IN Everyday life We often face the fact that we are “not understood”. Students and teachers, children and parents, business partners and casual acquaintances do not understand, guests from abroad do not understand. What is the problem? Why do our attempts to explain something or understand others sometimes fail?

Often we blame others for this, but is this not the reason for our inability to see not only the material, but the non-material plane of being, to fully perceive both the physical and mental world, that is, what is hidden behind external signs, texts, demonstrated by the style of behavior .

Of course, there are objective factors complicating understanding, such as a change in the type of culture, and, consequently, a change in languages. During the periods when “the connection of times falls apart”, the problem of understanding is always actualized. The acceleration of history by the end of the 20th century, and, consequently, the faster renewal of the language, also interferes with the mutual understanding of generations.

When preparing an answer to the question of the seminar, it should be borne in mind that the term "understanding" is used in two senses: as an intellectual, cognitive factor, but also as empathy, empathy. The complexity of understanding is due to the fact that perception and behavior are determined by ideological, national, class, gender stereotypes that have been formed in a person since childhood. Understanding is apperceptive, that is, new information is assimilated by correlating with what is already known, new knowledge and new experience are included in the system of knowledge already available, on this basis the selection, enrichment and classification of the material takes place.

Consequently, the problem of the language of culture is the problem of understanding, the problem of the effectiveness of cultural interaction both “vertically”, between cultures of different eras, and “horizontally”, that is, “communication” of different cultures that exist simultaneously.

The most serious difficulty lies in the translation of meanings from one language to another, each of which has many semantic and grammatical features. It is no coincidence that an extreme point of view has been formed in science, according to which meanings are so specific to each culture that they cannot be adequately translated from language to language at all. While agreeing that it is sometimes really difficult to convey the meaning, especially when it comes to unique works of culture (for example, foreigners who read A.S. Pushkin only in translations are surprised that in Russia they honor him as a genius), we note that not so attempts to identify universal human concepts, which are mental phenomena of the inner world of human thought, are already futile. Description of the meanings encoded in the language, systematization, analysis of this “alphabet of human thoughts” is one of the main tasks of cultural studies.

Thus, we are dealing with two main ways of achieving understanding: within the framework of the structuralist school, this is a method of strict logic, it needs the detachment of the object of study from the person. Another method is hermeneutical, when the main task is to eliminate the distance between the object and the researcher. However, despite the apparent opposite, we do not consider it impossible to combine both approaches in the consideration of sign-symbolic systems.

Culture in this case is understood as a field of interaction between these systems. The establishment of semantic links between the elements of this system, which give an idea of ​​the universal model of the world, is possible only when approaching the language of culture as a text with some internal unity.

A normal person, no matter how non-conflicting he may be, is not able to live without any disagreements with others. "How many people - so many opinions", and opinions different people inevitably come into conflict with each other.

In modern conflictology, the emergence of conflicts is explained by a variety of reasons. In particular, there is a point of view according to which enmity and prejudice between people are eternal and rooted in the very nature of man, in his instinctive "hostility to differences." Thus, representatives of social Darwinism argue that the law of life is the struggle for existence, which is observed in the animal world, and in human society manifests itself in the form of various kinds of conflicts, i.e. conflicts are as necessary for a person as food or sleep .

Conducted special studies refute this point of view, proving that both hostility towards foreigners and prejudice against a particular nationality are not universal. They arise under the influence of social causes. This conclusion fully applies to conflicts of an intercultural nature.

There are many definitions of the concept of "conflict". Most often, a conflict is understood as any kind of confrontation or discrepancy of interests. Let us note those aspects of the conflict that, in our opinion, are directly related to the problem intercultural communication. Based on this, the conflict will be considered not as a clash or competition of cultures, but as a violation of communication.

The conflict is dynamic in nature and occurs at the very end of a series of events that develop from existing circumstances: the state of affairs - the emergence of a problem - conflict. The emergence of a conflict does not at all mean the termination of relations between the communicants; behind this, rather, is the possibility of a departure from the existing model of communication, and further development of relations is possible both in a positive direction and in a negative one.

The process of transition of a conflict situation into a conflict does not have an exhaustive explanation in the special literature. Thus, P. Kukonkov believes that the transition from a conflict situation to the actual conflict goes through the awareness of the contradiction by the subjects of relations", i.e. the conflict acts as a "conscious contradiction". An important conclusion follows from this: the carriers of conflicts are the social factors themselves. Only in the case when you yourself define the situation as a conflict, you can talk about the presence of conflict communication.

K. Delhes names three main causes of communication conflicts - personal characteristics of communicants, social relations (interpersonal relations) and organizational relations.

The personal causes of conflicts include pronounced willfulness and ambition, frustrated individual needs, low ability or willingness to adapt, repressed anger, intractability, careerism, lust for power or strong mistrust. People endowed with such qualities often cause conflicts.

The social causes of conflicts include strong rivalry, insufficient recognition of abilities, insufficient support or willingness to compromise, conflicting goals and means to achieve them.

Organizational causes of conflict include work overload, inaccurate instructions, unclear competencies or responsibilities, conflicting goals, constant changes in rules and regulations for individual participants in communication, deep changes or restructuring of entrenched positions and roles.

The occurrence of conflicts is most likely among people who are in a fairly dependent relationship with each other (for example, business partners, friends, colleagues, relatives, spouses). The closer the relationship, the more likely conflicts will arise; therefore, the frequency of contacts with another person increases the possibility of a conflict situation in relations with him. This is true for both formal and informal relationships. Thus, in intercultural communication, the causes of communication conflicts can be not only cultural differences. Behind this are often issues of power or status, social stratification, generational conflict, etc.

Modern conflictology claims that any conflict can be resolved or significantly weakened if one of five behavioral styles is consciously adhered to:

• ? competition- “The one who is stronger is right” - an active, non-cooperative style. This behavior is necessary in a situation where one of the parties with great zeal achieves its goals and seeks to act in its own interests, regardless of what effect this has on others. Such a way of resolving a conflict, accompanied by the creation of a “win-lose” situation, the use of rivalry and playing from a position of strength to achieve one's goals, comes down to subordinating one side to the other;
• ? cooperation- "let's solve it together" - an active, collaborative style. In this situation, both sides of the conflict seek to achieve their goals. This behavior is characterized by the desire to solve the problem, to clarify disagreements, to exchange information, to see in the conflict an incentive for constructive solutions that go beyond the scope of this conflict situation. Since the way out of the conflict is considered to be finding a solution that is beneficial to both parties, this strategy is often called the "win-win" approach;
• ? escape from conflict“leave me alone” is a passive and non-cooperative style. One side may acknowledge that there is a conflict, but behave in a way that avoids or stifles the conflict. Such a participant in the conflict hopes that it will resolve itself. Therefore, the resolution of the conflict situation is constantly delayed, various half-measures are used to drown out the conflict, or covert measures to avoid a sharper confrontation;
• ? compliance- “only after you” - a passive, cooperative style. In some cases, one of the parties to the conflict may try to appease the other side and put its interests above their own. Such a desire to appease the other implies compliance, submission and compliance;
• ? compromise- "Let's go towards each other" - with this manner of behavior, both sides of the conflict make mutual concessions, partially renouncing their demands. In this case, no one wins and no one loses. Such a way out of the conflict is preceded by negotiations, the search for options and ways to mutually beneficial agreements.

Along with the use of one or another style of conflict resolution, the following techniques and rules should be used:

• ? do not argue over trifles;
• ? do not argue with those with whom it is useless to argue;
• ? do without sharpness and categoricalness;
• ? try not to win, but to find the truth;
• ? admit you are wrong;
• ? not be vindictive;
• ? use humor if appropriate.

Like any other aspect intercultural communication, the style of conflict resolution is determined by the characteristics of the cultures of the participants in the conflict.

In the process of intercultural communication, one partner perceives the other along with his actions and through actions. Building relationships with another person largely depends on the adequacy of understanding actions and their causes. Therefore, stereotypes allow us to speculate about the causes and possible consequences their own and others' actions. With the help of stereotypes, a person is endowed with certain traits and qualities, and on this basis his behavior is predicted. Thus, both in communication in general and in the process of intercultural contacts in particular, stereotypes play a very important role.

In intercultural communication, stereotypes are the result of an ethnocentric reaction - an attempt to judge other people and cultures from the standpoint of one's own culture only. Often, in intercultural communication and evaluation of communication partners, communicants are initially guided by established stereotypes. Obviously, there are no people who are absolutely free from stereotypes; in reality, we can only talk about different degrees of stereotyping of communicants. Studies show that the degree of stereotyping is inversely proportional to the experience of intercultural interaction.

Stereotypes are rigidly built into our value system, they are an integral part of it and provide a kind of protection for our positions in society. For this reason, stereotypes are used in every intercultural situation. It is impossible to do without the use of these extremely general, culturally specific schemes for assessing both one's own group and other cultural groups. The relationship between the cultural affiliation of a particular person and the character traits attributed to him is usually not adequate. People belonging to different cultures have a different understanding of the world, which makes communication from a “single” position impossible. Guided by the norms and values ​​of their culture, a person himself determines what facts and in what light to evaluate, this significantly affects the nature of our communication with representatives of other cultures.

For example, when communicating with Italians gesticulating animatedly during a conversation, Germans who are accustomed to a different style of communication may develop a stereotype about the “irritability” and “disorganization” of Italians. In turn, Italians may develop a stereotype of Germans as "cold" and "reserved", etc.

Depending on the ways and forms of use, stereotypes can be useful or harmful for communication. Stereotyping helps people understand the situation of cultural communication as an independent scientific direction and academic discipline. During this process, at the turn of the 70-80s. 20th century issues of attitude to another culture and its values, overcoming ethnic and cultural centrism became topical.

By the mid 1980s. In Western science, there is an idea that intercultural competence can be mastered through knowledge gained in the process of intercultural communication. This knowledge was divided into specific, which was defined as information about a particular culture in traditional aspects, and general, which included the possession of such communication skills as tolerance, emiotic listening, and knowledge of general cultural universals. However, regardless of the division, the success of intercultural communication has always been associated with the degree of mastery of knowledge of both types.

According to this division, intercultural competence can be considered in two aspects:

• 1) as the ability to form in oneself a foreign cultural identity, which implies knowledge of the language, values, norms, standards of behavior of another communicative community. With this approach, the assimilation of the maximum amount of information and adequate knowledge of another culture is the main goal of the communication process. Such a task can be set to achieve acculturation, up to the complete rejection of native cultural affiliation;
• 2) as the ability to achieve success in contacts with representatives of a different cultural community, even with insufficient knowledge of the basic elements of the culture of their partners. It is this variant of intercultural competence that is most often encountered in the practice of communication.

In Russian intercultural communicativistics, intercultural competence is defined as “the ability of members of a certain cultural community to achieve understanding in the process of interaction with representatives of another culture using compensatory strategies to prevent conflicts of “own” and “alien” and create a new intercultural communicative community in the course of interaction "".

Based on this understanding of intercultural competence, its constituent elements are divided into three groups - affective, cognitive and procedural.

The affective elements include empathy and tolerance, which are not limited to the framework of a trusting attitude towards a different culture. They form the basis for effective intercultural interaction.

The procedural elements of intercultural competence are strategies that are specifically applied in situations of intercultural contacts. There are strategies aimed at the successful flow of such interaction, motivation for speech action.

viyu, the search for common cultural elements, readiness for understanding and identification of signals of misunderstanding, the use of the experience of previous contacts, etc., and strategies aimed at replenishing knowledge about the cultural identity of the partner.

Taking into account the allocation of these three groups, the following ways of forming intercultural competence can be determined:

• ? develops the ability to reflect one's own and other cultures, which initially prepares for a benevolent attitude towards manifestations of a foreign culture;
• ? replenishes knowledge about the existing culture for a deep understanding;
• ? develops diachronic and synchronic relations between own and foreign cultures;
• ? helps to acquire knowledge about the conditions of socialization and inculturation in one's own and foreign cultures, about social stratification, sociocultural forms of interaction accepted in both cultures.

Thus, the process of mastering intercultural competence pursues the following goals: to manage the process of interaction, to adequately interpret it, to acquire new cultural knowledge from the context of a specific intercultural interaction, i.e. to master a different culture in the course of communicative processes.

World experience shows that the most successful strategy for achieving intercultural competence is integration - the preservation of one's own cultural identity along with mastering the culture of other peoples. According to the German culturologist G. Auernheimer, the training of intercultural competence should begin with directed introspection and critical self-reflection. At the initial stage, it is necessary to cultivate a willingness to recognize the differences between people, which should later develop into the ability for intercultural understanding and dialogue. To do this, students need to learn to perceive multicultural compatibility as a matter of course in life.

• Kukopkov P. Social tension as a stage in the process of conflict development// Social conflicts. 1995. Issue. 9.
• Delhes K. Soziale Communication. Oplaten, 1994.
• Lukyanchikova M.S. On the place of the cognitive component in the structure of intercultural communication // Russia and the West: Dialogue of Cultures. M., 2000. Issue. 8.T. 1.C. 289.

The textbook is intended for students of humanitarian specialties involved in the study of issues of intercultural communication. It deals with a wide range of issues reflecting the specifics of modern cultural exchange and intercultural communications, their main forms and directions. The book covers intercultural communications in the field of music, theater and cinema, sports, scientific and educational ties, festivals and exhibitions. Separate parts of the manual are devoted to the problem of images, images and stereotypes, in particular, the problem of images of modern states. The book will be useful not only for students, but also for graduate students, teachers, and everyone who is interested in issues of culture and intercultural relations.

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by the LitRes company.

Theoretical approaches to the problem of intercultural communication

The concept of intercultural communication. The historical aspect of intercultural communication. Intercultural communications in the era of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the New and Newest time. The problem of intercultural communications in the research of foreign and domestic scientists. A modern view on the features of intercultural communications of leading historians, political scientists, philosophers. Social psychological aspect intercultural communications. History and current state of the problem in socio-psychological discourse. The language aspect of intercultural communications. The role of language in the process of intercultural communication. The problem of preserving linguistic diversity at the state and interstate level. Features of the linguistic aspect of intercultural communications and the main approaches to the analysis of the problem of intercultural communication. Intercultural communications in international relations. International relations as an important factor in intercultural dialogue. Features of intercultural communications in international relations in the era of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, Modern and Contemporary times. Multilateral and bilateral aspect of intercultural communications in international relations. Problems of the dialogue of cultures in the activities of authoritative international organizations and the foreign cultural policy of modern states. Intercultural communications as the basis of the professional activity of an international affairs specialist.

§ 1. The concept of intercultural communication

Intercultural communication, of course, is an original, independent branch of communication, which includes the methods and scientific traditions of various disciplines, but at the same time is part of the general theory and practice of communications.

A feature of intercultural communication is that within the framework of this direction, the phenomenon of communication between representatives of different cultures and the problems that arise associated with this are investigated.

It can be noted that for the first time the term communication was established in studies related to such sciences as cybernetics, computer science, psychology, sociology, etc. Today, real sciences demonstrate a steady interest in communication issues, which is confirmed by a significant number of studies devoted to this problem.

In the English explanatory dictionary, the concept of "communication" has several semantically close meanings:

1) The act or process of conveying information to other people (or living beings); 2) Systems and processes used to communicate or transfer information; 3) Letter or phone call, written or oral information; 3) Social contact; 4) Various electronic processes by which information is transmitted from one person or place to another, especially by means of wires, cables or radio waves; 5) Science and activities for the transfer of information; 6) The ways in which people build relationships with each other and understand each other's feelings, etc.

In English linguistic literature, the term "communication" is understood as the exchange of thoughts and information in the form of speech or written signals, in Russian it has the equivalent of "communication" and is synonymous with the term "communication". In turn, the word "communication" refers to the process of exchanging thoughts, information and emotional experiences between people.

For linguists, communication is the actualization of the communicative function of language in various speech situations, and there is no difference between communication and communication.

In the psychological and sociological literature, communication and communication are considered as intersecting, but not synonymous concepts. Here the term "communication", which appeared in the scientific literature at the beginning of the 20th century, is used to refer to the means of communication of any objects of the material and spiritual world, the process of transferring information from person to person (exchange of ideas, ideas, attitudes, moods, feelings, etc.). in human communication), as well as the transfer and exchange of information in society with the aim of influencing social processes. Communication is considered as interpersonal interaction of people in the exchange of information of a cognitive (cognitive) or affectively evaluative nature. Despite the fact that often communication and communication are considered as synonyms, these concepts have certain differences. For communication, the characteristics of interpersonal interaction are mainly assigned, and for communication - an additional and broader meaning - information exchange in society. On this basis, communication is a socially conditioned process of exchanging thoughts and feelings between people in various areas of their cognitive, labor and creative activity implemented through predominantly verbal means of communication. In contrast, communication is a socially conditioned process of transmitting and perceiving information, both in interpersonal and mass communication through various channels using various verbal and non-verbal communication means. Since human existence is impossible without communication, it is a continuous process, since relations between people, as well as the events taking place around us, have neither a beginning nor an end, nor a strict sequence of events. They are dynamic, change and continue in space and time, flow in different directions and forms. However, the concepts of "communication" and "communication" can be seen as interrelated and interdependent. Without communication at different levels, communication is impossible, just as communication can be perceived as a continuation of the dialogue taking place in different areas.

Various approaches to understanding this phenomenon are also reflected in scientific research.

A significant contribution to the development of the problem of communication was made by mathematicians Andrei Markov, Ralph Hartley, and Norbert Wiener, who is considered the father of cybernetics. Their research was the first to consider the idea of ​​information transfer and evaluate the effectiveness of the communication process itself.

Back in 1848, the famous American researcher, mathematician Claude Shannon, based on the works of his predecessors, published the monograph "Mathematical Theory of Communication", where he considered the technical aspects of the information transfer process.

A new impulse of interest in the problem of communication dates back to the middle of the 20th century. In the 1950s and 1960s, scientists were interested in the issues of information transfer from addressee to addressee, message coding, and message formalization.

For the first time, the real branch of communication was considered in their study by scientists G. Trader and E. Hall “Culture and Communication. Model of Analysis" in 1954. In this scientific study, the authors consider communication as an ideal goal that every person should strive for in order to successfully adapt to the world around them.

The original term intercultural communication was introduced into scientific circulation in the 70s of the twentieth century in the famous textbook by L. Samovar and R. Porter "Communication between Cultures" (1972). In the publication, the authors analyzed the features of intercultural communication and those features that arose in its process between representatives of different cultures.

An independent definition of intercultural communication was also presented in the book by E. M. Vereshchagin and V. G. Kostomarov “Language and Culture”. Here, intercultural communication is presented as "an adequate mutual understanding of two participants in a communicative act belonging to different national cultures." In this work, the authors paid special attention to the problem of language, which is undoubtedly important in communicative communication, but not the only one that determines the essence of this phenomenon.

In the future, intercultural communication was considered more broadly, and in this direction of scientific research, such areas as translation theory, teaching foreign languages, comparative cultural studies, sociology, psychology, etc. were singled out.

Summarizing various approaches to the study of intercultural communication, and also taking into account the interdisciplinary nature of this phenomenon, we can offer the following, fairly general definition. Intercultural communication- this is a complex, complex phenomenon that includes various areas and forms of communication between individuals, groups, states belonging to different cultures.

The subject of intercultural communication can be called contacts that take place at different levels in different audiences in a bilateral, multilateral, global aspect.

Communication between cultures should be aimed at developing a constructive, balanced dialogue that is equivalent in relation to representatives of other cultures.

Despite the fact that the problem of intercultural communication today is of justified interest, many issues related to this phenomenon are quite debatable and cause controversy in the scientific community. They stem from the very essence of the phenomenon, and are also caused by various methods and approaches related to the study and analysis of communication in the field of culture.

§ 2. The historical aspect of intercultural communication

Intercultural communication today is a completely natural reality, which reflects the needs of modern society, world development. However, the history of this phenomenon dates back to the distant past, deserves special attention and shows how the modern features of intercultural communications developed, what factors had a special influence on this phenomenon, and who was the most active participant in the process, which gradually established specific directions and forms of international dialogue in the field of culture.

As historians, ethnographers, representatives of other humanities note, the first contacts, reflected in the monuments of material and spiritual culture, writings date back to the era of the formation of ancient civilizations.

Archaeological finds show that at that time, the exchange of household items, jewelry, original samples of weapons, etc. was quite active.

Thanks to the development of contacts, the Phoenician alphabet, which arose in Palestine between the 2nd and 1st millennium BC. e., spread in the Mediterranean countries and then became the basis of the Greek, Roman, and later Slavic alphabets, which confirms the positive value of intercultural communication.

The special role of contacts in the era ancient civilizations played for the development of science. In ancient times, the tradition of philosophers visiting Eastern countries became widespread. Here the Greeks got acquainted with the eastern "wisdom", and then used their observations in scientific activities. It is generally accepted that the tradition famous school The Stoics were greatly influenced by the teachings and way of life of the Indian Brahmins and Yogis.

In the history of ancient civilizations, one can also note the borrowing of the cult of gods representing other cultures, which were then included in their own pantheon. Thus, the Assyrian-Palestinian deities Astarte and Anat appeared in the Egyptian pantheon. Under the influence of ancient culture during the Hellenistic period, the cult of Serapis arose, eastern roots can be found in the veneration of the Greek gods of fertility Dionysus, Adonis and others, in ancient Rome the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis became important.

Military campaigns also played an important role in the development of intercultural communication, so the aggressive policy of Alexander the Great led to the fact that the geography of intercultural communication increased significantly.

In the era of the Roman Empire, a system of intercultural communication was gradually taking shape, which developed thanks to active road construction and stable trade relations. Rome at that time becomes the largest city of the ancient world, a real center of intercultural communication.

Along the famous "Silk Road" luxury goods, jewelry, silk, spices and other exotic goods were delivered to Western Europe from China and through Asian countries.

It was in the ancient period that the first areas of cultural interaction arose, such as trade, religious, artistic ties, tourism, theatrical contacts, literary, educational, and sports exchange, which took place in various forms.

The actors of international cultural interaction at that time were representatives of the ruling classes, the intellectual elite of society, merchants, warriors. However, intercultural communication of this time was not without features and contradictions. Representatives of various cultures treated the conquests of other peoples with restraint, with a certain wariness. Language barriers, ethnic and religious differences, the specifics of the mentality - all this made cultural dialogue difficult and acted as an obstacle to the intensive development of contacts. So, in ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece often a representative of another civilization was perceived as an enemy, an enemy, as a result of which ancient civilizations were largely closed and introverted.

Representatives of ancient peoples assigned a special place and significance to their own civilization in the system of views on the world order. In the ancient maps of Egypt, Greece, China, the center of the Universe was its own country, around which other countries were located. Of course, at that time, intercultural communication was presented in its infancy and had an intercivilizational character, but later, developing and evolving, it became the basis of intercultural communications of the modern period.

In the ancient era, an attempt was made by great scientists to comprehend the very phenomenon of communication. The philosopher, teacher of Alexander the Great, Aristotle, in his famous work “Rhetoric”, for the first time tried to formulate one of the first models of communication, which boiled down to the following scheme: speaker - speech - audience.

A new stage in the development of intercultural communications refers to the period of the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, the development of intercultural communication was determined by factors that largely characterize the culture and international relations of a given time, when feudal states appear on the political arena with a rather low level of development of productive forces, the dominance of subsistence farming, and a weak level of development of the social division of labor.

An important factor influencing the peculiarities of intercultural communication has become religion, which determines both the content and the main directions and forms of dialogue.

The emergence of monotheistic religions changed the geography of cultural exchange and contributed to the emergence of new spiritual centers. In this period, countries are coming to the fore that previously did not play the role of cultural leaders, but were only provinces of the largest ancient civilizations, which to a large extent had a cultural influence on them. The cultural ties of this period were distinguished by their isolation and locality. They often depended on the will of chance, most often limited to a narrow region and were very unstable. Frequent epidemics, wars, feudal strife limited the possibility of developing strong cultural ties. In addition, the very spiritual content of the Middle Ages did not encourage active cultural contacts. Sacred books were the basis of the worldview of a person of the Middle Ages, they locked him in his own inner world, his country, religion, culture.

In the Middle Ages, the Crusades played a very specific role in the development of cultural ties. During the period of the “great migration of peoples”, devastating barbarian invasions into Europe and Africa took place, which also illustrates the peculiarities of the development of intercultural contacts of this time. The expansion of the Central Asian nomadic peoples, which continued for 1300 years, also belongs to the same period. The most illustrative examples of the interaction of European and Muslim cultures dating back to the Middle Ages can be found in the history of Spain.

In the VIII century, Spain was subjected to powerful eastern aggression. Moving from the Arabian deserts, through Egypt and North Africa, the Arab-Berber tribes crossed Gibraltar, defeated the army of the Visigoths, occupied the entire Iberian Peninsula, and only the battle of Poitiers in 732, which ended in the victory of the leader of the Franks Charles Martel, saved Europe from the Arab invasion. However, Spain for a long time, until the end of the 15th century, became a country where Eastern and European traditions intersected and various cultures were connected.

With the conquering Arabs, another culture penetrated into Spain, which was transformed in a very original way on local soil and became the basis for the creation of new styles, magnificent examples of material culture, science and art.

By the time of the conquest of the Pyrenees, the Arabs were a very gifted, talented people. Their knowledge, abilities and skills in many areas of human activity significantly exceeded the European "scholarship". So, thanks to the Arabs, “0” was included in the European number system. The Spaniards, and then the Europeans, got acquainted with very advanced surgical instruments. On the territory of a European country, they built unique architectural monuments: the Alhambra, the Cordoba Mosque, which have survived to this day.

Arabs in Spain produced leather, copper, carved wood, silk, glass vessels and lamps, which were then exported to other countries and enjoyed a well-deserved demand there.

Ceramics, the so-called lustred vessels, with a special metallic sheen, brought the Arabs special fame and well-deserved respect. There is an opinion that the art of lustration was transferred by the Arabs from Persia, and then improved.

Back in the 11th-12th centuries, Europeans adopted from the Arabs the technique of woven carpets, which were called Saracens.

The influence of Arabic art was not limited to the Middle Ages. Arabic style and Moorish motifs can be found in the works of art of the era of romanticism, in the art of modernity.

An example of the interaction of European and Arab cultures in the Middle Ages quite convincingly illustrates the features of intercultural relations of this period, which, of course, were very fruitful, but were mainly limited to borrowing, rather than deep penetration and comprehension of the culture of another people.

However, despite the religious dominance, as well as the transformation and reduction of various areas and forms of intercultural interaction in the Middle Ages, new forms of contacts appear, which, of course, are important for modern intercultural communications.

The most interesting direction of intercultural interaction in the Middle Ages can be called the formation and development of educational contacts, which were an indispensable condition for university education. The first universities appeared in Europe in the 9th century. They were opened in cities, mainly at churches and monasteries. Since the Middle Ages, the practice of international student pilgrimage has been developing. Medieval universities had their own scientific specialization. Thus, Italian universities were considered the best in the field of medicine and jurisprudence, French ones gave the best education in theology and philosophy, German universities (starting from the New Age) have established themselves as best schools in the field of natural sciences.

Student life in all European countries was organized in the same way. Teaching was conducted in Latin. There were no barriers to cross the borders. All these factors have contributed to the fact that student exchange was a natural phenomenon, and the migration of students within Europe was an integral part of their lives.

During the period of the Middle Ages, the formation of such a form of trade contacts as fair activity takes place. The first fairs arose in the period of early feudalism, and their development was directly connected with the formation of commodity-money production. The first fairs were opened at the intersection of trade routes, transit points, they were held on certain days, months, seasons. In the Middle Ages, fairs were organized by monasteries, and the beginning of the auction coincided with the end of the church service.

As cities expanded and grew, fairs acquired an international character, and the cities where they were held became centers of international trade. The fairs contributed to the development of intercultural communication, acquaintance with the traditions of different peoples. Having appeared in the Middle Ages, fairs, in general, have not lost their significance in the era of the New Age.

The Renaissance played an important role in the development of intercultural communications. The great geographical discoveries contributed to the development of trade and became a condition for the dissemination of knowledge about the culture of various peoples. Gradually, there is an urgent need for the exchange of information, non-European cultures are of great interest to Europeans. Since the 16th century, intercultural contacts in Europe have been associated with a passion for exotic countries, goods, and luxury goods. Kings, nobles, representatives of the aristocracy begin to collect outlandish collections, which later became the basis of famous museums and art collections. Passion for outlandish countries, peoples and cultures is reflected in art. Oriental motifs are woven into the works of European masters.

However, interest in "other" cultures had negative consequences. It was accompanied by rampant robbery, European colonization and the creation of European colonial empires, and was associated with the destruction of the cultures of peoples subject to Europeans.

Thus, despite the expansion of the geography of intercultural communications, political, religious, economic differences did not contribute to the formation of equal relations between representatives of different cultures.

New impulses to the development of the communicative space were put forward by the very course of history, when in the era of the New Age it became necessary to organize the production process under the conditions of the division of labor, new means of communication (river, land transport) appeared, and the world began to represent an integral single organism.

Life itself in the era of modern times dictated the need for the development of international cultural contacts. The value of science based on experiment, scientific knowledge involves the exchange of information and educated people.

The geography of intercultural communication is changing. Almost all countries and peoples are involved in the dialogue in this period, regardless of their religious, cultural, political affiliation. With the creation of large-scale industry in Europe and the intensification of the export of capital, there is an acquaintance with the elements of industrial civilization, and partly joined the European education. The necessary conditions have arisen for the development of sustainable development of intercultural communication. The entire political and spiritual life of mankind began to acquire a stable, international character. There are new incentives for the exchange of information in the field of culture and the assimilation of advanced industrial experience.

The most important role in the dissemination of information, the intensity and expansion of the geography of intercultural communication was played by the development of transport - rail, sea, and then air. Already in the 19th century, the map of the world appeared in its modern outlines.

The era of the New Age is characterized not only by a significant expansion of the forms and directions of intercultural exchange, but also by the involvement of new participants in the process of communication. The emerging processes of democratization and integration have become a sign of the times. During this period, intercultural communication begins to be regulated both at the state level and develops taking into account private initiative.

In the era of the New Age, it becomes obvious that culture, intercultural communications can become an important part of international relations, a flexible and very effective tool in solving political and economic issues.

However, a significant contradiction of intercultural relations in this period was the idea of ​​the inequality of cultures of different peoples. Racism and national prejudice were not only the cause of the remaining inequality of peoples, but also a psychological factor that made it possible to ignore the most ancient and, of course, the richest cultures of peoples who lagged behind in their industrial development. World culture was artificially divided into the culture of the "civilized world" and the culture of the "wild peoples". At the same time, the struggle for influence on colonial and dependent countries became a source of international conflicts, world military clashes, accompanied by a spiritual crisis and the destruction of the cultural environment. The roots of these contradictions are largely determined by the course of world history. For a long time, Western countries, due to their technical, technological, economic and political development, had a strong influence on other, in a broad sense, Eastern countries, cultures and civilizations of Asia, Africa, and America.

In the scientific literature today, expansionist aspirations and the aggressive policy of the West are openly noted, which dates back to the campaigns of Alexander the Great, Roman rule, and the Crusades. To a large extent, the aggressive policy of European countries is confirmed during the great geographical discoveries, the design of the colonial system. The ideological foundations of the expansionist policy were expressed in the idea that only Western, European civilization is capable of ensuring the progressive development of mankind and its foundations can be universal.

The cultural expansion of the West is also called cultural imperialism. It is characterized by the use of political and economic power to propagate and spread the values ​​of one's own culture and a disregard for the conquests and values ​​of another culture.

At the end of the 19th century, prerequisites arise for understanding the understanding of the communication process, which in the 20th century becomes a fully recognized scientific category.

The whole complex of contradictions and traditions of intercultural relations of the 19th century found its continuation in the 20th century, which in historical memory associated with the devastating consequences of world wars, the emergence of weapons of mass destruction, as well as the rapid growth of communication processes, which were the result of scientific progress, the development of transport, the emergence of new means of communication.

In the 20th century, the number of participants in intercultural exchange grew steadily, which was a reflection of the process of democratization and integration of the world community. Intercultural communication has become a necessary condition for solving global problems and urgent tasks, among which one can note those directly related to issues of cultural cooperation, its new understanding. In the twentieth century, the formation of the idea of ​​the equivalence of different cultures comes, the issues of preserving the originality of national cultures, cultural diversity were put on the agenda. In addition, the acute humanitarian conflicts that arose required the universal participation of representatives of different cultures and spiritual traditions.

Since the second half of the 20th century, the world community has been consolidating. Interest in cultural contacts becomes consistent and conscious. There is a desire to organize intercultural contacts, both at the state level and at the level of international organizations. Intercultural communication is beginning to be perceived as a fully recognized value in politics, economics, and international relations.

However, along with the obvious integration processes in the 20th century, there are also trends associated with differentiation arising from political confrontation and religious differences.

For example, the USSR pursued a policy of isolationism towards the capitalist countries for a long time. Official propaganda unfolded the fight against cosmopolitanism and cringing before the West. However, it should be noted that in the United States and many other capitalist countries, the attitude towards the USSR was extremely ideological, which, of course, gave intercultural communications a special highly politicized character.

In the modern world, we can also find examples of the fact that representatives of various religions (especially in the Muslim and Christian worlds) do not strive for deep cooperation, the development of dialogue, but, on the contrary, experience complex conflicts, sometimes ending in military clashes and terrorist acts.

Thus, two trends can be noted in modern intercultural communication. On the one hand, there is an active expansion of the communicative space, which includes more and more countries, representatives of various social groups. However, on the other hand, dialogue in the cultural sphere cannot be called equivalent, mutually beneficial for many participants in this process.

The problems of intercultural communications of our time have a rather complex nature, which follows from the very phenomenon of culture. So even in the era of the New Age, many scientists turned to the problem of intercultural dialogue, and presented a variety of studies directly or indirectly adjacent to the general problem of intercultural communications.

The formation of scientific concepts that systematically study cultures as special forms of organization of human life dates back approximately to the second half of the 19th century. They were the result of the increased interest in the study of the phenomenon of culture in the philosophical aspect. At the same time, in the works of many Western and Russian philosophers, the question was raised about the interaction of different cultures and civilizations, including the interaction between the cultures of the West and the East.

The subject of O. Spengler's research is “the morphology world history”, that is, the originality of world cultures. The author of numerous most interesting publications rejects the usual periodization of world history into the Ancient World, the Middle Ages and the New Age and identifies a number of separate, independent cultures that, like living organisms, go through periods of birth, formation and death. The dying of any culture is characterized by the transition from culture to civilization. “Dying, culture turns into civilization,” writes a well-known philosopher and culturologist. Hence, O. Spengler counterbalances each other with such concepts as “becoming” and “become”, that is, “culture” and “civilization”, which is a key aspect in his concept. According to Spengler, the end of Western civilization (since 2000) is simultaneous with the I-II centuries. ancient rome or XI-XIII centuries. China. The list of cultures that he calls “great or powerful”, in addition to such cultures as Egypt, China, India, Greece and Russia, includes separately the culture of Europe (“Faustian culture”) and separately the “magical” culture of the Arabs.

Speaking about the interaction of cultures, O. Spengler skeptically believes that a few centuries will pass and not a single German, Englishman and Frenchman will remain on earth. Culture, according to Spengler, is “the powerful creativity of the maturing soul, the birth of a myth as an expression of a new feeling of God, the flowering of high art, full of deep symbolic necessity, the immanent action of the state idea among a group of peoples united by a uniform worldview and unity of life style.” Civilization is the dying of creative energies in the soul; problematic worldview; replacement of questions of a religious and metaphysical nature with questions of ethics and life practice. In art - the collapse of monumental forms, the rapid change of other people's fashionable styles, luxury, habit and sport. In politics, the transformation of popular organisms into practically interested masses, the dominance of mechanism and cosmopolitanism, the victory of world cities over rural expanses, the power of the fourth estate. Spengler's typological system can be called symbolic.

In addition, the answer to the question of how open cultures are to comprehension, which was posed by the famous researcher Oswald Spengler, is not entirely clear. In his works, he represented each culture as a closed organism, very original and unique. Spengler noted that there can be no deep contacts, dialogue between representatives of different cultures. The famous scientist believed that each culture has its own "language of worldview", understandable only to those who belong to this culture. The scientist argued that there can be no deep cultural contacts between representatives of different cultures? and the dialogue is reduced only to borrowing, copying other people's samples, transferred to a different cultural context.

Of course, this point of view reflects only one of the features of modern intercultural communication, which can be called essential, but along with localization trends, globalization processes exist and are actively developing, reflecting the specifics of the development of intercultural communication.

Nevertheless, one cannot but admit that O. Spengler stood at the origins of the problem of the dialogue of cultures.

Interesting approaches to the development of the problem of intercultural communications were also proposed by the famous English scientist A. D. Toynbee. He is the originator of the "call and response" concept. In his work "Comprehension of History", the scientist also addresses the problem of the emergence, development and death of civilizations of world history. In total, he identifies 21 civilizations, among which there is a separate Arab culture and Western. It should be noted that Toynbee also singles out the Syrian and Persian cultures separately. His typological approach is based on comparative analysis.

AD Toynbee categorically rejects the existence of a single civilization. In the concept of civilization, he includes a group of countries and peoples who are connected by one destiny and worldview. The author also contrasts civilization with primitive societies, he speaks of a certain hierarchy that exists in civilization - this is a universal state and a universal religion. According to Toynbee, civilization goes through three stages: prosperity, breakdown and decline.

The causes of the death of civilization are the internal (revolution) and external proletariat (war) or the stagnation of the structure. The reasons for the growth and development of civilization are the challenge and the presence of a creative minority. Toynbee distinguished periods of greatest "creativity" and periods of greatest power, the "universal state". Between them is the "epoch of crisis" with protracted civil wars and decline. As a result of the crisis, some one political unit eventually defeats all the others and subjugates the entire "area" of civilization, comes " Golden autumn”, which in the end ends with complete withering and “invasion of barbarians”. Thus, in the analogy of civilization with the human body, a period approximately corresponding to the "midlife crisis" appears.

In his book Comprehension of History, A. D. Toynbee considers the problems that are relevant to us, namely, the problems of the environment and race (racial theory and racial feeling), the problems of religion (including religious discrimination and caste), the problems of migration (stimulus overseas migration). A. D. Toynbee gives the following definition of the concept of race: “race is a term used to refer to characteristic feature inherent in any genus or species, class or group of living beings. Regarding the racist theory, the author writes that "racial differences in the anatomical structure of man are regarded as unchanging and are perceived as evidence of equally unchanging racial differences in the human psyche." Toynbee concludes that racial feeling in the West mainly came from Western settlers, and it also has a religious character.

Turning to the problems of migration, Toynbee writes that it is motivated by the social failure and ill-being of the migrating people - they go to a new land in search of happiness, and even knowing that they will face the prejudices of local residents, a new language, culture, manners and customs - all the same ready to go forward, fight and assert itself. In his studies, Toynbee also considers the problem of caste, and notes two cases: when the local population is conquered by an invader who considers it necessary not to exterminate him, but to reduce him to the position of a lower caste, and also when the local population accepts immigrants on their territory, but prefers to keep them in disadvantageous and humiliating conditions. Thus, a privileged race occupies a prestigious place in all spheres of life. The disadvantaged race is engaged, as a rule, in craft and trade.

A. Toynbee sees the phenomenon of religious discrimination similar to racial discrimination. The author traces religious discrimination in three different variants: “where the heirs of the disadvantaged community are members of the same society and belong to the same civilization as the heirs of the privileged community; where the heirs of the disadvantaged and privileged communities belong to two different developing civilizations; where members of a privileged community belong to an emerging civilization, while members of a disadvantaged community represent a relic civilization."

It should be noted that Toynbee proved the possibility of saving Western civilization by strengthening the role of the religious-church principle. Toynbee's civilization more represent a cultural community.

The problem of historical and cultural typology was presented in his research by the Russian philosopher N. Ya. Danilevsky. He designated only 12 independent civilizations or, as he called them, historical and cultural types: Egyptian; Chinese; Assyro-Babylonian-Phoenician, or ancient Semitic; Indian; Iranian; Jewish; Greek; Roman; neo-Semitic, or Arabian; Germano-Romance, or European; Mexican; Peruvian. Such a division of civilizations by N. Danilevsky was the basis for three main conclusions: firstly, each great civilization showed a kind of archetype, which was built according to a specific plan; secondly, he suggested the theory that the life of civilizations has its limit, and one civilization replaces another; and thirdly, he believed that comparative analysis private and general qualities of civilization, will entail a deeper understanding of history as a whole.

Turning to the question of the interaction of cultures, N. Ya. Danilevsky believed that the cultures of different peoples would almost not be able to mix with each other. He singled out five laws of historical development, based on the concept of cultural-historical types, in accordance with one of them, civilizations do not spread from one people to another, but only affect each other.

A qualitatively different approach to the classification of cultures or civilizations was expressed by P. Sorokin, who refuted the integrated essence of civilization and predetermined this role to "supersystems" or "large forms" within which culture is born. P. Sorokin explores the existence of four supersystems over three millennia on the basis of the Mediterranean and the West. His supersystem coincides with the original period of growth of cultures; sensual - with a period of their maturity and decline, a culture of ideal synthesis - with the moment of the culmination of development (especially in art and philosophy) and eclectic, or mixed - with a period of decline. Unlike the authors of other typologies and concepts, P. Sorokin in the analysis of culture-supersystems pays special attention to the classification of cultural elements.

The well-known historian, political scientist Z. Brzezinski in his work “Choice. World domination or global leadership. The author writes that in the modern world there is a huge uneven distribution of poverty, the social consequences of the uneven aging of the population in the world, and, accordingly, migration pressure. The author notes some contradictions between globalization and migration - in some wealthy states, "the same people who strongly condemn globalization, at the same time put forward strong anti-immigration slogans, because they want to preserve their familiar image of the nation state."

He notes that this was not always the case, that before the emergence of nation-states, the movement of people was carried out without special restrictions and was often even encouraged by enlightened rulers. In broad terms, Brzezinski writes that before the 20th century, migration was determined by socio-economic conditions, and not by political decisions. The passport is, according to the researcher, a kind of attribute that symbolizes the loss of human rights, and "the consequence was nationalism, from a humanitarian point of view, which was a step backwards."

On present stage, the expanding European Union faces many challenges, including how impenetrable its borders should be. With the admission of ten new members in 2002, the question was how soon the current member states would be ready to lift the existing restrictions on the free movement of labor from the newly admitted states.

Z. Brzezinski emphasizes that social, demographic, economic, cultural differences between countries are too great in the world - this is an incentive for some peoples to migrate en masse. There is a huge disparity in income between the wealthy West, which is shrinking and aging, as the author writes, and the poorer East and South, which are growing and will remain relatively young. The studies of Z. Brzezinski reflect the view of a specialist in the field of international relations on the problem of the dialogue of cultures. He addresses this topic indirectly, in the context of the rather complex problem of migration, which is a separate topic within the framework of common problem intercultural communications.

Questions of the dialogue of cultures were also raised in the well-known study by S. Huntington "The Clash of Civilizations". According to him, civilization is a cultural entity. Villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, religious groups all have special culture at different levels of cultural diversity. The European communities, in turn, will be subdivided along cultural lines that distinguish them from the Arab and Chinese communities. However, according to S. Huntington, Arab, Chinese and Western communities are not part of any broader cultural entity. They form civilizations. Thus, civilization is a grouping of people in the highest degree according to the cultural principle and a very wide layer of the cultural essence of people. It is determined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, and by the subjective self-determination of people. Since people define their identity in ethnic and religious terms, the relationship between them and representatives of others ethnic groups and religions is seen by them in the form of "we" against "them". In the future, according to the author, "the importance of the identification of civilization will increase, and the world will be shaped to a greater extent by the interaction of seven or eight major civilizations: Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Indian, Orthodox, Latin American, and possibly African." The author notes the trend towards strengthening economic regionalism. “On the one hand, successful economic regionalism will increase the awareness of civilization. On the other hand, economic regionalism can only lead to success when it is rooted in a common civilization.”

S. Huntington draws attention to the fact that, on the one hand, the West is at the peak of its power. At the same time, the phenomenon of returning to one's roots among non-Western civilizations is clearly manifested. The West is confronting non-Western civilizations with their growing desire to use their resources to shape the world along the paths of non-Western development. In many non-Western countries, elites are emerging that are characterized by anti-Western commitment and have been brought up in the local culture. Cultural characteristics and differences are less changeable, compromise and solvable than political and economic, as the author notes.

At the same time, the researcher foresees the coming conflict between the West and all other civilizations, primarily Muslim and Confucian, which, in his opinion, have already formed an anti-Western bloc. »Differences in economic power and the struggle for military and economic power, for social institutions - this is the first source of conflict between the West and other civilizations. The second source of conflict is cultural differences reflected in core values ​​and beliefs. Western concepts are fundamentally different from those prevailing in the rest of the world. Western ideas often have little resonance in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist, or Orthodox culture. Western efforts to propagate such ideas are causing a backlash against "imperialist human rights" and the assertion of local culture and values, which is evident in the support of religious fundamentalism by the younger generation in non-Western cultures.

Thus, based on the theory of S. Huntington, we can conclude that the central axis of international relations in the future will be the conflict between the “West and the rest of the world” and the reaction of non-Western civilizations to Western power and its values. This reaction, according to Huntington, will be expressed mainly in the form of one of three forms or a combination of several. At one extreme, non-Western states are trying to pursue a course of isolationism in order to isolate their societies from Western infiltration and not participate in the affairs of the Western-dominated world community. The second alternative is the international equivalent of the "trailer car" theory: an attempt to join the West and accept its system of values ​​and social institutions. The third alternative is to try to "balance" the West by developing economic and military power, and cooperating with other non-Western societies in opposition to the West, while maintaining their national values ​​and public institutions.

Many prominent philosophers, culturologists, thinkers of the second half of the 19th-21st centuries turned to understanding the problem of developing a dialogue in the field of culture. The works of prominent Western philosophers O. Spengler, A. J. Toynbee, S. Huntington, Z. Brzezhinsky, as well as prominent Russian thinkers N. Ya. Danilevsky, P. Sorokin became the foundation for modern theories of cultural interaction and served as the basis for further research in this direction.

Naturally, representatives of such a science as ethnography also addressed the problems of international cultural relations. It was in ethnography, on the basis of rich and diverse material, that results were obtained that clearly demonstrated the interaction of cultures of different ethnic groups, the importance of their influence on each other. An important observation was formulated by ethnographers, confirming that the intensity of cultural contacts can be seen as a consequence of the high level of one's own culture and its openness to the achievements of other civilizations.

Such authoritative ethnographers and anthropologists as J. Fraser, K. Levi-Strauss, M. Moss consistently addressed these issues in their scientific work.

The history of the development of cultural interaction and the main approaches that have been formed in scientific practice clearly show that this direction is quite popular, relevant, has established traditions and is of particular interest today in the period of active integration and development of intercultural communication.

At the present stage, the issues of interaction between cultures are subject to a comprehensive rethinking. There is an intensive spatial mass mobility of the population in the world. As a result of the internationalization of life, the problems of intercultural interactions, integration, international migration are of great importance, and the processes of intercultural communications are actively developing. Understanding these processes is extremely important for the harmonious development of world civilization due to their obvious impact on the social, economic and cultural sphere life of modern society. The problem of the interaction of cultures today is so complex and ambiguous that it requires a serious, comprehensive understanding, taking into account all the various components of this phenomenon and based on existing experience.

§ 3. Socio-psychological aspect of intercultural communication

Of great importance for understanding the problem of intercultural communications are research in the field of psychology and sociology. According to the main theoretical approaches to the analysis of this topic, a person is at the center of intercultural communication, for whom the knowledge of the achievements of other peoples and civilizations is the most important socio-psychological factor. According to the well-known researcher K. Popper, such categories of psychology as important for a person as introversion and extroversion can also be attributed to culture, the center, the creator of which is a person.

The most interesting studies related to the problem of intercultural communications relate to such a direction of psychology as ethnopsychology.

Ethnic features, differences can be called one of the most important problems of intercultural communication. It was in the center of scientific attention of many representatives of the humanities, and was first formulated in the era of Antiquity. The great scientists of antiquity Hippocrates and Plato wrote about this.

In the well-known work of Hippocrates "On Airs, Waters, Localities" we read that peoples have certain differences that are associated with the location of the country, climatic conditions, and natural factors.

It should be noted that the role of the geographical factor in shaping the character of the people was later especially noted by researchers in modern and contemporary times. Describing the natural conditions of Europe and Asia, the great Russian scientist V. O. Klyuchevsky writes: “Two geographical features distinguish Europe from other parts of the world and from Asia mainly: this is, firstly, the variety of surface shapes and, secondly, the extremely sinuous outline seashores." It is known what a strong and versatile effect both of these features have on the life of the country. Europe has the primacy in the strength with which these conditions operate in it. Nowhere do mountain ranges, plateaus and plains replace each other so often in such relatively small spaces as in Europe. On the other hand, deep bays, far-protruding peninsulas, capes form, as it were, a coastal lace of western and southern Europe. Here there is one mile of seashore for every 30 square miles of land, while in Asia there is one mile of seashore for every 100 square miles of land. In contrast to the diversity of the vegetative and climatic zones of Europe, which are delicately outlined by the lace of sea coasts, in Eurasia “the sea forms only a small part of its borders; the coastline of its seas is insignificant in comparison with its continental expanse, just one mile of the sea coast falls on 41 square miles of the mainland.

Monotony is the hallmark of its surface; one form dominates almost the entire length: this form is a plain, an undulating plane, very slightly elevated above sea level.

Taking into account the peculiarities of the countries of the Old World, he distinguishes six subcontinents: Europe, Eurasia, the Far East, India, Afrasia (Middle East), tropical Africa (south of the Sahara). The natural conditions of these six great zones predetermined the ethnic diversity of mankind.

Considerable interest in the topic of national identity in the context of ethnopsychology arises in the era of modern times, when the Great Enlighteners sought to determine the features of the way of life different peoples, national culture, national specificity. Almost all scientists of that time turned to this topic. It was most fully and consistently developed by the famous French educator C. Montesquiou. In his scientific reasoning, he noted that climate, soil, and relief had a special significance for national culture and national character. The philosopher noted that such an impact can be both indirect and direct.

An original look at the problem of formation national character, national features in their studies were presented by K. Helvetius. According to Helvetius, character is a way of seeing and feeling, this is something that is characteristic of only one people and depends more on socio-political history, on forms of government.

Representatives of German classical philosophy I. Kant and G. Hegel made a significant contribution to the development of the problem of ethnic psychology. Notable work Kant "Anthropology from a practical point of view" contains such concepts as "people", "nation", "character of the people". The people in his study is an association in a particular locality of many people who make up one whole. Each nation has its own character, manifested in emotional experience (affection), in relation to and perception of another culture. The main manifestation of the national character, according to the philosopher, is the attitude towards other peoples, pride in state and public freedom. According to Kant, the basis for understanding the nature of the people are the innate character traits of the ancestors and, to a lesser extent, climate, soil, and form of government. He proved his observation by the fact that when changing the place of residence, forms of government, the character of the people most often does not change.

In the 19th century, ethnic psychology continues to develop and becomes an independent scientific discipline. Its consistent development is associated with the names and works of such scientists as H. Steinthal, M. Lazarus, W. Wundt.

It was H. Steinthal and W. Wundt who first attempted to present folk psychology as an independent area of ​​scientific research. In their works, the tasks of folk psychology were defined, which were reduced to the knowledge psychological essence folk spirit; revealing the laws according to which the spiritual activity of the people takes place; as well as determining the factors and conditions for the emergence, development and disappearance of representatives of a particular people.

The well-known French scientist G. Lebon devoted his research to the problem of folk psychology. Le Bon considered the most important description of the mental structure of historical races and the determination of the dependence on it of the history of the people, their civilization.

In the 20th century, research in the field of psychology related to the problem of intercultural communications is mainly devoted to the formation of a national character and national culture. A certain role in the development of this trend was played by the works of Z. Freud. The methodological basis of this direction was the methods of in-depth interviewing, analysis of dreams, scrupulous recording of autobiographies, long-term observation of interpersonal relationships in families belonging to different peoples and ethnic groups.

An independent direction of psychology in the discourse of intercultural communication can be called works devoted to the study of personality in different cultures. A variety of studies conducted by experts have led to the conclusion that there is a so-called "modal personality", which is called a certain personality type, it includes the largest number of adult members of society. However, it was noted that due to the many variations, the concept of a multimodal personality has become widespread, which makes it possible to identify the "characteristics of the nation".

In the context of international integration, the development of globalization processes and a powerful cultural exchange, issues related to the peculiarities of the specific experience of someone else's cultural experience, traditions in direct communication with representatives of another culture, which are developed within the framework of psychology and sociology, acquire particular urgency and practical significance. Almost every person knows the feeling of confusion, alienation, when he gets into another culture or is forced to communicate with foreigners. A person who enters a different culture ends up in a different world with different traditions, moral and ethical attitudes, etc.

Alien can be perceived as something unusual, exotic, extremely interesting. However, at the same time, foreign traditions can cause a feeling of anxiety, fear, extreme danger.

In scientific and popular literature social groups that are open to communication, to a foreign culture and perceive it very positively, are usually called friendly xenophiles.

On the contrary, if communication with representatives of another culture causes an extremely hostile reaction and aggression, the desire to resist traditions and certain moral and ethical attitudes, then such a group is called xenophobes.

At present, the study of these groups and their psychological characteristics is especially relevant in connection with the problems of emigration that many countries face.

As an original topic, intercultural communication becomes a problem of psychology and sociology in the 70s of the twentieth century. Within the framework of these sciences, social and psychological aspects of communication, features of behavior in the process of intercultural dialogue, and features of the development of intercultural contacts have now begun to be considered. Communication in the sociological aspect is considered as a consequence of the laws of social development. Sociological approaches to the study of intercultural communications are interesting, first of all, for their methodology.

Researchers in the field of psychology and sociology distinguish the following specific types of reactions to representatives of other cultures and to a different culture in general:

1. Denial of cultural differences;

2. Protecting one's own cultural superiority and identity;

3. Minimization of differences;

4. Acceptance of existing cultural differences;

5. Adaptation to a new culture;

6. Integration.

Such types of reactions as the denial of cultural differences, the defense of their own cultural superiority are based on the confidence of representatives of a particular culture that beliefs, norms, and values ​​among people all over the world should be the same.

In addition, there is an opinion that the lifestyle and ideological foundations of another culture can pose a threat to the culture with which they interacted. In the conditions of coexistence in one state of various nations, ethnic groups, significant groups of emigrants, there is no doubt that a defensive reaction of certain groups of the population arises, which can take on very aggressive forms. History and modern international relations know many such examples when representatives of another culture were perceived as enemies, it is enough to recall the ideas of Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan movement, etc.

A positive attitude towards representatives of another culture is also associated with such phenomena as adaptation and integration.

Adaptation associated with the desire of a person to adapt to the conditions of another culture, without fundamentally changing his identity, preserving his traditions, moral and ethical values.

Deeper penetration and comprehension of another culture is associated with integration. Integration into another culture, cultural environment is primarily due to certain living conditions and is possible when an individual lives in a different environment for a long time, when he creates a family outside his historical homeland, and is engaged in professional activities.

A rather convincing example of the integration of our compatriots can be called the creative and artistic emigration of the twentieth century. Many Russian and Soviet writers, artists, musicians have not been able to adapt to the new conditions, the new cultural environment. However, for such famous writers as I. Brodsky, V. Nabokov foreign language became native and, presenting their works in English, they achieved world recognition, received prestigious prizes and awards.

American researchers, for whom this topic is of great practical importance, successfully and actively dealt with the issues of perception of a foreign culture.

American colleagues developed and substantiated certain stages of contact and comprehension of another culture. Their work is supported by rich and varied material, examples from real life, statistical information.

"Zero Stage" represents the first encounter with another culture. It is associated with superficial ideas about it. The zero stage assumes a general acquaintance with various manifestations of another culture. These are the impressions of a tourist, a traveler.

The next stage is tentatively named "Honeymoon". It is characterized by a very positive attitude towards another culture, the desire to idealize it.

After this stage comes the so-called "culture shock phase", which is associated with a more realistic view of another culture, understanding its problems and characteristics. After this phase, there is a possibility of adaptation, integration or rejection, flight from this culture.

Today we can note that in large cities, megacities, there are very peculiar cultural islands, which are created by immigrants who seek to distance themselves from a culture that is alien to them. They maintain constant contacts with their compatriots, arrange national holidays, and in every possible way strive to demonstrate their identity in the conditions of other cultures. These examples are most clearly presented in the USA. However, in modern Russia we can single out different cultural groups that in every way confirm their identity. These are Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Chechens and others.

The issues of adaptation and integration of various groups into another cultural environment are also dealt with by modern psychology, sociology and other humanities, which make a significant contribution to understanding the problem of intercultural communications.

Special mention should be made of the methods of work of sociologists. Sociologists working in the field of intercultural communication use methods traditional for this science to question certain groups of respondents in a certain way. The questionnaires developed and introduced into scientific and practical circulation are aimed at identifying certain attitudes and stereotypes that are manifested in people's behavior. Basically, sociology deals with the behavior of representatives of different cultures in the workplace, in close business interaction and in the business sphere. This is due to the fact that sociological research finds its practical application, first of all, in modern transnational corporations, which play an increasingly significant role in the modern economy and politics.

The results obtained by sociologists are of great value. On their basis, relevant practical recommendations are formulated, which are then implemented in the form of special intercultural trainings. Typical topics of survey respondents are: information exchange, interaction with colleagues, decision-making practices, behavior in conflict situations, attitude towards a leader, connection between work and private life, etc. It is clear that most of the studied culturally determined behavioral stereotypes can be elevated to certain cultural parameters, formulated by the famous sociologist Geert Hofstedeo, which deserve special attention.

The well-known sociologist and managerial theorist Geert Hofstede, as a result of his extensive research in the late 1970s, was able to formulate four features that can describe national cultures in terms of their position relative to each other on a scale of each of the four parameters. The study consisted of a survey of a large number of employees (more than 1,000) of a multinational corporation in more than one hundred countries about their attitude to work and behavior in the workplace. The signs obtained as a result of statistical processing made it possible to formulate the following foundations of cultural oppositions.

power distance. The degree to which a society accepts an uneven distribution of power among its members. In cultures with low power distance (such as Scandinavia), the communicative style of politicians is markedly different from, for example, Turkey, where a politician must radiate significance, authority and power.

Individualism. The degree to which society agrees that the views and actions of an individual can be independent of collective or group beliefs and actions. Thus, in the USA, success is formulated in terms of individual successes and achievements, and individual responsibility for actions is confirmed.

Collectivism, on the contrary, means that people should link their views and actions with what the group (family, organization, party) considers. In such cultures (Latin America, the Arab East, Southeast Asia) in the choice that the individual makes, the role of the group is very large - for example, the family.

Uncertainty avoidance. The degree to which members of a society feel insecure about uncertain, unstructured situations and try to avoid them by developing rules, formulas, and rituals and refusing to tolerate behavior that deviates from the standard. Societies with a high degree of uncertainty avoidance are afraid of innovation and welcome the search for absolute truth. In production and in the educational process, representatives of such societies prefer well-structured situations.

competitiveness. The principle by which society is focused on achieving success, assertiveness, solving problems, acquiring things. This is opposed to the ideas of quality of life - caring for others, solidarity with the group, helping the less fortunate. Highly competitive cultures clearly contrast traditional male and female social roles. Success - including for women - is associated with the manifestation of "male" qualities. Highly competitive cultures are equally opposed in many other respects to the US and Japan. To low-competitive - the Scandinavian countries. In the works of Hofstede in the 1980s, this parameter had another more ponderous name "masculinity" (masculinity / femininity dimension). Later, in many studies of specialists this feature became known as the orientation of society towards competition.

More general sociological problems are related to the social adaptation of migrants, the preservation or loss of traditional cultures among national minorities, etc.

Psychologists in the field of intercultural communication are currently interested, first of all, in the influence of cultural differences on the processes of interpretation and categorization, as well as the nature of the corresponding behavioral stereotypes. Since the 1970s, important concepts of anxiety, uncertainty, features of intergroup categorization, and many others have been studied by methods of social psychology.

When it comes to communication, especially intercultural communication, it can be very difficult to draw a line between sociological and psychological research conducted in the field of social psychology. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, the topic is clearly interdisciplinary in nature. Both psychologists and sociologists deal with complex categories that arise in the process of communication or are transmitted through it - values, motives, attitudes, stereotypes and prejudices. The task of both those and others is to designate the observed phenomenon (perhaps by linking it with others) and to show differences from similar reactions and attitudes in a situation of intra-group rather than intercultural interaction.

Within the framework of sociological and psychological research, certain communication models have been proposed, which deserve some attention.

Thus, the famous scientists Elihu Katz and Patzey Lazarsfeld developed the so-called “two-stage communication model”. The undoubted contribution of these scientists to the development of communication theory was the introduction into scientific circulation of the so-called concept of "opinion leaders", on which the dissemination of information depends. In addition, scientists have put forward an assumption about the phased communication process with the participation of the media. The researchers analyzed the problem of how media messages affect the audience immediately after receiving it and after two weeks. As the results of the work showed, the impact, despite the elapsed time, does not fall, but rather increases.

The well-known communication researcher Elisabeth Noel-Neumann proposed another model - the "spiral of silence", where the connection between the processes of mass and interpersonal communications was proved. Mass communications in the proposed model were presented as a kind of means of forming a climate of opinion. The author proved that the so-called climate of opinion determines the readiness of people to enter into interpersonal communication.

The proposed “spiral of silence model” reveals a situation where the media successfully manipulate public opinion, represent the word not to the majority, but to the minority, which then speaks on behalf of the majority.

As an example of the "spiral of silence" model, various researchers cite the experience of totalitarian communication. Here, one's own opinion becomes not only inconvenient, but in some situations simply dangerous.

The relationship between the information content of messages and their public perception was investigated by Donald Shaw and Max McCob. According to their theory, the formation of audience perceptions is largely shaped by the media, which focuses the attention of recipients of information on what is important and what is not. The success of the information impact depends on many circumstances: on the choice of facts, the quality of coverage.

Of particular interest is the so-called "innovative diffusion" model developed by Everett Rogers. It considers the final stage of the communication process - the perception or rejection of information messages by the society. In this model, E. Rogers gave an analysis of the ability to perceive innovations in various segments of society. He proposed an original classification of various groups of society, depending on the degree of perception of the new.

The well-known researcher Kurt Lewin proposed the "gatekeeper" model, which is successfully used in the practice of communications. In his theory, we are talking about people who make decisions on the selection and purchase of products, things and, in a broad sense, information. This model was formed by the choice of certain products by people who spread their point of view in society.

The scientist himself noted that the “gatekeeper” can be someone who is able to control the flow of news (in the broadest sense of the word), parsing, measuring, expanding, repeating and withdrawing information.

The “gatekeeper” model, according to Kurt Lewin, allows you to more clearly navigate in various value systems, select messages, interesting audiences, predict their perception.

Thus, sociological and psychological models of communication demonstrate numerous approaches to the study of this phenomenon. They are of considerable practical interest and great theoretical significance. In the works of well-known researchers, the concept of communication becomes more complicated, filled with new content and becomes an independent phenomenon of modern life, which cannot be neglected today.

The sociological and psychological aspect of intercultural communication allows us to turn to the rather complex processes of this phenomenon, to reveal the nature of many factors influencing the content, forms and directions of the phenomenon of intercultural communication.

§ 4. The linguistic aspect of intercultural communication

It can be noted that the problems of intercultural communications in the middle of the twentieth century were reduced by scientists to the issues of learning a foreign language.

Interest in the language component of intercultural communications is fully justified. Language is considered one of the most important categories of culture; the transmission of cultural information depends on the language. At the same time, language can be called a kind of code that serves as a barrier for a person who does not know the language system.

Language is also a means of systematizing and ordering the picture of the world. Thanks to language, the world becomes visible to a person, to a certain extent clear and understandable.

Language is an instrument of culture. It has numerous functions, forms the personality of a person, a native speaker, through the vision of the world imposed on him by the language and embedded in the language, mentality, attitude towards people, etc., that is, through the culture of the people, using the language as a communication tool.

Language can be called the most striking expression of the culture of the people. He is a transmitter, a bearer of culture. It broadcasts information related to the treasury of national culture, stored in it from generation to generation. “Language occupies the first place among the national-specific components of culture. Language, first of all, contributes to the fact that culture can be both a means of communication and a means of separation. Language is a sign of the carrier's belonging to a particular society. Language as a sign of an ethnic group can be viewed in different ways. It acts as an important factor of integration, as well as an ethno-differentiating feature of an ethnos... Language also turns out to be a tool for the self-preservation of an ethnos and the separation of “us” and “them”.

However, language is not only a means that determines and influences intercultural communication, but also the environment in which a person functions and at the same time uses its influence. The language of each nation reflected in all its diversity cultural traditions, moral, ethical principles, the course of history. Knowledge of a foreign language greatly facilitates the process of communication and allows one to get deeply acquainted with the traditions of the country, the people, with its rich and original heritage of national culture.

The language reflects the idea of ​​the place of the people in the world around, a complex hierarchy of social and political relations, future aspirations. It adequately reflects the richness and originality of the natural world in which the people live. That is why knowledge of the language contributes to a deep knowledge of culture and creates the prerequisites for the development of intercultural communications. The famous Russian philosopher A.F. Losev believed that it was the language of this people that was the key to understanding the essence of the national spirit, its original, intuitive foundations. “The essence of the original intuition is first fixed in the name, in the word. The word is the first revelation of the hidden intuitive essence... The word and language are the organ of national self-consciousness.”

Language is also the basis for the formation of human groups. It most consistently expresses thoughts, feelings, moods, psychological characteristics. Researchers believe that today there are more than 100 languages ​​on the planet, and at least 300 dialects. The study of the language map of the world shows that only a few countries are linguistically homogeneous. Moreover, in many countries you can find languages ​​belonging to different groups, having different roots, nature and history. At the present stage, the most widespread language has become English, which clearly dominates in the field of international relations and business. Promotion in English connected with global changes in the modern world, information technology. Today it is obvious that for all Internet users - English is an important condition for virtual communication. According to researchers, at the present stage in the world, more than half of international and business correspondence is carried out in English.

It should be noted that each word used in a language appears in a certain cultural context and carries a special meaning and significance for each culture. So, for example, the word "cow" for a Hindu means not only an animal, but is also a symbol of holiness, spirituality. A Russian person has special associations in connection with the words revolution, mausoleum, victory, winter.

Language is the only property of the people. Subcultural groups have their own language, which can be understood only by a narrow circle of people.

For intercultural communications, language is an important factor, a means of communication, but language can and does create certain barriers to communication. It is well known that the task of translating a text, especially artistic, philosophical, is one of the most difficult. In the process of translation, the depth, attitude, and sometimes the meaning of the work are lost.

To understand the meaning of what has been said, sometimes translation is not enough; such indicators as intonation, speech rate, and accents are of particular importance. It is no coincidence that in the study of a foreign language much attention is paid to pronunciation, which allows you to achieve more successful development dialogue and understanding of the features of a foreign language.

The language also reflects the features of the Western and Eastern mentality, features of culture and traditions.

Thus, the speech of an oriental speaker is quite brightly colored, built taking into account national traditions with references to authorities. An oriental speaker builds a distance between himself and the audience, strives to show his superiority, dominance.

The American speaker, on the contrary, strives to get closer to the audience, to build his speech in a realistic manner. Clearly describe the situation and put quite specific questions and tasks.

In the Soviet Union, official speeches were also subject to certain traditions associated with ideological and political attitudes. The speakers had to refer to the authorities - the classics of Marxism-Leninism, in every possible way to emphasize the superiority of the socialist system, confirming this thesis with examples from Soviet history.

The translation of some important concepts that can be attributed to national ones into a foreign language also causes a big problem. For example, for the Russian people, in which spirituality is in the first place in the system of values, “soul” is the main concept that prevails over reason, mind, and common sense. Experts note that phraseological expressions with the word "soul" are most often used by Russians in colloquial speech compared to other phraseological units. Foreign students studying the Russian language constantly experience difficulties in using these phraseological units. For example, when translating expressions with the word “soul” into German, it was found that only 1/3 of German phraseological units have the word “soul” in their composition, and 2/3 are translated into German with the word “heart”.

This circumstance is explained by the difference in the stereotypes of perception of this concept. If for a German "soul" is most often a religious concept, then for a Russian it refers to human, internal processes that occur "inside" the person himself. The difference in ideas has an impact on the stylistic use of the word "soul" in Russian and German phraseological units. In Russian, the whole "palette" of styles in the use of this word is represented, and in German one can note an exceptionally reverent attitude towards it. Expressions with the word "soul" usually refer to a neutral or high style.

Of course, the given examples are quite generalized and schematic, but to a certain extent they characterize the features of the linguistic aspect of intercultural communication.

The peculiarities of the linguistic aspect of intercultural communications also determine the main areas of research, in this area, among which the study of various communication styles in their use within and outside a particular culture, group should be singled out. Modern research is aimed at studying such features as the rate of speech, the use of appropriate vocabulary in conversation with groups that are different in professional, social, and age terms.

Separately, issues related to the possibility of maintaining a conversation in various audiences are considered. These questions arose because European culture silence and withdrawal from communication is considered as a manifestation of bad education, it is considered impolite. Whereas in the cultures of other peoples, on the contrary, a conversation with an unfamiliar person is perceived as a very dangerous event. Conversation is not a way to get to know a person better.

These areas of linguistic research are adjacent to psychological approaches and are associated with the concept of accommodation.

The independent development of linguistic research within the framework of intercultural communication acquires the problem of studying discourse as an important process in the development of communication. These issues are presented and considered in detail in the works of foreign researchers, among which we can note the work of Ron and Susan Scollon "Intercultural communication: a discursive approach". The study of discourse as an independent phenomenon has led to the development of a number of areas that study language factors. So it became obvious that the same topic, practical task has significant differences dictated by cultural factors. An example is the text of a business letter, which is written in a different manner by representatives of official services in Southeast Asia and in Europe. This applies both to the plan of such a letter and the manner in which the main issues are presented.

In Asian countries, the text of the letter begins with a list of reasons, circumstances, factors, and in the final part proposals and requirements are formulated.

In the European tradition and North American business correspondence, the letter begins with the formulation of a proposal and requirements, which are further argued. For Europeans and Americans, the oriental style of business correspondence is considered unacceptable and slurred.

In the studies of discourse, the picture of the world conditioned by cultural traditions is revealed, which determines the meaning of the narratives.

The problem of discourse has an independent meaning in works devoted to professional communication. In this direction, quite interesting works are presented both by foreign and domestic studies of such authors as L. M. Simonova, L. E. Strovsky, and the already named book by Ron and Susan Scollon and others.

Works devoted to cross-cultural pragmatics are of independent importance. At the origins of this direction were foreign researchers, and, above all, the famous philologist A. Verzhbitskaya. In his research, the author shows that many direct translations, equivalents of words and concepts actually contain significant differences. This important point is not always taken into account in translations. However, it is quite obvious that the English word friend does not reflect the important essence that is given in the Russian word friend, essentially a person who is close spiritually, capable of self-sacrifice, disinterested help.

When conducting business negotiations, knowledge of the context is of particular importance, since the decision, which can be of great economic and political importance, depends on the intricacies of translation, intonations. The meaning of many, for example, English phrases, which is used in negotiations in countries such as the UK, Australia and the US, where it is official, sometimes takes on the opposite or controversial meaning. So, during negotiations, American businessmen (tabling a proposal) use the expression "postpone the proposal" as a desire to mark the decision. However, their colleagues, for example, from the UK, perceive this expression as a certain impulse and a signal for action.

Features of the language and the difficulties of translation are of great importance for the promotion of goods abroad. This specificity has many examples. So, for example, in order to sell the domestic Zhiguli car abroad, it was necessary to change its name, which would reflect national specifics and sound more harmonious in a foreign audience. So the name "Lada" was found, which became popular abroad, while the word "Lada" in French could be heard as "girl", "alphonse".

Superficial knowledge of the language can introduce significant difficulties in the organizational, workflow, have a negative impact on business development.

So, for example, if the English partners promise to finish some business "by the end of the day", then this means that it will be completed only when the work is completed.

Misunderstandings between employees can also arise in matters of designating days and months, in business correspondence. So, in the European reading 11/12/08 means that we are talking about December 11, 2008, while the Americans read this message as November 12, 2008.

Such a seemingly simple universal phenomenon as a calendar, the division of the calendar year into seasons or seasons, actually turns out to be quite complicated if we turn to the national traditions of different peoples. So, a Russian-speaking person has no doubt that there are four seasons - winter, spring, summer, autumn, each of which is represented in three months. According to English tradition The year is also divided into four seasons. However, they are represented by a different number of months. Winter and summer are four months each, and autumn and spring are two months respectively. The Russian spring month of May is summer in the English tradition, and November belongs to the winter months.

Thus, the above examples also testify to the numerous problems associated with the linguistic aspect of intercultural communications. It is quite obvious that knowledge of the language of the interlocutor cannot always be a factor of mutual understanding in the development of communication between peoples.

On the other hand, when studying the linguistic aspect of intercultural communications, one should not forget that the languages ​​themselves need protection and support, since they, being a code of culture, store unique information that is passed down from generation to generation and should become available to descendants. The diversity of cultures in the world depends to a large extent on linguistic diversity, which reflects multiple cultural traditions. It is no coincidence that in the modern world such attention is paid to the preservation of the language and its dissemination as a means for successful and deep cultural communication, which is confirmed in the legislative practice of various states, as well as in the activities of authoritative international organizations.

In most countries of the world, a documentary base has been formed that regulates a wide range of issues related to the national language and concerning its relationship with other languages. In 120 countries of the world, the use of language is included in the constitutions, and in some cases these laws refer to the use of the language as an instrument of international cooperation. These factors testify to the unconditional importance of language policy for the state, both at the domestic and international levels.

It can be stated that there is not a single state that would not make efforts to develop comprehensive measures for the preservation and dissemination of the language in a foreign audience. The most striking and illustrative example here is the policy of France, a country that is experiencing great problems associated with the spread of its national language and is making efforts to change the current situation.

Perhaps, for France, as for no other country in the world, the issue of maintaining its linguistic presence abroad is not so relevant. Once the French language served as the language of international communication, contributed to the spread of French culture, which corresponded to the international authority of the state. However, to date, the boundaries of the spread of the French language in the world have narrowed significantly, the number of French speakers and learners of this language has decreased, which forced France to take decisive steps to change this situation.

At present, France has developed a well-thought-out, complex system of measures aimed at solving the problems of a linguistic presence abroad and resisting the influence of the English language. The general management of these events, as well as all foreign cultural policy, is carried out by the state through a system of ministries and state structures, but in practice they are most actively implemented through other mechanisms: through the French Alliance (Alliance Francaise), cultural centers, various educational programs. In recent years, the most active role in this direction belongs to the Francophonie movement.

To date, we can talk about the duality of the main goals of the language policy of France: firstly, maintaining the position of the French language and its promotion abroad, and, secondly, its protection from external linguistic influences at the national level, in particular, from the influence of the English language. . From this point of view, the language policy of France cannot be considered only as a set of actions carried out abroad.

Equally important is the complex of internal protectionist measures aimed at protecting the native language from foreign influences. In these two directions, the modern language policy of the French Republic is developing, which in many respects has a positive effect. Perhaps, it is on the example of the language policy of France that we can talk about the close relationship between domestic and foreign policy efforts as a condition for achieving positive results.

The modern language policy of France is based on 3 main principles:

– Ensuring the spread of the French language in the world;

– Maintaining the role of French as the language of international communication;

– Respect for linguistic and cultural diversity, promotion of linguistic pluralism.

In addition, the French language policy is traditionally based on the idea of ​​the absolute universalism of the French language, which was formed several centuries ago. The essence of the language policy pursued by the French Republic in recent years can be expressed in the words of a member of the French Academy, Alain Denault: “the problem of preserving the French language ... must be considered as a national problem, because the image of France, its prestige, its place in the world depend on its solution.”

The institutional foundations of the language policy of modern France deserve special attention. So, back in 1966, the Higher Committee for the Protection and Extension of the French Language was created, which later transformed into the Higher Committee for the French Language. In 1984, two new bodies were formed in its place, the Advisory Committee and the General Commissariat for Francophonie. In 1996, the French Language Delegation was established under the Ministry of Culture, which also dealt with Francophonie issues. Finally, in 2001, to maintain the linguistic diversity of France, a common Delegation for the French language and for the languages ​​of France was created. These structures in different years carried out the main line of the language policy of the state: they monitored the purity of the French language, protected it from foreign influences. At the same time, within the framework of the language policy, these structures resolved issues related to linguistic minorities, supporting them, provided that the main state language is French.

In recent years, due to the influx of emigrants from Arab countries to France, the public has been widely discussing the issue of including the Arabic language in school curriculum as an elective. However, this proposal in the country itself has many supporters and many opponents. Proponents of the project say that French law contains provisions for the protection of regional languages, to which they include Arabic. Opponents insist that only French is the state language in France, and a deviation from this rule will be a significant concession to the Arab diaspora.

Thus, France has been pursuing a policy of protecting its cultural traditions and language, while also supporting regional languages ​​as part of French culture. However, in recent years, there has been a tendency for regional languages ​​to integrate them into French culture. In this regard, the French government is balancing between a policy aimed at preserving cultural pluralism in the world and the integration of ethnic minority cultures into French culture. Such duality, however, does not contradict the general foreign cultural policy of France, which takes into account both the modern realities of the time associated with the processes of integration and globalization, and national interests, in particular, the preservation of cultural diversity.

The considered measures for the implementation of the language policy are mostly of an internal nature. However, activities aimed at strengthening the position of the French language and its protection from Anglo-Saxon influence, carried out within the country, are also characteristic of the country's foreign policy. Now the French government and the general public are taking various steps to strengthen the status of the French language as a language of international communication, a language that unites around itself representatives of various peoples, states and cultures. This work is carried out in a variety of directions, however, recently France has been most actively developing its language policy on three main fronts: science, sports, and international organizations.

Considering the French language as the language of science, first of all, the significant achievements of French scientists made in different years are taken into account. For example, in the humanities, history and sociology, as well as in mathematics and some others. To maintain the status of French as the language of international science, various journals, dictionaries, data banks of scientific terminology in French are published. Various events are actively carried out aimed at promoting the French language as the language of education, the language of the economy and the language of the commercial and industrial sphere. For example, in 1997, the Congress of the French-Canadian association "Science speaks French" was held, at which possible prospects in this direction were discussed.

French is also now the language of sports thanks to the activities of Baron P. de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, which is recorded in 27 Art. Olympic Charter of the IOC.

Currently, the French language is used in a number of international organizations: the UN, UNESCO, the Council of Europe. In the EEC, it is used on a par with English. The representatives of France in these and other international organizations have recently frequently called for more frequent use of the French language in the drafting of various international declarations. By developing its language policy, France seeks to debunk the most common stereotypes about the French language. If earlier the traditional reason for choosing the French language for study was an interest in classical French culture, now significant efforts are being made to modernize this image. Today, France is one of the countries with the most dynamically developing language policy.

Much attention is paid to the preservation of the language today in the work of international organizations. In the modern world, the problem of preserving cultural diversity and cultural identity is long overdue. The task of protecting the diversity of cultures is faced not only by the "multinational states", but also by the entire world community.

It is currently difficult to determine the number of cultures on the planet, but it is believed that this can be done by counting the number of living languages ​​in the world. As mentioned above, the language contains rich information about cultural values, features of the mentality, the specifics of the behavior of cultural representatives. It is the language that primarily serves as an indicator of the difference between cultures. The preservation of endangered languages ​​is an important element in the preservation of cultural diversity. Language is an element that unites people regardless of the place and time of their residence.

Today we can say with confidence that the cultural diversity of the planet tends to decrease. According to a 1990s study by David Krystal (Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor), one language goes out of circulation every two weeks. David Cristal has calculated that if this trend continues, by 2100 more than 90% of living languages ​​will have disappeared. Overpopulation, immigration and cultural imperialism remain the causes of this phenomenon.

There are about 200 states in the world, in which approximately 5 thousand ethnic groups live. 2/3 of the countries have more than 1 national or religious group, which make up at least 10% of the population. In many countries, there is a large indigenous population, consisting of ethnic groups displaced by colonizers and immigrants.

Throughout the world, peoples insistently demand respect for their cultural identity. Often their demands are for social justice and increased political participation, but they also care about reaffirming their history. In addition, they are not indifferent to whether they and their children live in a society that respects the diversity of cultures, or one where everyone is obliged to submit to one dominant culture.

Cultural identities have been suppressed throughout history, in all regions of the world. Conquerors and colonizers tried to impose their language, religion, or way of life on the people they ruled. Many cultures were labeled as “backward”, in other cases there was a lack of respect for human rights and disrespectful attitude to representatives of another culture, as, for example, during apartheid in South Africa. Moreover, entire groups of the population were destroyed by genocide, as was the case in Nazi Germany.

According to UN statistics, about 300 million people. in the world belong to indigenous groups, representing about 4 thousand languages ​​in more than 70 countries. Latin America is home to 50 million indigenous people, representing 11% of the region's total population. Indigenous peoples are not always a minority. These groups are carriers of a unique cultural heritage, unique ways to communicate with other people and the environment. They retain political, cultural and economic characteristics that distinguish them from mainstream society. Only in Australia, after the arrival of Europeans, about 500 languages ​​disappeared.

Language is one of the main elements of individual cultural identity. Restricting people's ability to use their native language - combined with incomplete command of the dominant, or official national language, can exclude people from education, politics and access to justice. An illustrative example here was the data given in the UN report on human development. Interestingly, in 2004, primary education in mother tongue in East Asia and the Pacific, only 62% of the population had access, and in sub-Saharan Africa, only 13%.

Languages ​​are rapidly dying out, and in order to survive, they need our support and interest. Once upon a time, there were from 7,000 to 8,000 independent languages. Today, most of the world's 6,000 known languages ​​are spoken by a very small number of people. Half of the modern languages ​​are spoken by less than 10,000 people, and one in four languages ​​has fewer than 1,000 speakers.

An authoritative international organization UNESCO plays a significant role in addressing the issues of preserving languages ​​in the world, which not only initiates the creation of a documentary base related to the preservation of languages ​​in the world, but also conducts numerous practical events directly dedicated to the problem of cultural diversity. Since the end of the 20th century, within the framework of this organization, the most important documents devoted to the protection of intangible cultural heritage have been developed, various exhibitions, festivals, concerts have been held to popularize this very acute problem of all mankind. This topic continues to be actively discussed by all members of the organization today. So just recently, in support of the convention for the preservation of the intangible cultural heritage, the UNESCO Committee of France held on March 26, 2008, together with the House of Cultures of the World, a day of intangible cultural heritage. Such an event is already being held for the fifth time as part of the Festival of Fantasy.

The field of oral folk art keeps a huge variety of forms. It includes proverbs, riddles, stories, sayings, legends, myths, epic songs, poems, lullabies that convey knowledge, traditions, values ​​and play an essential role in the life of every nation.

Language acts as one of the main communicative means of transmitting intangible cultural heritage, as well as one of the main forms of intangible cultural heritage. Some types of expressions have become very common and are used by the whole society; others by limited groups, for example, only among the adult population. In many countries, the preservation of oral traditions is a highly specialized activity carried out by professional performers. Professional performers are found in all regions of Africa; in countries like Germany or the USA there are hundreds of professional storytellers today.

Folklore traditions of peoples are usually transmitted orally, which, in turn, causes them to change. The survival of these traditions depends on an unbroken chain of transmission of an accurate text.

Many languages ​​are now endangered, according to the statistics of the UNESCO organization itself, more than 50% of existing languages ​​are endangered today, on average one language disappears every two weeks. The organization seeks to draw attention to the threat of language extinction. Working in this direction, UNESCO closely cooperates with Discovery communication and with other programs within the UN.

To date, two of the most important documents have been adopted for the protection of endangered languages ​​within the framework of UNESCO: the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, the Agreement on the Survival and Threat of Language Extinction.

The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity is more general. It affects not only the problems of preserving languages. The paper emphasizes the need for cultural diversity (i.e. one's own language, traditions, customs, culture) for life on the planet. Cultural diversity is manifested in the uniqueness and diversity of the characteristics inherent in the groups and communities that make up humanity. As a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as important to humanity as biodiversity is to wildlife. In this sense, it is a common property and must be recognized and secured for the benefit of present and future generations. The declaration emphasizes the very close relationship between cultural diversity and identity, cultural diversity and pluralism, cultural diversity and human rights.

The agreement on the survival and the threat of extinction of the language concerns only language problems, ways of preserving languages, brief analysis position of endangered languages. The main goal of the document is to help various communities, linguists, educators, local authorities, international organizations to extend the life of endangered languages. The Expert Group identified a number of factors that can be used to determine the "survivability" of a language, which can be used in the work to maintain linguistic diversity.

Intangible cultural heritage includes a large number of forms and all of them are important. Today, countries are striving to direct financial resources for the maintenance and protection of the world's intangible cultural heritage. It can be argued that many successful projects have already been carried out, but their effectiveness is not always high.

Within the framework of UNESCO, in addition, a large number of documents on the preservation of cultural heritage and cultural diversity have been adopted. Each convention aims to ensure and encourage cooperation in the field of culture. A large number of projects carried out within the framework of the conventions testifies to the significant response of the international community, to the effectiveness of these documents, which we believe should be consolidated into a single code of general materials on the preservation of the cultural diversity of the modern world.

Language is a unique tool for intercultural communication, a sign of culture that stores information, the loss of which can become a serious problem for all the inhabitants of the planet. In this regard, it should be noted that the linguistic aspect of intercultural communications is of great importance, both for the participants in this process, and for researchers, the international community, who should make efforts to preserve languages, and hence cultural diversity.

§ 5. Intercultural communications in international relations

The problem of intercultural communications acquires independent significance in international relations, which, on the one hand, are a vivid example of the development of communication at various levels, but at the same time reflect the numerous features of the phenomenon of intercultural communications. The very history of intercultural communications shows that they are directly related to the development of political, trade, cultural, and interreligious contacts. It is in the history of international relations that one can note the formation of various directions and forms of intercultural communication, which took shape under the influence of numerous factors.

First of all, one should remember such a direction of intercultural communication as trade, from which, according to a number of researchers, diplomacy grew in the future. Even in ancient Greek mythology, the cunning, dexterous and dodgy Hermes patronized the messengers and provided them with immunity, a kind of immunity granted by Zeus himself.

By tradition, the merchant went ahead of the envoy, and the first agreements that promote intercultural communication were dedicated specifically to trade contacts. The importance of concluding trade relations is also confirmed by the fact that the texts of trade obligations were also presented on the tablets with letters reflecting the powers of the envoys.

Early texts of trade agreements date back to time immemorial and are mentioned in the Old Testament.

In the Middle Ages, there is a direct merging of diplomatic and trade relations. The most obvious example of this is the history of the famous Italian cities of Venice, Milan, Rome, Florence. Starting from the 15th century, trade and diplomatic missions were created there, which sent their consuls to the cities of the Middle East to establish and develop trade relations. Among Italian cities, trade was most important in Venice, a city that managed to reach the forefront in Europe mainly due to developed trade and diplomatic contacts.

It can be recalled that the foundations of the national diplomatic tradition in Great Britain were laid in 1303 in the famous merchant charter, and the formation of bilateral diplomatic relations between England and Russia took shape thanks to trade contacts.

The development of trade relations contributed to an active broad exchange. There was an acquaintance with the cultural achievements of various peoples, which contributed to the development of communication, intercultural communications, both at the interstate and at the non-state level. In the future, trade relations became an independent direction of interstate communication, although such forms of cultural relations as trade exhibitions and fairs, of course, should be attributed to a phenomenon with a bright cultural overtones.

Cultural ties have played an important role in the development of political dialogue in subsequent times and often really contributed to the change in the political climate. For example, the establishment of relations between the United States and China began with ping-pong competitions (“ping-pong diplomacy”), and contacts between the USSR and military regimes in Latin American countries were carried out mainly through tours of Soviet artists popular there.

However, despite quite natural economic and political interests, cultural contacts in international relations as an independent value began to be considered quite recently. Cultural ties have been complicated for a long time by the peculiarities of national, spiritual traditions, and issues of religious affiliation.

Often, it was cultural differences that became a brake on the development of interstate relations. For a long time, it was quite difficult to overcome these contradictions, since the established beliefs were based on the superiority of a particular culture or religion.

In the era of ancient civilizations and the Middle Ages, diplomatic protocol itself, based on national traditions and attitudes dating back to early centuries formation of statehood and national self-determination.

So "Metrics of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania", high-ranking Russian diplomats could not go to the same sovereign twice in a row "without prejudice to royal honor." In addition, the retinue of messengers consisted of 20-30, and envoys - of 150-200 people. The ambassadors were accompanied by a retinue of 300-4000 people.

The special missions of Russian diplomacy were also distinguished by incredible splendor. They included thousands of nobles, servants, cooks, barbers, priests, clerks, grooms and others. The organizational support of such a mission was extremely difficult and caused a lot of inconvenience for the host. However, during the Middle Ages, no steps were taken to limit diplomatic missions. According to the traditions of that time, it was believed that the splendor of the retinue of Muscovy and the representativeness of diplomatic delegations testify to the special significance of the event and the status of the country, which honors the host state.

In the Middle Ages, cultural ties were practically not considered as an important part of international relations. Only in the period of the New Age is there a realization that intercultural communications are not only an indispensable condition for the development of a broad interstate dialogue, but also a guarantor of solving numerous pressing problems.

In the 19th century, the traditions of international diplomatic protocol were gradually formed, allowing to bypass many of the difficulties of communication, within the framework of international relations they continue to develop various directions and forms of cultural ties.

The factor of culture, cultural ties is confirmed in the activities of public services. At the end of the 19th century, centers were created for the first time aimed at promoting national culture abroad. Dialogue in the sphere of culture has come to be seen as an important basis for resolving political, economic and other topical issues of international relations.

In 1883, the first non-profit public organization Alliance Francaise appeared in Paris, the purpose of which was to spread French culture abroad by organizing courses in French and regional studies. Very soon, its committees were established on the basis of local legislation in various countries of the world.

To date, Alliance Francaise offices are open in 140 countries around the world.

The experience of France soon found its continuation in the work of similar centers that arose in other countries of the world. In 1919, the Goethe Institute appeared in Germany, which aims in its activities to develop cultural contacts, as well as to study the German language and German culture in a foreign audience.

In the 30s of the twentieth century, the concept of one of the most powerful cultural organizations Europe - the British Council, which today is one of the most authoritative organizations in the field of cultural cooperation.

At the beginning of the 20th century, after the Socialist Revolution, a similar organization (VOKS), aimed at spreading Soviet culture abroad, appeared in the USSR. The All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (1925) performed various functions, had a wide geography of representativeness, and, using culture, successfully solved the problems of propagating political ideas.

Today, the activity of cultural centers is a completely independent area of ​​intercultural communication. There is practically no economically developed country with political weight that does not have such an organization. It can be noted that the activity of cultural centers largely reflects the political ambitions of countries seeking to build relationships with their political partners not only focusing on the current political situation, but also in the hope of developing a truly long-term multi-level interstate communication.

Cultural centers can be seen as an example of the successful development of bilateral international relations in the field of culture and intercultural communication.

However, intercultural communications in the modern world have quite successful traditions of developing dialogue on a multilateral basis. Thus, the first attempt to make intercultural relations an important source of international cooperation, a tool for building a world based on high humanistic ideals, dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, under the League of Nations, thanks to the desire of representatives of the creative and scientific intelligentsia, special sections and institutions were created, whose activities reflected the current problems of the development of intercultural communication in international relations.

The assembly of the international organization of the League of Nations in 1926 and 1931 approved the development of intellectual cooperation, which was soon represented by the following structures: the intellectual cooperation section of the secretariat of the League of Nations; the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation in Paris; International Institute of Educational Film in Rome.

The most significant organization in this area can be recognized as the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation, headed by the former major official of the League of Nations, Henri Bonnet.

The management of the institute was entrusted to the famous scientist Herriot. In a short period of time, in more than forty countries, the so-called special commissions of intellectual cooperation began their work in order to coordinate work with the Institute, which communicated with the Institute. In addition, independent committees and commissions of both a temporary and permanent nature arose in the League of Nations for certain topical issues cooperation. For example, the Commission on Radio Broadcasting, Library Exchange, and Museum Affairs.

The connection of states with the institute was also carried out through specially appointed state delegates. The institute itself also had a number of sections reflecting certain areas of intercultural cooperation, such as literary, artistic, etc.

The Institute's work was aimed at solving urgent problems of cultural exchange, using the powerful potential of the intellectual elite. different countries. In turn, she revealed numerous problems of a professional nature, a difference in approaches in the educational, artistic, and scientific spheres. The activities of the Institute for Intellectual Cooperation for the first time showed the importance of intercultural communication in the field of international relations at the multilateral level. Despite the fact that its work was interrupted by the events of the Second World War, in the future, the experience of the Institute was in demand in the work of the universal international organization in the field of culture UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), which arose in 1945.

Today, UNESCO can be called the most authoritative organization in the field of science, culture and education.

The main issues within the competence of UNESCO include:

– overcoming the deepening gap between developed and developing countries;

– maintaining the ecological balance and biological diversity of the planet;

– development of food and mineral resources of the oceans;

– ethical aspects of scientific and technological progress and the development of information and informatics;

– problems of population, urbanization;

- Problems of elimination of illiteracy;

– problems of preserving the natural and cultural heritage of mankind;

- the problem of human rights.

In the field of education, which is one of the main activities of this organization, UNESCO combines programs aimed at ensuring universal primary education, as well as at secondary and higher education, with assistance in the training of teachers and educators. Particular attention is paid to knowledge in the field of new information technologies, environmental sciences, and social problems.

In the field of natural sciences, UNESCO programs include research in the field of the biosphere, ecology, and climate.

In the social sciences, UNESCO conducts research on issues such as tensions leading to war, human rights, racism, and the relationship of man to his environment.

The multifaceted activities of UNESCO are aimed at stimulating and supporting creative activity, the study and development of cultures, the protection of world heritage, works of art, monuments, as well as original cultural traditions, attracting specialists from different countries, referring to the experience of the entire world community.

The most important normative acts adopted by UNESCO include:

the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage;

Declaration of principles of cultural cooperation;

the Convention against Discrimination in Education;

the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict;

Declaration on Races and Racial Prejudice;

a series of international and regional conventions on the recognition of documents on education;

To date, UNESCO has 186 member states, another 177 states have national commissions uniting representatives of education, science and culture, 588 non-governmental organizations constantly maintain official relations with UNESCO.

Of independent importance for the development of intercultural communication in the field of international relations is the legal framework, numerous treaties, agreements, official programs that determine the content and forms of intercultural communications, as well as those areas of cooperation that are of priority importance for certain countries.

Work in this direction is quite active in all countries. So, in Russia alone in the early 2000s, more than 70 agreements on cultural cooperation were concluded, more than 20 on cultural centers were signed. The Department for Cultural Relations and UNESCO Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation successfully developed intergovernmental programs of cultural cooperation for a two-three-year period. Today their number approaches 100 documents.

Regulatory and legal activity contributes to the development of intercultural communication at the state and non-state level, allows the successful implementation of certain projects and in many ways is the guarantor of stable, good-neighbourly relations, the development of intercultural communication.

It should be noted that the problems of intercultural communications are also directly reflected in the foreign cultural policy of many countries that develop their own concept of the development of international cultural relations, taking into account national interests, political and economic tasks.

The very problem of foreign cultural policy has not been sufficiently developed in scientific research, although, of course, the present direction of foreign policy activity has certain traditions and successful practice. In our opinion, under foreign cultural policy one should understand the complex of measures implemented by the state at the foreign policy level in order to achieve certain interests and to form a positive foreign policy image. These efforts are aimed at directly or indirectly promoting national culture abroad, as well as providing its citizens with ample opportunities to get acquainted with modern achievements in the field of science, culture and education in other countries. It follows from the proposed definition that one of the central elements of foreign cultural policy should be maximum openness and tolerance towards representatives of other cultures.

As follows from this definition, the main, most common goal of the foreign cultural policy of any state is to form its positive image by familiarizing other peoples with their culture, as well as to promote the implementation of the process of intercultural interaction, to establish mutual understanding between peoples through the organization of cultural exchanges, the development of cultural ties, the strengthening of good neighborly relations. However, one cannot ignore that most often the formation of a positive image of the state implies the creation of favorable conditions for solving political, economic and other tasks facing the state at the international level, i.e., it belongs to the sphere of foreign policy. The choice of foreign cultural policy priorities is also directly related to specific political, socio-economic and cultural realities and is consistent with the general interests of the state. Foreign cultural policy contributes to the development of intercultural communications, at the same time being an important area of ​​international cooperation.

Intercultural communication in the field of international relations is connected not only with the development of dialogue, the promotion of one's own culture abroad, but also directly with those urgent problems that arise in the field of culture and international humanitarian communication. One of them is the problem of cultural expansion. Today it should be noted that “the growing avalanche of American culture, Western cultural products often undermines the national foundations of other peoples, stifles their culture, languages, etc., leads to the commercialization of the spiritual sphere, makes other states put aside concern for the spiritual side of the life of their people to the background, giving preference to attempts to solve first the economic, financial, scientific, technical and other problems generated by globalization.

It is obvious that today it is not possible to solve many negative consequences of globalization processes without the participation of the state.

Intercultural communications in international relations can be called an important condition for political, economic and humanitarian cooperation. Without taking into account the main features of the communication process, it is quite difficult to build contacts in the modern world, both at the bilateral and multilateral levels. On the other hand, the direction, depth and content of intercultural dialogue largely depends on the characteristics of international relations.

For the very direction of scientific research, this problem is new, relevant and, of course, promising. Today, the work of specialists in this field is mainly developed within the framework of areas directly devoted to the activities of international organizations in the field of culture, research on topical issues of globalization, work related to the study of foreign cultural policy, etc.

Issues related to the formation of the image of the country abroad, also related to issues of intercultural communications, are of independent importance. In international relations, these topics are adjacent to the problem of the foreign cultural policy of modern states, the purpose of which, as noted above, is mainly reduced to the formation of a positive image of the country in a foreign audience.

Modern research devoted to the problem of intercultural communications, educational and methodological works, as a rule, are addressed to international specialists. Obviously, a diplomat, an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must have a certain level of competence in matters of intercultural communication in order to solve important political and economic problems. However, as we noted, international relations themselves are an important part of intercultural communications. To a large extent, they create conditions for the development of cooperation, which are enshrined in numerous agreements and documents of various status. It is the sphere of attention of modern international relations that includes numerous issues related to the preservation of language, culture, and the maintenance of cultural diversity. International relations is a completely official sphere of intercultural communications, on which, nevertheless, the development of a broad, democratic dialogue aimed at creating an atmosphere of friendship and trust between peoples based on respect for the diversity of cultures of the modern world depends.

The problem of intercultural communications in the field of international relations is also related to the issues of political communications, the formation of a positive image of the country, topics that deserve a more detailed and comprehensive analysis.

Literature on the topic

Required Literature

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The following excerpt from the book Intercultural communication and international cultural exchange: tutorial(N. M. Bogolyubova, 2009) provided by our book partner -

Varna identified six main obstacles, or "stumbling blocks" that hinder effective intercultural communication.

• 1. The assumption of similarities. One of the reasons for misunderstanding in intercultural communication is that people naively assume that they are all the same or, according to at least are similar enough to easily communicate with each other. Of course, all people have a number of basic similarities in biological and social needs. However, communication is a unique human trait that is shaped by specific cultures and societies. Indeed, communication is a product of culture. In addition, people from some cultures make more assumptions about similarities than people from others; those. the extent to which people accept that others are like them varies across cultures. Thus, the very assumption of similarities is a cultural variable.
• 2. Language differences. When people try to communicate in a language they don't know perfectly, they often assume that a word, phrase or sentence has one and only one meaning - the one they intend to convey. To make this assumption is to ignore all the other possible sources of signals and messages discussed in the previous two chapters, including non-verbal expression, voice intonation, posture, gestures, and actions. As people cling to single, simple interpretations of what is essentially a complex process, problems will arise in communication.
• 3. Erroneous non-verbal interpretations. As we have seen, in any culture, non-verbal behavior makes up the majority of communicative messages. But it is very difficult to fully understand the non-verbal language of a culture that is not your own. Misinterpretation of non-verbal behavior can easily lead to conflicts or confrontations that disrupt the communication process.
• 4. Prejudices and stereotypes. As mentioned earlier, stereotypes and prejudices against people are natural and inevitable psychological processes that affect all our perceptions and communication contacts. Relying too much on stereotypes can prevent us from looking objectively at other people and their messages and looking for clues to help us interpret those messages in the way we were meant to convey them. Stereotypes are supported by a variety of psychological processes (including selective attention) that can negatively impact communication.
• 5. The desire to evaluate. Cultural values ​​also influence our attributions to other people and the world around us. Different values ​​can cause negative assessments, which become another stumbling block on the way to effective intercultural communication.
• 6. Increased anxiety or tension. Episodes of intercultural communication are often associated with more anxiety and stress than familiar situations of intracultural communication.

Introduction

Intercultural communication- a relatively young direction in domestic science, which began to be developed from the beginning of the 90s. 20th century Probably, there is no need to search for evidence and arguments confirming the idea that without communication with their own kind, a person cannot become a normal being. A person cannot solve a single task of any importance for his life without the help of other people or any institutions. Prolonged isolation of a person from other people and from society leads to his mental and cultural degradation. But nature has not endowed people with the ability to establish emotional contacts and understand each other without the help of signs, sounds, letters, etc. Therefore, in order to communicate and interact with each other, people first created natural languages, and then various artificial languages, symbols, signs, codes, etc., allowing for effective communication. Thus, all methods, forms, systems of communication are created by people themselves and therefore are elements of culture. It is culture that provides us with the necessary means of communication, it also determines what, when and how we can use to communicate with the outside world.

"Culture is communication"- this famous thesis of one of the founders of the theory of intercultural communication E. Hall became an impetus for development in the 50-60s of the twentieth century. theory of intercultural communication. He points out that the concept of "culture" is a basic concept in intercultural communication.

In the most general way intercultural communication defined as communication between members of two or more different cultures. Intercultural communication is a set of various forms of relations and communication between individuals and groups belonging to different cultures. Hence the need arises to consider the problem of defining the concept of "culture".

The relevance of the problems of intercultural communication in modern conditions

The relevance of all issues related to culture has now acquired an unprecedented acuteness.

Increased interest in the study of the cultures of different peoples, bringing cultural studies to the fore, making it a scientific specialty by the Higher Attestation Commission of Russia; creation of specialized academic councils for the defense of candidate and doctoral dissertations in cultural studies; a stream of publications on the topic of dialogues and especially conflicts of cultures; creation of societies, associations uniting researchers of cultural problems; endless conferences, symposia, congresses on cultural issues; inclusion of cultural studies and anthropology in the curriculum for training specialists in all humanitarian areas and even in programs high school; finally, S. Huntington's well-known prediction about the third world war as a war of cultures and civilizations - all this testifies to a real boom, an explosion of interest in cultural problems. Unfortunately, behind this boom lie not only and not so much noble and creative motives of interest in other cultures, the desire to enrich one's culture with the experience and originality of others, but completely different reasons, sad and disturbing.

In recent years, social, political and economic upheavals on a global scale have led to an unprecedented migration of peoples, their resettlement, resettlement, collision, mixing, which, of course, leads to a conflict of cultures.

At the same time, scientific and technological progress and the efforts of the rational and peaceful part of humanity open up new opportunities, types and forms of communication, the main condition for the effectiveness of which is mutual understanding, dialogue of cultures, tolerance and respect for the culture of communication partners.

All this taken together - both disturbing and encouraging - has led to a particularly close attention to the issues intercultural communication. However, these questions are eternal, they have worried mankind since time immemorial. As proof, let us recall one proverb. Proverbs are rightly considered clots of folk wisdom, that is, the very folk cultural experience that is stored in the language and passed down from generation to generation.

Russian proverb, lively, usable, which, unlike many others, has not lost its relevance, teaches: They don’t go to a foreign monastery with their own charter.” Its counterpart in English expresses the same thought in other words: When in Rome, do as Romans do(When you arrive in Rome, do as the Romans do). So in each of these languages, folk wisdom tries to warn against what is now commonly called the term cultural conflict.

This phrase, unfortunately, is now “in vogue” for the already mentioned sad reasons: in the context of social, political and economic conflicts, numerous refugees, immigrants, suffer from conflicts with a “foreign charter” even in a prosperous economic situation.

To understand the essence of the term cultural conflict, you need to think about the Russian word foreign. Its internal form is absolutely transparent: from other countries. Native, not from other countries, culture unites people and at the same time separates them from others, strangers cultures. In other words, native culture is also a shield, guarding national identity people, and a blank fence, enclosing from other peoples and cultures.

The whole world is thus divided into its own people, united by language and culture, and into strangers, who do not know the language and culture. (By the way, the indisputable fact that for various socio-historical reasons, it was English that became the main international means of communication and therefore it is used by millions of people for whom this language is not their native language, not only brought enormous political, economic and other benefits to the English-speaking world, but also as if he deprived this world of a shield: he made its culture open, exposed to the rest of mankind. With the national love of the British for closeness - "my house is my fortress" - this seems to be a kind of paradox and irony of fate. Their national home was opened to everyone in the world through English language.)

The ancient Greeks and Romans called all people of other countries and cultures barbarians - from the Greek barbaros"foreigner". This word is onomatopoeic and is directly related to a non-native language: foreign languages ​​were perceived by ear as slurred bar-bar-bar(cf. Russian bolo-bol).

In the Old Russian language, all foreigners were called the word German. Here is how a Russian proverb of the 12th century characterizes the English: The Aglian Germans are not mercenary people, but they fight fiercely. Subsequently, this word was superseded by the word foreigner, and the meaning of the word German narrowed down to only those foreigners who came from Germany. Interestingly, the root of the word German-- German-, from dumb, that is German- this is a mute, unable to speak (not knowing our language) person. Thus, the definition of a foreigner was based on his inability to speak his native language, in this case Russian, his inability to express himself verbally.

Outlander from foreign lands and then foreigner from other countries, who replaced German shifted the emphasis from language proficiency (or, rather, lack of proficiency) to origin: from a foreign land, from other countries. The meaning of this word becomes complete and clear in opposition: native, native - foreign, that is, alien, alien, accepted in other countries. This opposition already contains a clash between their And stranger charter, that is, a conflict of cultures, so all combinations with words foreign or foreigner suggest this conflict.

The most obvious examples of culture clashes are simply real communication with foreigners both in their country and in their own. Such conflicts give rise to many curiosities, anecdotes, funny stories (“ours abroad”, foreigners in Russia, etc.), troubles, dramas and even tragedies.

An Italian family adopted a Chernobyl boy. At night, a bell rang at the Ukrainian Embassy in Rome: an excited female voice asked for help: “Come soon, we can’t put him to bed, he screams, cries, wakes up the neighbors.” An embassy car with an interpreter rushed to the scene, to which the poor boy explained, sobbing: “I want to sleep, and they put a suit on me!” Going to bed for the boy meant: to undress. In his culture there was no pajama, and even that looked like a tracksuit.

The Spanish firm agreed with Mexico to sell a large batch of champagne corks, but had the imprudence to paint them burgundy, which turned out to be the color of mourning in Mexican culture, and the deal fell through.

One of the versions of the death of the Kazakh plane during landing in Delhi explains the accident as a conflict of cultures: Indian air traffic controllers gave the altitude not in meters, but in feet, as is customary in English culture and in the English language.

In the Ukrainian city of Uman, during the traditional Hasidic convention in 1996, riots broke out due to the fact that one of the Hasidim splashed tear gas from a spray can in the face of one of the spectators on the street. According to the customs of the Hasidim, women should not be near men engaged in a religious ceremony. Apparently, the Ukrainian came too close - closer than the religious tradition allowed. The unrest continued for several days. The police officers, who arrived from neighboring cities to restore order, were explained the reason for the cultural conflict, and they began to vigilantly monitor the observance of the distance, warning women about the ban on invading the territory of a religious ceremony.

Saul Shulman, a well-known traveler and anthropologist, describes the typical conflict of cultures among Australian immigrants: “A Greek or Italian family arrives - father, mother and ten-year-old son. The father decided to earn some money in a rich country, and then return home. Five or six years pass, the money is accumulated, you can return to your homeland. "What homeland? the son wonders. “I am Australian.” His language, culture, homeland is already here, not there. And the drama begins, sometimes ending in the collapse of the family. The eternal problem of “fathers and children” is aggravated here by the alienation of cultures of different generations. It is not for nothing that immigrants often call Australia the “golden cage.”

A professional translator from the Indonesian language, I. I. Kashmadze, who worked for almost half a century in the highest circles of politics and diplomacy of the USSR, describes the visit of the head of the criminal police of Indonesia to our country: “At the end of the evening, General Kalinin, having decided to show “fraternal feelings” to the Indonesian guest, tried to kiss him on the lips, which caused the chief of police the deepest surprise.

Students from Thailand stopped attending lectures on Russian literature. "She's screaming at us," they said of the teacher, who, in accordance with the Russian pedagogical tradition, spoke loudly, clearly and clearly. This manner turned out to be unacceptable for Thai students, who are accustomed to other phonetic and rhetorical parameters.

A cultural conflict occurred between Russian students studying under the American program and teachers from the USA. Noticing that several students were cheating, American professors gave the entire stream an unsatisfactory grade, which meant both a moral blow and a big financial loss for Russian students. Americans were outraged by those who let them write off, and those who did not immediately inform the teachers about it, even more than those who cheated. The ideas "not caught - not a thief" and "the first whip to informer" did not have any success. All those who passed this written exam were forced to take it again and pay money again. Some Russian students, outraged by this situation, refused to continue the program.

A German business lady at an international symposium on the problems of interaction of cultures in the English city of Bath in April 1998 described her sad experience of creating a joint consulting firm with Russian partners in Riga: “It turned out that for my Russian friend our friendship more important than business. A year later, we almost lost it.” It is this lady who owns two aphorisms that are quite typical for a situation of conflict of cultures: 1) “doing business in Russia is like walking through the jungle in high heels”; 2) “Russia is loved mainly by teachers of the Russian language; those who do business there hate Russia.”

"Gift" conflict often spoils business and personal relationships. In Russia, it is customary to give gifts, flowers, souvenirs much more often and more generously than in the West. Western guests usually perceive this not as breadth of soul and hospitality, but as eccentricity, as hidden material well-being (“they are not at all so poor if they give such gifts” - and their Russian partners can be much poorer than they look: they simply observe the requirements of their culture) or as an attempt to bribe, that is, they see in such behavior motives that are offensive to selflessly trying Russians.

An American teacher of English at Moscow State University at the ceremony of issuing diplomas to graduates, having received albums on Russian art and Russian porcelain as a gift, presented her parting gift - a huge box in a beautiful "Western" package, tied with a ribbon. It was opened right on stage. It turned out to be ... a toilet bowl. In such an “original”, but completely unacceptable, from the point of view of the culture of the hosts, way, she apparently wanted to show that she did not like the state of our toilets. Everyone was shocked. The next year she was not invited to work ...

Here is a recent example. The famous artist Yevgeny Evstigneev had a heart ache. In a foreign clinic, he underwent a coronography and, as is customary with Western doctors, they brought a graphic image of the heart and explained everything in detail and directly: “You see, how many blood vessels do not work for you, an urgent operation is needed.” Evstigneev said "understandable" and died. In the traditions of our medicine, it is customary to speak softly, sparingly with the patient, sometimes resorting to half-truths and “white lies”. Each of these paths has its own advantages and disadvantages - it is not about their assessment, but about what is familiar and accepted, and not what is new, unusual and therefore frightening.

It is absolutely clear that the problem of cultural conflicts affects all types of human life and activity in any contacts with other cultures, including "one-sided" ones: when reading foreign literature, getting acquainted with foreign art, theater, cinema, press, radio, television, songs . Types and forms of intercultural communication are rapidly developing (one Internet system is worth something!).

In contrast to the direct, immediate conflict of cultures that occurs during real communication with foreigners, such contacts and conflicts with foreign culture (books, films, language, etc.) can be called indirect, mediated. In this case, the cultural barrier is less visible and less conscious, which makes it even more dangerous.

Thus, the reading of foreign literature is inevitably accompanied by an acquaintance with a foreign, other country's culture, and a conflict with it. In the process of this conflict, a person begins to become more aware of his own culture, his worldview, his approach to life and to people.

A vivid example of the conflict of cultures in the perception of foreign literature is given by the American anthropologist Laura Bohannen, who retold Shakespeare's Hamlet to the natives of West Africa. They perceived the plot through the prism of their culture: Claudius is a fine fellow for marrying his brother's widow, this is what a good, cultured person should do, but it had to be done immediately after the death of her husband and brother, and not wait a whole month. The ghost of Hamlet's father did not fit into consciousness at all: if he is dead, then how can he walk and talk? Polonius aroused disapproval: why did he prevent his daughter from becoming the mistress of the leader's son - this is both an honor and, most importantly, many expensive gifts. Hamlet killed him quite correctly, in full accordance with the hunting culture of the natives: hearing a rustle, he shouted “What, a rat?”, But Polonius did not answer, for which he was killed. This is exactly what every hunter in the African forest does: when he hears a rustle, he calls out and, if there is no human response, kills the source of the rustle and, therefore, the danger.

Books banned (or burned at the stake) by one or another political regime clearly testify to the conflict of ideologies, the incompatibility of cultures (including within one national culture).

In such an explosive situation, complex and noble tasks are acute for science and education: firstly, to explore the roots, manifestations, forms, types, development of cultures of different peoples and their contacts, and, secondly, to teach people tolerance, respect, understanding of other cultures . To accomplish this task, conferences are held, associations of scientists and teachers are created, books are written, in educational plans both secondary and higher educational institutions introduced culturological disciplines.