The increasing interest in the problems of intercultural communication is connected, first of all, with the fact that the process of international integration promotes the necessity to investigate the ethnic and cultural identity of different linguistic communities. The research of the phenomenon of intercultural communication is closely connected with studying the peculiarities of interlingual intercourse, since language as the mirror reflects the identity of national mentality.
The twenty-first century is the age of information technology, the age of technical progress. Knowledge and skills of their application allows people to develop and open more interesting new things in the process of teaching. Nowadays information technologies are used everywhere: in industry, science, education, social structures, state management, economics and culture. Education abroad, scientific activity, and business constitute spheres which lead to the necessity of communicating with representatives of foreign cultures. For successful communication for people regardless of their residence, it is important to have a good command of a foreign language and to regard their interlocutors as representatives of foreign culture with their own spiritual world and perception of the world. People may misunderstand each other when they know only one language and the main reason for this misunderstanding is in differences between cultures.
Communication is the act or the process of giving information to other people, connection between two or more individuals which is based on mutual understanding; it is a process of transmitting information from one person to another. Communication and conversation are the most important parts of human life, and it means that they are also an important part of culture.
Culture is the concept, which has an enormous number of meanings in different spheres of human life. Culture represents a complex of human life forms, without them it cannot be reproduced,
i.e. it can not exist. All these questions which are connected with culture are very relevant and significant nowadays.
Two national cultures never fully coincide – this follows from the fact that each is made up of national and international elements. No culture exists in isolation. In the course of its activity it always refers to the past orto the experience of other cultures. This appeal to other cultures has been called «the interaction of cultures». In this interaction, the simple fact of cultures’ communicating in different «languages» is obvious [1, 25].
In cultural anthropology these mutual relations of different cultures got the name of «international communication», which means the exchange between two or more cultures and products of their life activity carried out in different forms. The participants of intercultural communication do not only use their own traditions, customs, greetings and behavior, but they also get acquainted with foreign rules and norms of daily communication. For intercultural communication it is necessary for a sender and a recipient of the message to belong to different cultures. It is also necessary that the participants should feel and understand the difference between cultures. Intercultural communication is always interpersonal communication in special context where one participant notices cultural differences of another participant.
Intercultural communication is should be explored as complex of different forms of relationships between individuals and groups, who belong to different cultures.
Intercultural communication is the connection and intercourse between representatives of different cultures, which means direct contact between people and their communities, as mediated forms of communication (including language, speech, grammar, electronic communication). D.B.Gudkov defines intercultural communication as the intercourse of language individuals who belong to different linguocultural communities [2, 51].
Intercultural communication is dynamically developing and highly important for any language community theoretical and applied scientific direction, which is based on the junction of linguistic, culturology, communication studies and linguodidactics.
First of all for describing intercultural communication there was used classical understanding of culture as more or less stable system of conscious and unconscious rules, norms, valuables, structures and artifacts of national or ethnical culture.
At this time dynamic understanding of culture dominates as a way of life and system of behavior, norms and values of any social group (e.g. urban culture, culture of generations, culture of organizations). Dynamic understanding of culture doesn’t mean strict stability of cultural system, it can be changed and modified depending on social situations.
Why do the problems of communication appear during the intercourse between representatives of different culture? What prevents successful intercultural communication?
The majority of people think that their culture is the centre of the world and standard for others. This phenomenon is usually called «ethnocentrism». As a rule, ethnocentrism prevents people from adequately evaluating, estimating and being tolerated to representatives of other cultures.
Meeting of two cultures is compared with the phenomenon of «internal» and «external», «own» and «foreign». «Internal» means ‘warm, secured, self-confident’, «external» – ‘danger, foreign, unknown’. On the psychological level, when a person communicates with representatives of other cultures he is often set negatively.
The third reason which prevents to understand two communicators is the appearance of stereotypes about representatives of defined groups. When it is difficult for communicators to exceed the frames of the stereotyped images about a new culture this usually leads to misunderstanding.
Each linguistic culture has its own discursive style – «manner of speech» of the native speakers, which is defined by regular and consistent usage of particular interactive and linguistic strategies of oral and written communication.
Teaching people to communicate (orally and written), teaching to produce, create, and not only understand foreign speech constitute a difficult aim, which is complicated by the fact that communication is not only a verbal process. Its effectiveness, besides knowledge of the language, depends on many factors: conditions and culture of communication, etiquette rules, knowledge of nonverbal forms of expression (facial expressions, gestures), existence of deep phonetic knowledge and etc. In intercultural communication there are three main types of intercultural communication– verbal, nonverbal and paraverbal. It is known that with the help of language people give not more than 70% of information to their communicators. The rest of information is given with the help of nonverbal communication. Opinions, feeling, expressions can be presented not only verbally, but also with the help of nonverbal language, which is the main part of linguocultural luggage. They are gestures, facial expressions, body movements, pauses or quietness, tempo and timbre of speech.
Nonverbal language is also an equal language of culture. That’s why nonverbal semiotic systems in communication acts also closely interact with the natural verbal language. For representatives of other cultures participating in intercultural communication it is very important to enter a new social cultural world, to learn all the languages of new culture. Studying of nonverbal communication is extremely important not only for the theory of culture in general, but also for the general theory of communication. It is connected with the fact that issues of nonverbal communication are very important first of all speech activity of people of different nationalities. It is especially relevant in our modern world, where we face global integrity processes at all levels of cooperation. Nonverbal ways of communication are used when the process of verbal communication is impeded.
In the situation of contact of representatives of different cultures, defining of linguistic barrier is not enough for providing of effectiveness of communication. It is necessary to obtain the cultural barrier. National-specific characteristics of different components of culture of communicators may complicate the process of intercultural intercourse.
Greetings in different countries have national peculiarities. Hand-shaking is the main form of greeting. However, in some countries it is not accepted to shake hands with women; that’s why one should wait until women give their hands first. In France and in Mediterranean countries, it is popular to kiss on the cheek, while in Latin America hugging is widespread. Two pressed to each other hands in front of the breast are Indian’s national greeting.
In many countries religion affects business life of people. It is important to get more information about religion of the country one is interested in, but this theme should be discussed. We should know and remember that Buddhist frames are saint, it’s forbidden to step on threshold in Thailand – under that there are good spirits. One should not interrupt a person who looking in the direction of Meссссa; wwwiiittthhh--out permission it is not good to take any photos and touch the religious attributes.
The main answer to the question about solving of the task is teaching of foreign languages as the way of communication between representatives of different people and cultures is that languages must be taught in uninterruptable unity with the world and culture of people, who speak these languages. It is necessary not only to teach a foreign language but also to teach respect and appreciate the culture of that nation.
In conclusion, we think that the unity of world culture is conditioned by the unity of the historic process, universal nature of labor, creative work, etc. Any national culture expresses general human content. This theoretically proves the necessity and possibility of cooperation and dialogue of cultures. The exchange of spiritual values, introducing with the achievements of culture of other nations makes rich personality and society in general. The knowledge of the linguistic system of communication is not a guarantee of the adequate usage of them in real communication conditions. Besides the linguistic knowledge, communicators of intercultural intercourse should have adequate interactional and context knowledge, as well as tolerance and special social cultural feeling, which help overcome the influence of stereotypes and adapt to changeable conditions of communication during the dialogue with the representatives of different linguistic cultures. Three phenomena – «patience», «indulgence», «toleration» are the universal formula for successful intercultural communication by the opinion of TerMinasova [3, 259].
References
- Vereschagin E.M., Kostomarov V.G. Language and culture. – Moscow: Russian language, 1990. – 246 р. – Р. 30.
- Gudkov D.B. Theory and practice of intercultural communication. – Moscow: Gnozis, 2003. – 288 р. – Р. 51.
- Ter-Minasova S.G. Language and intercultural communication. – Moscow: Slovo, 2000. – 624 р. – Р. 259.