Linguistic “construction” of the globalizing world: linguоsemiotic aspect Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

LINGUISTIC "CONSTRUCTION" OF THE GLOBALIZING WORLD: LINGUOSEMIOTIC ASPECT

T.T. Cherkashina

Russian Language and Cross-Cultural Communication State University of Management Ryazanskij Avenue, 99, Moscow, Russia,

N.S. Novikova

Russian Language Department of

Peoples' Friendship University olKussia Ordjonikidze str, 3, Moscow^Uhiä,117923

Department

<¡jr

Faculty

u

ibera! Arts and Sciences oya University

'-ku, Nagoya, Japan, 4648601

The article offersawtrospective analysis of the interaction between th8|lsnguage and cogitative activity of the personan thlgiobalization context. The paper addresseflhe issueoflinguistic differences in cross-cultural commUpicatibn and discusses communicative strategies th|t could be used to mitigate them. The authorsajguelhat lingua-didactic multicultural edugationkan hep remove the main obstacle in the tiadjilngjjOhing of Russian as a foreign language^f^clash of cultures"; and not only canjptroduce a^odel of teaching to write, read, aadspelk^nRussian, but can also offer a system of instrudon that^ill allow the students to unde^^Ed^e Way Russians think, which surely would it easielfor them to "translate" a text from o^e juWUlmto another in a non-native "cultural t" providing a polylingual formatfrinter

ey words: globalization, cross-culturalcommunicatíon, communicative strategies, multicultural ion, Russian as a foreign language^ílglogUe of cultures, linguistic picture of the world, ecolinguistic tem

The problem of understandj^gisORe of the most important ones in any communicative context. Therefore, Global integration in all spheres of modern human activity causes the shift of focus in linguistic research to the issues of adequate understanding of other people in a polylingual and multicultural context. Consideration of the addressee factor is a communicatively justified way to develop a dialogue between different cultures, as well as between the communicators representing different language worlds. Charles Morris, a prominent American linguist, stated that 'from the cradle to the grave, and from waking to sleep, a modern individual is exposed to a continuous "barrage" of signs by which others are trying to achieve their goals' [as cited in 9, P. 44]. An individual is suggested what he has to believe, what he has to approve or criticize, what he has to do or not to do [as cited in 9, P. 45].

So, it is no accident that today researchers discuss the prospects of developing an "ecolinguistic system" [10], and talk about the possibility of introducing innovative models of a global "linguistic gravitational system" (including a description of the language role, place, and functions) into the socio-cultural environment and practice of cross-cultural communication [2. P. 74]. They claim that isolation of the central and peripímalianguages in the "linguistic galaxy" would help overcome the consequences ofahe Wasrar-of the universal language — the Babylonian confusion of tongues. At globalization forums, linguists also talk about the need of linguistic engineering [9], and cTitically^ssess, among others, the problem of the "language of homeostasis" of the-ecosystem as a whole [1. P. 113].

Virtually all reputable modern scientists studying and cultural changes (global village), talk about interpretation of the term globality, attributing t of civilization development, and suggesti phenomenon, including a lingua-didactic

Innovative models of teaching foreign l attention of scientists and experts tp^he stu speakers of different languages. I as a foreign language (RFL) ha1

bstÄpdern process of social roadening of the scientific status of the main factor erspectives for studying the

are implicitly linked to the increased communication process between the no accident that today methods of teachBgRussian the field of multidisciplinary intents. RJIearch

efforts in multicultural and mulSmodalformat of the "soft power", as t is called today, are focused on the^ss^es of the dialogue of culture; of linguistics and almost all of the humanities studying the speaking

allows expanded as well as four ( Reorientation of capabilit education, an i

guage tersection t certainly

standing of the process of transferrmgor n^ving information, -it) language skills: listening, rgpdmg,wrirrhg, and speaking. ka-didectic studies to culture-approlriate models opens innovative ch for foreign language learning, but rather for foreign language -enormous educational, ideologigjL^ndsocial potential to prepare dividual who is ready for a dialogue ofcutulis. ^

raditionally, the process of teaching a forelgQ|linBB>ge was considered mainly through ^dichotomies "language — speech", ""minking — speech". But today, according Pavlova, scientists are no longer sitigfied with the "myth of rational thinking", mainly on the consideration ofspeech as a mechanism that supports thinking pfocess, and understanding theJ|!BBUiBe a"! well-described system subordinating humans [as cited in 1, P. 147]. Suffica^fto^entioffthe names of the founders oflingua-pragmatics, such as J. Austin, J. Searle^HrOrií!, and others, whose work focused on personality conditioned, nationally orientedinteraction of the subjects of dialogic communication. Later, M. Bakhtin introduces the term "dialogic relationships" (or semantic relations between propositions), and suggests that they should be studies taking into account the identity of a given culture, representatives ofwhich are parties to the intercultural dialogue. As you can see, it took time to recognize the primacy of the human factor in the science of language and its functioning.

In connection with this, authoritative scholars and practitioners (for example, A. Berdichevsky, I. Lysakova, E. Passov, A. Shchukin, and others) talk about the need to revise the traditional methodological view of the Russian as a foreign language (RFL). The language is an integral, organic part of culture that dictates the "rules of the game".

or all or almost all native speakers, about the orizaion of conceptual space used byihi^embers

To develop a secondary language personality (which is a goal of modern teaching RFL methodology), it is necessary to form student cross-cultural communicative competence with both linguistic and cultural components.

Obviously, communicative competence involves awareness of the communication standards, which allows every participant of the communicative processiojcintly build a communication space in the process of the dialogue. To ensure that this diMo|guei>makes sense", and does not resemble a conversation of the characters fromjhe theater of the absurd, communication rules of its members must be completely^fcjiHeampartially the same. Therefore, there is an interesting question: what, in fffetJslhtcommunication norm, what is it composed of, what is the "natural" way of itsyfaimtion (for example, for a child who is learning about the world and mastering his native tongue), and what problems arise when it is formed "artificially" (whenTig||ffingaToreign language)?

Being the key to the success of any commJfiicaiion^communication norm is a comprehensive and multi-level concept. In addition topuTely linguistic forms (a linguistic norm in its "pure" function), it includes exliR-linguistii^lements (basic knowledge about the existing and/or pre-existing cultural conceptjjof the language environment, about the standard reminiscences com standard ways of structuring and of the language community, eti

Obviously, both purely linguistic andBxtra-linguistic (cognitive) criteria, forT the communicative norm, are not stable: the world around us and the means of its reflection in the human mind are constantly changing, the limits and priorities of concepts are changing, too, and^^onsequence, corresponding languagemeamHand communication models are also chan

In itself, the concept of communication norm is rathlrvagul. If we talk only about the linguisti|n^imj(aPa part of the communication nfemLwe^dnsee that native speakers are soajtimisbqifcle to explain to a foreigner why tljs^lтh&t expression does not seem rightrVe|кoftin, this situation is observedJn' atxaniilation class: all the lexical and ^means seem to be chosen correcily^Sna yet, the phrase sounds strange, .s^Hfeel right for a native speaker^u evenuf not in conflict with the norm of the language, a phrase may not agree w^the communicative norm — may be inappropriate tylistically, or from the point offViw#f the standard use) in the speech situation. All of the above leads us toJhi°'OncllU0iOn that, to develop students' communicative competence in a foreign language, it is necessary first to give them an idea of the communication norm.

It is obvious that the formation of the communication norm requires a fundamentally different approach when we teach foreign students, not native speakers. When children learn to talk, they form their communicative norm "from scratch" — children's speech errors are related, as a rule, to a conflict between the inherent human desire for regularity and violations of regularity, common for a natural language.

If we talk about adults studying a foreign language, the picture is quite different: in the mind of an individual adult, there already exists a nationally specific conceptual model of the world and the corresponding linguistic picture of the world with its language standards, as well as the model of the communication process. Ifwe compare those norms in the native and studied languages, then obviously, they may relate to each other in some

ways, may somewhat disagree or may even conflict, but they cannot be absolutely identical. This mismatch of the norms can be both formal — at the level of different syntactic structures (when the interlocutors' common communication space is not broken) — and deep (when deep cognitive components of the interlocutors' knowledge are not the same, and their common communication space is not continuous, but includesÉ"g|,ps", where the interlocutors experience confusion or misunderstanding of each

Let us look at the communication process, and the conditions that*akkit possible.

As noted by E. Popov [6], during the communication process,^ajhe mind of each of the communicators, there is his model of the world, a modej»|ih]^partner and of the language they use, a model of the dialogue's structure and a molel^rhlmself as a language user. At the same time, if the communication takes pjacewetwien two interlocutors in their native language, misunderstanding usually occurs when there is a partial mismatch

f the communication task, he language of communication atching, the more successful the tly, the lower will be the risk of the interlocutors. With significant understanding increases (as it ofdfl<haPPens resentatives of different social, age and lender

ises (as it oftenhapi sociaLdfeand Ibr

neoWheicommunica

of the knowledge about the structure of the dialog as well as of the models of the self and other. ' is usually more or less the same. The larger^ act of communication will be and, misunderstanding or miscommunic discrepancies in the models, the^ in the communication betwee groups).

Generally, as noted by Y. ProhoTSv^7], ifin the language space oneoilhecommunicators is not a language personality in full (i.e., his model of the langEage^lfjhe dialogue's structure, etc. arejjgnficantly inferior to the level of a standard native speaker), then a successful act of communication could be possible only iflhe second party has more than the standard knowledge of the subject they discuss, of hismterlolutor (his knowledge — both linguisticJindlnon-linguistic), and of the strnctuie^ftheiiialogue. This observation has beeen^orifirm^din the process of teaching RFL, —successfully communicate with^ne^jacheT; but often "crash", tryingJ^fild alommon language with a native e street (even with fully matc^in|^flmmunicative intentions) because the rlocutor, in this case, does noJ^now aB^ut the level ofthe foreigner's knowledge, t the gaps existing in his communicationmoael, and does not want to make an extra to fill in these gaps to ensurj^e^ntinuity of the common communicative space. In principle, when a foreigneriscommunicating with a native speaker, misunderstandings can be caused by a partial ojjco implete^ismatch between any of the above models in the minds of the communicators^sa^onsequence, a foreigner makes different types of mistakes — stylistic (ifhis mode^f the interlocutor is incorrect), grammar and vocabulary (if the language and dialogue's structure models are wrong), and purely semantic mistakes, sometimes surprising for a native speaker because of their complete absurdity (they are caused by a mismatch between the models of the environment, the standard ways of structuring and categorization of conceptual space, and characteristics of the members of different cultural and linguistic communities).

Indeed, in speech generation, the choice of language forms is dictated by the communicative requirement to express a certain meaning, and to express it adequately to the communication situation, making it clear and understandable for the interlocutor. In this process there are the following stages: finding a class of the units that can express

the meaning; choosing among the members of the class of lexemes that will satisfy the stylistic requirements (determined by the communication situation, cultural level of the communicators, and individual experience when speaking in similar situations); constructing the "building blocks" for phrases, and finally, designing statements — "assemblying" the "building blocks" into phrases according to the corresponding syntactical rules. In addition, when it comes to speaking, rather than writing, the requirement of correct intonation and sound design should be added to the above mentioned ones.

It is obvious that, in the process of statement generationBn^fOlijgn language, the student may make mistakes at any stage. He may choose a wrongjeiicfcl form, inadequate for the communicative intention. This may be causedbyjarious reasons. Here are the

most common:

1) foreigners do not know which of the lexica the most frequently used and would be appropria under the influence of the interference of^heir choose lexical units, the most standard in their v

language; and these units may not b language they study);

2) foreigners have little or no feeling of the units' stylistic coloring even obscene forms — in full confidence that they use common language units (most often it happens with the people who kno quite well, — beginners' vocabulary is not rich enough);

3) students co in meaning. Not student is someti vocabula remai

4

se a

ssing similar meaning) are iven speech situation (students ' tongue [3; 10], usually tend to tw, based on the norms of their own uently used and standard forms in the

sometimes eutral anguage

the words that have similar sound forms, but absolutely unrelated of the criteria for the selection fa particular word by a foreign ts "easy pronunciation". ThereforeLquiteJ significant part of the ed by native speakers, but difficult for foreigners to pronounce, e part of foreigners' vocabulary; ay make mistakes at the stage of phrase and sentence construction — g verb tense, agreement or ^wo^^o^^^^^'^iided by the standard word order in their native language), use set expression common for their native language (but not used in the foreign language), and, finally, may make mistakes in pronunciation and tonation.

One of the standard errorsfo|jl||njrs^ake is affective [4] and exaggerated "literary" speech (due to the lack ofknowljlgeoffne standards in a natural conversational speech). It is especially characteristic^|íheslU&ents who have studied a foreign language at home, and used only textbooks with recorded dialogues and educational texts based on classical literature (mostly of the 19th century). Although such materials are very useful for extended cultural education, they may also do a "disservice" to the students, — it would be inappropriate and funny to speak the language of Turgenev and Dostoyevsky in everyday situations. And a foreigner may be disappointed and surprised to see people laughing; he will not understand why his speech seems comical to Russian interlocutors.

When listening to a native speaker, a foreigner also faces difficulties due to: improper scanning of the sound and intonation form of statements and their individual components (division into syntagms and separate words); inability to recognize set phrase (he tries to translate each word and does not understand the meaning of the entire phrase);

misunderstanding (due to ignorance of the norms of acceptable variation) of incomplete sentences in conversation, inability to understand the connotative nuances of words (the subjective-modality of the living speech is particularly difficult for a foreigner to understand).

We would also like to dwell on the problem of so-called "small" wor0s|[5].Working with a foreign audience, instructors are constantly faced with the fact that there is a particular group of words that are difficult for foreigners to understanjkretember and use in speech. One of the students called them, very aptly in our ^iew^^li^!^" words (for almost all of them are composed of one or two syllables).

When the students were asked to make a list of difficult «jeSn^'small" words, it appeared that this list includes mostly functional woraSпplrt¿c^js and conjunctions), as well as a number of adverbs. ^

Why are these words so difficult for studentsFOQvicpslyrthis is due to the fact that these words have an extremely high degree ofcontextullity. Each of them can express, depending on the context, a wide range ofmean^^s'^ut not all of these meanings can be found in translation dictionaries (aJгeSl.helpll such cases could be a dictionary-thesaurus of the Russian language, bu^^eigпjiSljjldom use such dictionaries, preferring

woid^r combinations that include these^Drds in [ways possible). Moreover, contexttoay only rt of speech these words belong to —^he^ords er, functioning as a conjunction, as a particle, or

in the structure of a

th the other parts of speech), which creates^articular difficulties ically understand the algorithmof their placement in the text,

to look for direct translation of t their native language, — and i determine the meaning, but a "jump" from one category into

as an adverb. This results in a greater variability of their loca sentence (compar for students who

and the degree of t form of sp

ir assignment to the same pary of the word, — this observat a foreign language usually lo of the same part of speech; do not allow the student to i

importance for the meaning of the phrase. 1m addition, the external es not, as a rule, give any infoiЦ¿0l^|bOut the particular part of to (again in contrast to the signifilantwotds), from the point of view look like some "outsiders"iff'thj language being studied: students can e their place in this system,^0т^т0Up^hem based on any grounds (usually lying a foreign language wordsae grouped in the minds of students on the basis

speech, which is usually determined based on the is confirmed, for example, by the fact that students e w^rds they forgot among similar sounding words en words). Being short in length, "little words" hemes, in particular the root morphemes, in their composition, — and the student is not able to correlate the data of the word with any word-forming unit (morphological analysis, which often makes it possible to guess the meaning of an unknown foreign words, in this case, does not help). Note, that the brevity of these words also prevents their memorization; students have difficulty storing in memory the words that are too long or too short: the easiest to remember are the words consisting of 3-4 syllables.

Various clichés and based on them neologisms or puns, used as expressive means (often to create a comic effect), are also difficult to understand for foreigners.

In general, the problem of the role of standard requires special attention. If for the members of a linguistic community, knowledge of the standard helps anticipation in the

process of speech (and, consequently, helps in the perception of information), and its violation serves as an element of surprise, as an expressive means, for a foreigner it is not the same. Not knowing the standard, he takes neologisms based on it as the most common combinations and sometimes uses them later in the generation of his own statements, as standard formations, which confuses and surprises native speakers. StanBardfor native speakers reminiscences of works of art, films, anecdotes, etc. are also difficult to understand

for a foreigner. Deliberate "breaking" of the literary norms — of allowed variation, — is often used in speech for greater expressi better contact with someone. Foreigners, not knowing the are often surprised by the "wrong" statements, and someti them.

On the other hand, foreigners are always lookin similar to the standard structures in their own norm in their native language, including the the structures agree, the problems usually do n remember. If the structures do not match, they an

it is easier to remember "exactly the the matching patterns that are lea no complete and partial mism develop the skills to use such structur observation confirms, in particu system-forming principles used to develop the student's knowl in the process of l

How can we practice, in the we suggest tha model, should b

their establish a of these frames, o not understand

language for structures they already know the norm — the standard). When , such foreign forms are easy to ifficult to remember. In these cases, hstructions by contrast (as opposed to alogy). The worst situation is wh^^h^re are ptures — the teacher has to spend ofiot oft^e to before they are stored in memory. This practical idea that repetition and cQjTtfcaa^re ihe leading

munication norm (and thus c teaching a foreign language? rcultural training, which we mplemented in the practice o construction of this model has an analogue in th ssional practice of students, which

gn language

cative competence) in s this global problem, an innovative teaching language education. The cio-cultural, educational and possibility for them to learn the traqiJQn»of the nationally specific inteп||l^jons accepted in a given country. Thus, students peH^rm the role of "representatives^nd retranslaton of this particular culture" [1; 9]. ne of the main tasks of the iв|ilcu^uralllainjng is to teach students to look for the ys to solve social, educational^nd professional problems, related to the "cultural iceberg" — visible and inviai6leiationar-ethnic-specific values, to acquire the skills of its interpretation, and theabilityto'use an invisible "cultural backpack" or "cultural assimilator" [2. P. 96]. ^^

Having analyzed the models of foreign students verbal behavior, in the course of cross-cultural training, we could define three levels of their perception of the new culture: 1) cognitive value of the information — a cognitive field of training; 2) social experience — a pragmatic field of training; 3) personal experience — an axiological, evaluative field of training. According to such recognized scholars as T. Balykhina, I. Zimnyaya, V. Kostomarov, V. Kinelev V. Mironov, E. Passow, "for the first level, — it is sufficient to have an idea about the facts of culture, for the second, — you need to possess the concepts and be able to perform any action, the third level requires judgments related to the personal emotional and evaluative attitude to the fact of the foreign culture" [2. P. 117]. Thus,

multicultural competence of a language user can be considered at three levels: cognitive, affective, and communicative-behavioral. Within the framework of the intercultural discourse (as a historically formed «ribbon of life» that, according to Ferdinand de Saussure, L. Shcherba, E. Benveniste, and Z. Harris, should be included in the communication process), it is impossible to communicate effectively withoufendgrstandrng of the 'foreign point of view on the issue, without comparing, analyzing tlgnpelifics of a particular culture, without being aware of the stereotypes of at least twPl|nBUigtic world. Only on these conditions, the methodological field of learningafTeigManguage (in particular, the Russian language by foreign students) will expandjisSmits to the study of the language-culture-people, with the intercultural asp self-awareness, and cross-cultural awareness [13].

Lingua-didactic multicultural education is des contradiction of the traditional methods of RF| should introduce not only a model of teachin but also a system of learning in which the Russians think, which surely would make it

culture into other in a non-native polylingual format for interactk that will teach students to think in preserve their national identity.

xpand its

t oi|iniuiStics reflecting both

rily, to remove the basic of cultures»; secondly, it ding, and speaking in Russian, will be able to understand the way r them to «translate» a text from one

oral environment», systematically ^ . 341] The task for the future is to de Issian, to feel in Russian and,

[1]

[2]

Balykhina T., Lingua-didactic Eco

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ЯЗЫКОВОЕ «КОНСТРУИРОВАНИЕ» ГЛО МИРА: ЛИНГВОСЕМИОТИЧ

ЮЩЕГОСЯ ПЕКТ

Т.Т. Черкаш

Кафедра русского языка и прОфессИОНальных коммуникаций ГосударственныЙУнИверсиТеТ управления Рязанский проспект. 99,Мвшва, Россия, 109542

Ювикова

ра русского языка Инженерный факультет Российский университет дружбы народ . Орджоникидзе, 3, Москва, Россия, ЫЦ923

Т.И. Саенко

Факультет гуманитарных Нагойский Фуро-чо, Чикуса-су,

статье предлагается ретроспекти еятельности человека в условиях ирбг чиях в ситуации кросс-культурно призванные «сгладить» эти р^ поликультурное образовани

ый анализ взаимосвязи языка и речемыслительной изации; рассматривается вопрос о языковых различения и обсуждаются коммуникативные стратегии, тье обосновывается утверждение о том, что только ; только обучает студентов писать и читать по-русски, но и позволяет им понять логикушриродного носителя языка в его речемыслительной деятельности, может помочь решить главную проблему, возникающую при традиционном преподавания русского языка как иностранного РКИ — проблему «столкновения культур», а также даются некоторые практические рекомендации по организации такого образования.

Ключевые слова: глобализация, межкультурная коммуникация, коммуникативные стратегии, поликультурное образование, русский язык как иностранный, диалог культур, языковая картина мира, эколингвистическая система