Speech interaction in cross-cultural communication

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru/

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru/

Speech interaction in cross-cultural communication

Introduction. Overview for the recent researches. There has been recently witnessed a great interest of native and foreign scholars to the applied research in the field of mass communication. The cross-cultural communication has been thoroughly investigated throughout the last decades by European and American linguists in the aspects of the multicultural co-existence and controversy in the modern world. The most fundamental works in this field include the researches by M. H. Prosser, W. B Gudykunst, Y. Y. Kim, J. Burgoon, S. Ting-Toomey. The late 1980's and 1990's witnessed the appearance of such essential theories of the cross-cultural distinctions as the face negotiation theory, the conversational constraints theory, the expectancy violations theory, the anxiety / uncertainty management, the communication accomodation theory.

The purpose of the paper is to describe the interaction mechanism of the linguistic units of different levels functioning as the expected reactions stimulants or specific mass conscience manipulation means. The up-to-datedness of the given article lies in the fact that the issue under analysis deals with the mass media means and the target audience interaction optimization under the conditions of the politically and socially active civil community formation.

The basic presentation. The complexity of the communicative process under analysis is mainly preconditioned by the specifics of its organization and technical provision. The important prerequisite of the successful mass communication is the account of such relevant factors as the target audience heterogeneous nature predetermined by its mass character, information recipients' preferences independence from the communicators' likings and expectations. In the situation of the Internet communication the communicators and mediators are guided not only by their own intuition and professional experience - the possibility of the feedback (Scype, e-mail, ICQ technologies) allows not only to save time for broadcasting, and also to aptly react to the recipient's changes in the mood and use the appropriate communicative strategy. The important constituents of the Internet communication process are the following:

• the information content, form and volume understood as the complex of knowledge, ideas, superstitions and expectations of the Internet messages authors;

• the broadcasting channels (worldwide network);

• the specifics of the qualitative and quantitative characteristics conditioned by technical means of broadcasting as well as by the orientation upon the recipient;

• the audience as a unique unit of the communicative process, distinguished by the social and cultural differentiation, gender and psycho-physiological peculiarities of the information perception and recycling;

• the factors of the message efficiency determined by the social behavior, the presence or absence of the society's activity as the reaction on the information received.

The mass media speech characteristics proper play a very important role in the communicative process optimization. The information presentation expressive potential consists of such relevant features as:

• the abundance and transparency of information which improve its perception;

• the distinctness and clearness of the message which contribute to its recognition, integration and the comprehension of its constituent parts (words, phrases, images etc.);

• the language and speech availability, determined by the correlation of the simple and compound elements and conditioning their cognition and understanding.

The mass media language is the factor which greatly affects the spiritual development of the society. The late 1990s and the early 2000s witnessed the modification of the above mentioned tendency due to the principal shift in the influence vector. Since then the mass media speech has lost its mandatory character and has stopped being the closed information system.

The complete publicist style democratization has resulted in its vulnerability for the earlier forbidden language means. This situation has only proved that the moral, ethic and educational levels of the active social layers have reasonably worsened - the elite stands up for the provoking conduct, clothes style and self-expression. The aspiration for the open self-expression has recently transformed into the direct pressure upon the addresser, the imposing of the subjective viewpoint in the coverage of certain events.

As it was fundamentally postulated in the earlier published researches in this field some lexical and phraseological units have a certain effect upon the existing linguistic world pictures and contribute to their

further modeling in the given direction. The mass media discourse has experienced the so-called emotional register shift - the high pathos intonation of the Soviet time has given way to the polemic, self-ironic and stylistically colored informal friendly intonation. This has resulted in the penetration into the mass media speech of the colloquial, dialectal, taboo words and in the predominance of the emotionally colored words with the connotations of `great interest', `sympathy', `support'.

The utterance tonality is interpreted in the article as the objective phenomenon, which can be identified and structurally analyzed both on the intuitive and instrumental levels [1, p. 8]. The presenter's speech prosodic means analysis was done with reference to such important communicative process parameters as the communicative situation, the communicative purpose, the mediator's personality, the addressee's position according to the recipient, the spatial and temporal addressee's proximity to the described events, the mediator's competence, their personal interest in the success of the communication, the addressee's expectancy of certain reactions from the target audience.

One of the main conclusions was the experimental proof of the mediator's colloquial tonality realization due to the cumulative effect of the simultaneous employment of the linguistic units of different levels peculiar for the non-formal situation of communication. Thus, the lexical and grammatical means analysis has resulted in the distinction of the following groups: 1) colloquial doublets - synonyms stylistically and emotionally neutral lexemes; 2) emotionally and modally colored lexemes; 3) the language neologisms; 4) words wide semantics; 5) auxiliary periphrastic words with the meaning of uncertainty (e.g.: sort of; kind; maybe); 6) auxiliary periphrastic detached words (e.g.: I hope; I think; as far as I know; I believe; they say; supposed to be); 7) auxiliary periphrastic words with the meaning of hesitation (e.g.: well).

In the boundaries of the words wide semantics there have been differentiated the following subgroups: 1) of lexical units, semantically defined by the communicative situation context (e.g.: thing; the like; something; stuff); 2) words and word-combinations, denoting the sequence (e.g.: and so on; and things like this); 3) lexemes, denoting multitude, the quantitative features (e.g.: heaps of; a touch of; lots of); 4) form words (prepositions) with the meaning of approximate number (e.g.: about; around); 5) adverbs and particles with the meaning of the feature intensification, extraordinariness (e.g.: absolutely; awfully); 6) words which are used to soften the general utterance tonality (e.g.: quite; actually; just; right; rather); 7) lexical units which are semantically classified as denoting the decrease in the feature or neutralizing the meaning of the preceding utterance (e.g.: at least; at any rate; actually); 8) fixed cliche words (e.g.: as a matter of fact; to be more precise; in other words; that is; as I say); 9) deictic words (personal and demonstrative pronouns, adverbs `there ', `here ').

The next stage of the reserch was aimed at distinguishing the combination of the relations arising among the lexical, grammatical, stylistic and prosodic means in the process of their interaction in the Internet messages of mediator's speech.

On the basis of the predecessors' researches in the field of the interaction of linguistic modality expressive means on different levels (works by V. V. Vynogradov, A. M. Peshkovskyi, T. M. Korolova, T. O. Brovchenko, V. Yu. Paraschuk) it has been postulated that there exists a general tendency of the utterance modal qualification due to the autonomous use of a language means or the complex use of different language units [2; 3].

The autonomous realization of any linguistic means is less typical of the speech. It should be noted that grammatical means (particles, conditional and imperative mood forms, negative and interrogative forms, modal particles and verbs etc.) are used apart from other components mainly to express objective and modal meanings and communicative and modal settings; the lexical means are more universal modality modifiers which are more widely used to express the subjective estimation.

In case of the lexical, grammatical and paralinguistic means, the neutral intonation peculiarities character function autonomously as the compensation means in regards to the actualization means of different levels and are absent in the speech segment under analysis and functioning as the active meaning carriers also providing for the phrase modal qualification.

It goes without saying that more common are the communicative situations in which the modal information is actualized through the active interaction of the lexical, grammatical and intonation subsystems components in the speech. At the same time it provides for the content plane adequacy and is conditioned by the compensational and diffusive components structure transformation.

The above mentioned interaction principles vary reasonably depending on the semantic aspects coordination in the content plane degree. The following three situations of the. opposite semantics and of the expressive means semantic autonomy are differentiated in the speech acts of the similar semantics.

In the first situation all the linguistic and extralinguistic means perform the same function on the semantic level. This is the most common situation of the deliberate simultaneous use of the different linguistic means aimed at expressing semantic relations. Principally different from the first is the situation of the lexical, grammatical and intonation means contraction in the modal meaning expression which is the least common. As it has been experimentally proved in this case the prosodic means play the dominant role and highlight the real meaning.

And, finally the third situation of the different semantics links of linguistic markers autonomous usage in the same speech segment, must be viewed rather as a specific means of the phrase functional and semantic structure arrangement than as the type of the different expressive means interaction. In this case the links tenseness and the expressive means interaction degree are minimal due to their correlation with the other content plane aspects.

As it has been mentioned the most common is the coordination of the different means of expressing modality. All the linguistic and non-linguistic means interact in one of the following ways: interrelate, dominate or specify.

The purpose of the research can be formulated as the analysis of the lexical, grammatical and prosodic means correlation mechanism used for emphasizing the logical and emotional Internet discourse semantics constituents and thus contributing to the higher text expressiveness.

The tasks of the research are as follows:

• to determine the role of the modally colored lexeme position in the sense-group in the definition of the prosodic, lexical and grammatical means interaction type;

• to differentiate classification types of the prosodic, lexical and grammatical means interaction in the various genre subtypes of the English and Ukrainian Internet messages;

• to classify the different linguistic means interaction types according to the frequency of the modality expression.

Conclusions and perspectives. The results of the linguistic experiment have provided the following conclusions.

If the emphatically colored lexemes are located in the initial position of the sense-group the degree of the prosodic features manifestation relevant for the emotional and modal diversity is the lowest (the main pitch range and intensity parameter figures are minimal for each presenter). The final position of the emphatically colored lexemes is associated with the more evident prosodic features manifestation. The medial position of the emphatically colored lexeme is characterized by the most vivid prosodic features manifestation. It has been concluded that the maximum main pitch range parameter figures are registered together with the break in the monotonous flow of speech melody presented by the descending and ascending scales abrupt which also greatly contributes to its expressiveness.

The lower acoustic features manifestation in the initial and final lexemes position can be explained by the fact that the position of the lexeme makes it more prominent and thus the quantitative acoustic features parameters become less relevant. Besides, in this case the lexeme foregrounding is also realized by means of an additional pause immediately after the terminal tone.

The outlined correlation of the prosodic means of interaction character with the position in the sense-group proved the necessity of the interaction types classification. The first type is characterized by the medial position of the modally colored lexeme, the second - by its final position or detachment, the third type is determined by the initial position.(See Table 1).

Table 1 Ukrainian)

The linguistic means interaction types distribution in the Internet-messages, % (English and The linguistic analysis has resulted in the following conclusions:

1) modally colored lexemes the so-called parentheses (e.g.:'probably', `presumably', for sure', `perhaps '; “можливо», «припустимо», «напевно», «ймовірно» etc) occur mainly in the initial position. Therefore, in about 70% of English and 65% of Ukrainian Internet-messages the modal lexemes constitute a sense-group. In the utterances of this type of the pitch maximum is registered on the nuclear syllable. E.g.: Really, | it's great to meet you. Basically, | twenty eight percent in the UK. ( «Business View Midday Update», T. Murphy); Українська компанія «Гештальт Консалтинг Груп», | дійсно, | належить до кращих вітчизняних консалтингових підприємств, | забезпечує якісний конференц-сервіс, | може, Іяк переконливо свідчить її понад десятирічна практична діяльність, | на рівні світових стандартів організовувати й проводити важливі міжнародні заходи, | із наданням широкого спектру корисних послуг («Gestalt Consulting Group», Ukrinform). In the 30% of the English and 35% of the Ukrainian Internet-messages these words do not make a separate sense-group but are located in the initial position in the scale while the most acoustically prominent remains the first stressed syllable. E. g.: Probably for longer for those who knows his calls («Real Money», D. Cramer); Можливо, варто замислитись над майбутнім вітчизняної промисловості («Internet-digest», Ukrinform);

2) lexical intensifiers (the adverbs of measure and degree) are mostly located at the beginning (50%) or in the middle of the scale (38% of the English and 36% of the Ukrainian Internet-messages) and only in the 12% of the English and the 14% of the Ukrainian Internet-messages these words are located in the nucleus. E.g.: We get some very strong earnings after the bell last night. («Business View Midday Update», T. Murphy). Much more interesting proved to be profit margins today («Business Headlines» from MSNBC.com, D. Brown). Інтерес до новітніх технологій значною мірою обумовлений прагненням підприємств забезпечити зростання виробництва [«Internet-digest», Ukrinform]; Набагато цікавішою є діяльність концерн-сервісу «Гештальт Консалтинг Груп» («Gestalt Consulting GroupКонсалтинг», Ukrinform);

3) lexical units with the meaning of estimation and emotional and modal coloring are not typically located in any specific position in a sense-group. E.g.: Communication like this always raised the question of security.; Well, the enterprise market is booming for these types of services; Surprisingly big costs are spent on the revival of the oil and coal mining industry in the US («Building America: Eye on Business», K. Ryan). Несподівано швидке зростання прибутків забезпечується головним чином максимальним зменшенням витрат. Економічні зміни майже завжди є важливим чинником розвитку країни. Сьогодні вітчизняний ринок виробництва розвивається вражаюче швидко («Internet-digest», Ukrinform).

The linguistic analysis aimed at defining the peculiarities of the stylistic and prosodic means correlation in the English and Ukrainian Internet-messages of presenters' speech has revealed the following:

• the lexical stylistic means based on the transfer of meaning (metaphors, epithets) mostly correlate with the melodic and temporal prosodic features;

• the relevant features in the lexical repetition prosodic arrangement are:

а)the specific syntagmatic segmentation;

б)the presence of the logical and emphatic stress in the utterance;

• the most prominent is the prosodic foregrounding of the lexical, syntactic and stylistic device of antithesis (the presence of the logical and emphatic stress, the rise in the main tone frequency level both in the scale and in the nucleus, the wide main tone frequency range in the utterance, change of tempo).

The most prominent evidence of the Internet-messages presenters' speech expressiveness is the convergence of several stylistic devices. The most common convergence types are the following:

1) modally colored lexemes usage (e.g.: probably; actually; obviously; evidently; переконливо; безумовно; ефективно) in combination with the syntactic means of parallel constructions and parceling, which is made prominent due to their intonation detachment into a separate sense-group where they perform the semantic centre function (e.g.: ' Basica”lly, | twenty eight percent in the UK, | twenty percent in France, | and the rest all sort of drift off to Ireland («Business Central», CNN, R. Quest). Безумовно, Гештальт Консалтинг Груп є перспективною бізнесовою установою, економічно стабільним підприємством, самостійною вітчизняною компанією («Gestalt Consulting Group», Ukrinform);

2) combined lexical and syntactic stylistic devices, emotionally and modally colored lexemes which are characterized by such prosodic peculiarities as the abrupt melody rise and break in the monotonous descending in the scale (the so-called Accidental Rise), the marked terminal tones usage (The Rise-Fall та The High Fall) (e.g.: But though Oxford Micro Devices is a small company that builds a small ' pro 'duct, | its impact on all of our `'lives| could be 'huge_[«Building America: Eye on Business»,D. Browdy). Хоч впровадження нових технологій потребує чималих матеріальних затрат на початковому етапі, воно забезпечує чималий прибуток наприкінці виробничого циклу («Gestalt Cosulting Group», Ukrinform).

The research results have revealed the similarity of the speech linguistic means interaction on different levels in the typologically different languages (English and Ukrainian), which proves the general tendency of the Internet-communication optimization.

The perspectives of the research are seen in the extension of the experimental material by adding other Germanic and Romanic languages (German, French and Italian).

Literature

1. Laver J. Principles of Phonetics / J. Laver - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. - 707 p.

2. Brovchenko T. O. English Phonetics (contrastive analysis of English and Ukrainian pronunciation) / T. O. Brovchenko, T. M. Korolova. - Mykolaiv, 2006. - 300 s.

3. Paraschuk V. Yu. Teoretychna Phonetyka Angliiskoi Movy/ V. Yu. Paraschuk - Vinnytsya, Nova Knyga, 2009. - 232 s.

Размещено на Allbest.ru