainty-uncertainty in communicative-and-cultural aspect.
Stability and even a peculiar conservatism of records communication will corresponds with stability of cultural, moral, household and communicative national values. Some cultures actively tear away unpredictability, high dynamics, nonlinear types of the general development (for example, it's evident even for as different countries, as Greece, Portugal, Japan). Cultures tolerant to fast and/or uneven developments of conditions, including communicative ones, are, as a rule, more mobile, they have more wide spectrum of records forms and are characterized by higher level of adaptation to information heterogeneity and indignations.
Opposition of the short-term and long-term expectations which are most of all showing in labor and social and behavioral cultures may be considered as one of antinomies, significant for Russia, but, unfortunately, poorly studied [4]. Replacement of long-term expectations to the short-term ones by means of information instruments changes both a welfare assessment of development of society, and coordinate of individual and public forecasting, the relation to the state's stability if we consider it as the communicative partner who doesn't allow to convert the official record into "some paper" or even into "paper garbage" [1].
References
1. Ahbarova G.H. Delovye bumagi na russkom jazyke. http://rudocs.exdat.com/docs/index-224243.html?page=2
2. Vorobev G.G. Dokument: informacionnyj analiz. M.: Nauka, 1973. 255 p.
3. Kushneruk S.P. Materialy III Mezhdunarodnogo kongressa «Nauka, iskusstvo, obrazovanie v III tysjacheletii», Volgograd, 2004. pp. 35-37.
4. Kushneruk S.P. Dokumentacija v informacionnom obshhestve: paradigmy XXI veka. M., 2004. pp. 306 - 311.
5. Kushneruk S. P. Sovremennyj dokumentnyj tekst: problemy formirovanija, razvitija i sostava. Volgograd: Volgogradskoe nauchnoe izdatel'stvo, 2005. 336 p.
6. Open Doors 2011: International Student Enrollment Increased by 5 Percent in 2010/11. Press Release of Institute of International Education.: http://rudocs.exdat.com/docs/index-224243.html?page=2
Список литературы
1. Ахбарова Г.Х. Деловые бумаги на русском языке. URL: http://rudocs.exdat.com/docs/index-224243 .html?page=2 (дата обращения: 01.06.2013).
2. Воробьев Г.Г. Документ: информационный анализ. М.: Наука, 1973.
255 с.
3. Кушнерук С.П. Документная шкала жизни // Материалы III Международного конгресса «Наука, искусство, образование в III тысячелетии», Волгоград, 2004. С. 35-37.
4. Кушнерук С.П. Официально-деловая коммуникация в контексте национальных культур // Документация в информационном обществе: парадигмы XXI века. М., 2004. С. 306-311.
5. Кушнерук С.П. Современный документный текст: проблемы формирования, развития и состава. Волгоград: Волгоградское научное издательство, 2005. 336 с.
6. Open Doors 2011: International Student Enrollment Increased by 5 Percent in 2010/11. Press Release of Institute of International Education. http://www.iie.org/Who-We-Are/News-and-Events/Press-Center/Press-Releases/2011/2011-11-14-Open-Doors-International-Students
DATA ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kushneruk Sergey Petrovich, doctor of philology, assistant professor, professor
Volgograd State University
100, Universitetskij Av., Volgograd, Russia
sp_kushneruk@mail. ru
ДАННЫЕ ОБ АВТОРЕ
Кушнерук Сергей Петрович, доктор филологических наук, доцент, профессор Волгоградского государственного университета пр. Университетский, 100, г. Волгоград, Россия sp_kushneruk@mail. ru
