Cross-cultural communication

The study of intercultural communication deals with the effects which cultural diversity (разнообразие) has on interpersonal contact. Knowledge about other cultures and cultural awareness are often seen as subservient (подчиненный) to the general aim of intercultural communication. But knowledge about a certain culture is not essential. What is important is an insight into the culture-dependent nature of communicative styles and behaviors. A number of strategic skills need also be acquired if the intercultural communicator wants to identify and correct misunderstandings.

Some problems

The first- is that of content. Twenty years of communicative language teaching have shown that it is not enough just to talk, one must talk about something. The second problem concerns the learners' language performance. If we try and make communicating in the foreign language a conscious process of choosing words and phrases not only on the basis of their   grammatical   and lexical accuracy and communicative appropriateness, but also on the basis of their cultural connotations, we raise the barrier for speaking. The timid and the sensitive especially will be even more afraid to say something for fear of being wrong, if they have to monitor not only grammar and vocabulary but also, cultural adequacy. Any foreign language teaching before the individual personality becomes more stable, must weigh the gains in cultural awareness against the losses of spontaneity and willingness to speak. A lot will depend on the actual realization of intercultural aims at the different levels. Pragmatics studies the factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction (взаимодействие) and the effects of our choice on others. In theory, we can say anything we like. 

In practice, we follow a large number of social rules (most of them unconsciously) that constrain the way we speak. There are norms of formality and politeness that we have intuitively assimilated, and that we follow when talking to people who are older, of the opposite sex, and so on. Writing and signing behavior are constrained in similar ways. Pragmatic factors always influence our selection of sounds, grammatical constructions, and vocabulary from the resources of the language, reflecting matters of social class, status, and role. Some of the con-straints (принуждение) are taught to us at a very early age. Ex: Languages differ greatly in these respects. Politeness expressions, for instance, may vary in frequency and meaning (many European languages do not use their word for please as frequently as English does; and the function and force of thank you may also alter (e.g. following the question 'Would you like some more cake?^’, English thank you means yes. whereas French mercy would mean 'no').

THE IDENTITY OF PRAGMATICS.

Pragmatics is not at present a coherent field of study. A large number of factors govern   our   choice   of language in social   interaction. There   are   several   main   areas   of overlap.

Semantics – Pragmatics and semantics both take into account such notions as the intentions of the speaker, the effects or an utterance on listeners, the  implications that follow from expressing something in a certain way, and the knowledge, beliefs, and presuppositions about the world upon which speakers and listeners rely when they interact.

Stylistics and sociolinguistics -These fields overlap with pragmatics in their study of the social relationships which exist between participants, and of the way extra-linguistic setting, activity, and subject-matter can constrain the choice of linguistic features and varieties.

Psycholinguistics – Pragmatics and psycholinguistics both investigate the psychological states and abilities of the participants that will have a major effect upon their performance - such factors as attention, memory, and personality .Discourse analysis-Both discourse analysis and pragmatics are centrally concerned with the analysis of conversation,  and share  several  of the philosophical and  linguistic notions that have been developed to handle this topic. Generally, we can see pragmatics as the study of the principles and practice underlying all interactive linguistic performance - this including all aspects of language usage, understanding, and appropriateness.