Application of ict for fostering tolerance through impact on emotivity of learners

O.V. L'vova

Moscow

Abstract

vocabulary informational tolerance

The search for ways and means of solving the tolerance problem is now extremely urgent for the world community. In Russia due to a number of circumstances for a considerable time some experience has been accumulated and proposed various approaches to solving such problems. Based on the research of VI. Shakhovsky, who has studied the phenomenon of the emotivity and the possibility of impact on the personal qualities of the individual by means of it and wide spread of information and communication technologies, the author suggests an innovative method for fostering and development of tolerance by influence on emotivity of learners with situative vocabularies and linguistic quasi-corps in the telecommunicative media. Situative vocabulary is an ICT tool that contains lexical structures used in specific communicative situations as well as modern ICT tools (blogs, chats, forums, mail, etc.) to supplement existing material and to discuss the ways and situations of use of various linguistic constructions or meanings of the words. Linguistic quasi-corps is an array consisting of a text (or texts), selected on any basis and includes a small (2-20) number of elements. The main task of linguistic quasi-corps is to help the user in analyzing the structure and/or vocabulary of a document while drafting own document. Experience in application of the ICT tools gives evidence of increase in motivation of students by involving them in active work in familiar to them media in particular social networks.

Key words: Emotivity, tolerance ICT-technologies, linguistic quasi-corpus, situative vocabulary

Аннотация

Использование икт для формирования толерантности посредством воздействия на эмотивность обучаемых

О.В. Львова

Московский городской педагогический университет

Поиск путей и средств решения проблемы толерантности является в настоящее время крайне актуальным для всего мирового сообщества. В России в силу целого ряда обстоятельств на протяжении значительного времени накоплен некоторый опыт и предложены различные подходы к решению подобных проблем. Опираясь на исследования В.И. Шаховского, который изучал явление эмотивности и возможности воздействия с ее помощью на личностные качества индивида, и учитывая широкое распространение информационных и телекоммуникационных технологий автор предлагает инновационный метод формирования и развития толерантности путем воздействия на эмотивность обучаемых с помощью ситуативных вокабуляров и лингвистических квази-корпусов в телекоммуникационных средах. Ситуативный вокабуляр представляет собой ИКТ инструмент, содержащий лексические конструкции, применяемые в конкретных коммуникативных ситуациях а также современные ИКТ-инструменты (блоги, чаты, форумы, рассылки и т.д.), позволяющие дополнять имеющийся материал и обсуждать способы и ситуации применения различных лингвистических конструкций или значения слов. Лингвистический квази-корпус - это массив, состоящий из текстов (или отрывков текстов), отобранных по какому-либо признаку и включающий в себя небольшое (2-20) количества элементов. Основной задачей лингвистического квази-корпуса является помощь пользователю в анализе структуры и / или вокабуляра какого-либо документа при составлении собственного документа. Опыт использования данных ИКТ-инструментов свидетельствует о повышении мотивированности обучаемых за счет вовлечения их в активную деятельность в привычных для них средах, в частности социальных сетях.

Ключевые слова: эмотивность, толерантность, ИКТ-технологии, лингвистические квазикорпусы, ситуативные вокабуляры

Main part

Nowadays people all over the world face problem of peaceful co-existence. Different countries are of different political systems and level of economical development also differs very much. Moreover population of one and the same country can be of many different nationalities and not only speak different languages but also have different cultural traditions (for example, India or Russia). People of the same settlement can belong to different religions (like in Northern Ireland or Syria). Contradictory trends can exist even inside one religion (for example, Shiites and Sunnis in Islam). Immigration aggravated by military actions and orange revolutions at the Middle East is constantly worsening the situation. Tensions among different countries of the world and different groups of people inside one country exacerbate and often result in bloody conflicts. This in turn actualizes problem of fostering tolerance. It is obvious that solution of the problem demands combined efforts in different activities. Let us consider contribution that can be made by linguistic tools using modern ICT-technologies. What are such tools and how linguistics can help in fostering tolerance?

The concept of tolerance and ideas about ways of its fostering are rather ambiguous. The concept has started to be used in Russia relatively recently, despite its obvious relevance. In the article tolerance is understood as active moral position and psychological readiness for bearing in the name of mutual understanding between peoples, social groups, positive interaction with people of different cultural, national, religious or social environment.

Psychologists have proved that by means of emotions emotional attitude to reality of a man is reflected in his mind. Thinking a man as a linguistic personality (LP) «learns» and «interiorizes» information about the surrounding world, reflecting the results of the «interiorization» in the language. Emotions being a mediator between reality and its linguistic reflection regulate the process.

V.I. Shakhovsky [12] started to work out approaches to solve the problems of emotional conceptosphere and other emotional determinants ofintra and intercultural communicative factor (for example, emotional behavior, emotional tolerance etc.). According to him [12] emotion is a category ofpsychology, and the linguistic level emotions are transformed in emotivity. The emotive meaning of a word is not a reflection of the emotions just this speaker. It is not an individual, and is a generalized reflection of the social emotions. And in this respect it also has a social nature, as an indicative value and is correlated with the appropriate emotions of any native speaker. The main characteristic for attribution of the word to the category of emotive is a functional characteristic, if the word expresses or can express emotions, it is emotive.

Meanwhile the primary function of emotives is an emotional expression: the speaker does not seek to evoke any emotion from the listener (this is the fundamental difference between the emotives of expressive vocabulary, aimed at the addressee). The number of vocabulary emotives especially functional in any language cannot be determined. This suggests the dynamic nature of the emotive component of words semantics that can be reduced, minimized, potentialized. To sum up emotively is «inherent to the language the ability to express by system of its means the emotion as a fact of the psyche; social and individual emotions reflected in semantics of language units» [10].

Based on psycholinguistic studies it is logical to assume that if a language being a way to gain social experience, any experience is fixed in the language units, with the help of which people express and perceive emotions impact on (introduction or substitution, for example) can result in fostering certain behavior or even traits of personality.

During its long history Russia has been facing a lot of problems of inter-ethnic and intercultural communication and has gained some experience in the field of fostering tolerance.

Formation of tolerance includes the following fields:

1) definition of general goals and specific objectives;

2) making acquaint with the system of scientific knowledge on the rights and freedoms of man and peoples, of Nations and their relations, the races and religious denominations;

3) creation of civil and human senses and consciousness;

4) development of positive experience of culture for communication with people of different nations, races, religious denominations [9].

For the successful formation of tolerant attitudes on a personal level it's important to know what are the major differences between tolerant and intolerant individuals. G.U. Soldatova designed following the criteria of tolerance and intolerant behavior. They are suitable for a variety of groups, ranging from families and school class and to society as a whole, but unfortunately, they do not always appear explicitly, therefore some of them can be seen only by trained and interested observers.

Tolerant approach (by G.U. Soldatova)

— coverage of events of public character, as many people as possible, if it does not contradict their cultural traditions and religious beliefs;

— ability to maintain their traditions for all cultures, presented in the society;

— positive vocabulary in the most vulnerable areas of ethnic, race relations, in gender relations.

Intolerance: (G.U. Soldatova)

— insults, ridicule, an expression of neglect;

— ignoring (denial of conversation, recognition);

— negative stereotypes, bias, prejudice (drafting the generalized opinion of the man belonging to a different culture, gender, race, ethnic group, usually on the basis of negative characteristics);

— ethnocentrism (understanding and appreciation of the phenomena of life through the prism of values and traditions of one's own group as the standard and best compared to other groups);

Considering direct communication (or telecommunication) in any community (class, group, business, friends, etc.), you can highlight certain components of the manifestations of tolerance/intolerance. As an example let us take a piece of advice given to a classmate (see Table).

Tolerant/intolerant way of giving advice to a classmate