Speech etiquette patterns as regulators of communicative behavior in English and Ukrainian languages

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Oles Honchar Dnipro National University

Speech etiquette patterns as regulators of communicative behavior in English and Ukrainian languages

Aksiutina T.V.

Abstract

The article aims to study general English speech etiquette patterns as socially and culturally determined norms or rules that regulate communicative behavior in English-speaking community. The notion speech etiquette and its components are analysed emphasizing that such patterns make the behavior meet the etiquette requirements of a given speech community. Communicative patterns are postulated as practical representatives of communicative etiquette and etiquette communicative behavior in relevant lifestyle communication. To this end, the article under review proves the necessity of teaching etiquette communicative behavior patterns of English-speaking communities to EFL learners in Ukraine.

Taking into account the components of speech etiquette, the topmost level would naturally be the division of communicative behavioral patterns according to the areas of communication where they are taught. Following this broad division, the relevant communicative behavioral patterns are distinguished. On top of this, the article gives a comprehensive analysis of grammar structures and lexemes that are embraced by the speech etiquette. To achieve these goals, the study draws on texts published in the British media, as well as transcripts of oral and written interactions, and draws heavily on the politeness theory proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987). The relevance of the study of the theory of politeness is clearly visible even in modern linguistics. Learning and knowing the rules ofpoliteness contributes to the achievement of communicative goals, therefore, the analysis of politeness theories as a basis for further research on speech etiquette has become widespread among modern researchers.

Key words: intercultural communication, speech etiquette, communicative behavioral patterns, politeness theory, communication situation.

Аксютіна Т.В.

Мовленнєвий етикет як регулятор комунікативної поведінки в англійській та українській мовах

Анотація

english-speaking community speech etiquette

У статті проаналізовано особливості мовленнєвого етикету як соціально та культурно зумовлених норм або правил, що регулюють комунікативну поведінку в англомовній спільноті. Досліджено, що такі патерни забезпечують відповідність поведінки етикетним вимогам певної мовленнєвої спільноти. Комунікативні патерни постулюються як практичні репрезентанти комунікативного етикету та етикетної комунікативної поведінки у відповідному стилі спілкування. У зв'язку з цим у статті обґрунтовано необхідність навчання етикетних моделей комунікативної поведінки англомовних спільнот студентів, які вивчають англійську мову як іноземну в Україні.

Беручи до уваги складові мовленнєвого етикету, надано поділ моделей комунікативної поведінки відповідно до сфер спілкування. Відповідно до цього широкого поділу виокремлюються відповідні моделі комунікативної поведінки. Крім того, у статті подано всебічний аналіз граматичних структур і лексем, які охоплюються мовленнєвим етикетом. Для досягнення поставлених цілей дослідження обрано тексти, опубліковані в британських ЗМІ, а також транскрипти усних і письмових інтеракцій, і значною мірою, теорія ввічливості, запропонована Брауном і Левінсоном (Brown and Levinson, 1987).

Ключові слова: міжкультурна комунікація, мовленнєвий етикет, комунікативні моделі поведінки, теорія ввічливості, ситуація спілкування.

Introduction

A British Professor Gillian Brown once defined communication as a risky business presuming its complex character that requires a complete and interdependent connection between the members of communication [18]. Any aspect of communication, either verbal or non-verbal, is socially and culturally regulated, that is, it follows some norms accepted in a speech community, some rules of conduct and interpretation. In the same vein, when referring to communication between people from different cultures, we conclude that it comes primarily out of an interpersonal orientation, and addresses the mutual negotiation of social reality among participants with different cultural perceptions, beliefs, values and social customs which greatly determine their communication style. In daily intercultural communications, it is necessary to pay attention to the code that governs the expectations of social behavior, or the conventional norm. These codes required by good breeding and expected to be obeyed are called etiquette, according to the definition given in New Webster 's Dictionary as “the rules of behavior standard in ... society” [25]. Etiquette is equivalent to protocol, decorum, courtesy, etc. Etiquette today is based on treating everyone with the same degree of kindness and consideration, and it consists mostly of common sense. No intercultural communication is done without involving some etiquette rules. Differences in cultural conventions can lead to difficulties, misunderstanding in the communication between peoples with different cultural backgrounds. The etiquette awareness assumes not only the knowledge of the social customs but enhances self-esteem and character with emphasis on socially acceptable behavior in communicating with foreigners. The latter, in its turn, enables you to get self-reliant when communicating with foreigners.

Problem statement

According to Judith Martin, etiquette determines a social behavior. “If you're a hermit on a mountain, you don't have to worry about etiquette; if somebody comes up the mountain, then you've got a problem” [17]. Speech etiquette is regarded as the system of fixed communication formulas that are prescribed by the society to maintain communication in a chosen situation in compliance with their social roles and positions in a formal and informal setting. In a broad sense, it embraces all rules of speech behavior, all speech permits and prohibitions related to the social characteristics of the speakers and the surrounding, on the one hand, and stylistic resources of the language, on the other. Speech etiquette sets the framework of speech rules within which meaningful communication should take place. However, even the use of conventional formulas requires sincere, friendly attention to the interlocutor.

Recent researches on the problem

Etiquette has been studied most deeply and comprehensively in linguistics, where it is usually regarded as a functional-semantic microsystem of linguistic units, socially determined and nationally specific, related to stereotyped situations, which regulate the rules of communicative behavior. Linguistics pays more and more attention to the theory of communication, focusing on patterns of people's communicative behavior as well as those of an individual linguistic personality and its formation [1; 2; 3; 7; 11; 13; 15; 17; 21]. Linguistic means are studied comprehensively accounting for national and cultural factors. There is a deep and constant interaction between language and reality, between the world of language and the world around us [14, p. 165]. Etiquette formulas are often phraseological entities, collocations, fixed phrases, and other linguistic means.

One of the attempts to consider socially accepted etiquette norms in the English language through the prism of models of communicative behavior was the universal theory of politeness [6], in which the “mechanisms” of politeness (mainly English) were used to explain the wide spread of indirect speech acts. Hossein Sadeghoghli and Masoumeh Niroomand (2016) confirm the original idea of Brown and Levinson's theory that in order to have a successful communication it is important to know cultural and social background as well as be familiar with politeness strategies that are aimed at avoiding conflicts and saving the `face' of the interlocutor [8]. The macro-strategy of maneuvering is set to reach a compromise at the verbal level in English-speaking cultures. It is aimed at social distancing, creation of communicative barriers and borders. It demonstrates to the listener the recognition of their independence, personal autonomy. These properties reflect the characteristic features of the English-language communication: highly developed possibilities for verbal maneuvering, avoidance of straightforwardness, and frequent usage of allegory, responsibility for the power of speech impact and the reliability of the utterances. Each of the communicative strategies has a characteristic linguistic design in the English language, reflecting the specificity of the sociocultural approach to communication.

The distancing strategy involves several lexical and grammatical means, a tense shift, on the one hand, and the use of modal verbs and the subjunctive mood, on the other.

The tense shift reduces the straightforwardness of instructions, orders turning them into a polite request. According to the British scholars, when referring to “distancing structures”, it is more appropriate to use Past or Future Simple in statements instead of Present Simple, that presupposes a certain shift into the past or future relative to the moment of the language, and gives freedom to choose replicas in response.

I hope you can lend me 20 pounds. - I was hoping you could lend me 20 pounds.

I think I'll borrow your bike for the afternoon if that's OK. - I was thinking I would borrow your bike for the afternoon if that's OK.

I'm afraid you'll need to fill in this form.

Passive voice makes it possible to present the action expected from the addressee not as his obligation, but as a generally accepted rule, which is another distancing strategy. Due to this, the speaker avoids direct pressure on the addressee, the obligation and prohibition are transmitted as indirectly as possible.

You are not supposed to smoke here.

Litter should be deposited in the appropriate bins.

Alcohol may not be consumed except at the Pavilion Bar.

English modal verbs, which due to their semantics convey a whole range of various shades of modality, are indispensable “politeness regulators”, allowing you to vary the degree of obligation to follow advice, the desirability of fulfilling a request, permission to perform an action, etc. Subjunctive mood also gives statements a certain amount of predictability and hypotheticality, increasing the distance between its content and pragmatic meaning.

`You should consult the doctor'

`Is there any chance of borrowing your notebook?'

`I'd like to speak to your husband if I may'

`Perhaps you might kindly call me and tell me where Kate is'

Doubting the possibility of completing the action to which the speaker induces the interlocutor, he/she thereby reduces the impact on them and helps, if necessary, to refuse to perform this action. Doubt can be expressed explicitly, as in I don't suppose you'd know the time, would you? [18, p. 51] or I don't suppose you could collect my books for me, could you?

In the English society, where emotional restraint and self-control are valued, the word emotional (емоційний), along with effusive (нестримний), demonstrative (нестриманий), excitable (збудливий) have negative connotations (Stop behaving so emotionally! / Her effusive welcome made us feel most uncomfortable [10]), and the word emotionalism refers to an excessive manifestation of emotions, a state in which a person loses control over them (it is curious that there is a funny idiom in English to characterize a drunk person - tired and emotional, which literally means втомлений та емоційний. At the same time, the adjective dispassionate (спокійний, холоднокровний, безпристрасний) is treated positively [20, p. 545].

For many cultures, the British appear cold, overrestrained, their behavior is often regarded as arrogant, snobbish, and indifferent. The expression stiff upper lip is well known, which is often used to indicate stiffness, arrogance of the English and has a negative connotation, however, as dictionaries specify, it means the ability to remain calm, not to show one's feelings in difficult and unpleasant situations - “ the quality of remaining calm and not letting other people see what you are really feeling in a difficult situation” (Through all these tragedies he kept a stiff upper lip [24]; British people are taught to keep a stiff upper lip and show no emotion [23])

This behavior is not accidental, and specifies the English culture where the strategy of social distancing assumes emotional self-restraint, and strict norms of speech etiquette [21, p. 254].

In addition to distancing, it is also appropriate here to mention uncertainty avoidance, which G. Hofstede named among the key dimensions to quantify cultural differences. High uncertainty avoidance cultures (the UK, Germany, France, etc.) have a high value on control, which means that having a set structure in everything of their life helps. The use of rigid rules assists them with defining what they believe in and how they behave. The development of new ideas makes them uncomfortable [9, p. 125]. The avoidance strategy involves the use of a certain set of structures that soften the sharpness of the expression and make it less straightforward. These are introductory phrases, impersonal sentences (those that imply probability), formulas for polite answers and questions (Would you like to come to my birthday party? Why don't you visit the museum after lunch?), affirmations in the form of questions and answers (I am just wondering whether you would like to come over), etc.

For example, when the communication should be expressed indirectly: “Couldyou pass the report next to you?”, it is necessary to minimize the degree of intervention, “I just want to ask you if I can borrow a piece of paper”. You need to apologize: “Sorry to bother you, could you tell me the time?” etc.

The emotional restraint, according to A. Wezhbits- kaya [21], is manifested, in particular, in the fact that in the English language there is no word similar to the Ukrainian реготати, which means to laugh selflessly, without holding back , at your pleasure; while there are words for other types of laughter: chuckle (хіхікання, пирхнути від сміху), giggle (хіхікання, хіхікаті), cackle (регіт, хіхікання, кудахтати від сміху). All three English words giggle, chuckle and cackle mean something different than hearty laughter, while the last two words - chuckle and cackle, denoting conscious and controlled actions, have no analogues in Ukrainian. As an equivalent to the word регіт, Ukrainain-English dictionaries sometimes give the word guffaw (реготня), which, unlike giggle and chuckle, is not a commonly used word, and its semantics reflects the disapproval of unrestrained loud laughter.

The allusion strategy is a characteristic feature of emotive communication. The main goal of this anti-conflict strategy is to regulate the degree of emotional impact on the interlocutor, smoothing out “sharp corners” by reducing the significance of the statement, especially in emotive speech acts through various kinds of assumptions. This strategy aims to demonstrate respect towards the personal feelings of the interlocutor, which requires delicate behavior. At the level of speech, it is achieved through the targeted use of modal modifiers and several other lexical- syntactic structures, such as

a) implicit negation and explicit negation (understatement):

I'm not pleased with his manners = I'm definitely disgusted

I'm not particularly keen on TV or I'm not keen on TV=I hate TV

It is not quite that easy; You see, it is not easy = It is very difficult

He didn't tell me anything about it = He told me nothing about it

b) implicit and double negation:

He has little idea how engines work = He has no idea how engines work

He hardly ever speaks in public = He never speaks in public

He lacks courage to give it up = He doesn't have courage to give it up

His plan is not devoid of drawbacks = His plan is full of drawbacks

The interlocutor's communicative support strategy primarily implies enhancing the significance of the statement and exaggeration, which can be interpreted as excessive politeness, the function of which is to demonstrate or emphasize one's interest in the interlocutor.

Still, we have had a very enjoyable evening, haven' t we, Tom? said Mrs. Dalby, who had plainly had nothing of the kind but was a polite woman' [15].

When referring to this strategy, communicants mean less than they say. However, their exaggerations cannot be considered “false”, since the function of exaggeration is to achieve a pragmatic result: “I want you to feel good”, and in this desire, the English-speaking interlocutor is quite sincere.

This feature is clearly manifested in the frequent use of expressive emotionally appraisal remarks characteristic of many communicative situations of communication: Thank you very much. I had a great time. The food was exquisite (leaving one's house); Oh my God! This is too much. I really love it. It's gorgeous. (gratitude for a present); Great. That would be lovely. Thank you very much (reaction to an invitation).

The findings of the empirical study clearly showed that emotivity is an integral feature of English communicative behavior, which is characterized by the frequent use of emotionally loaded lexical units, such as expressive adjectives (lovely, fantastic, fabulous, superb super, terrific, stunning, ravishing, gorgeous, brilliant, marvelous, smashing), which are widely used in assessing the interlocutor's appearance, their qualities, skills, actions, often insignificant: You're absolutely fantastic (thanks in doing the washing up); Your rice is terrific. It looks incredible.

There is also exaggeration in the way the English express their attitude to what is happening or being observed. Hyperbole such as How absolutely (completely) marvelous (extraordinary, devastating, incredible, fantastic, wonderful, delightful, ravishing, divine, amazing, unbelievable) is one of the features of colloquial English [4, p. 35]. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that they contain not so much an assessment as emotional support for the interlocutor.

Positive politeness strategy (bonding) is aimed at reciprocity, cooperation, mutual understanding, reducing the distance. Based on common knowledge and common experience, the speakers have information about mutual obligations and mutual desires. Aiming to mask the threat to the positive face of the interlocutor, they try to show that they respect the desire of the interlocutor to have his or her own opinion [3]. This peculiar feature of the English communicative behavior explains the fact that in the English dictionary there are several adjectives meaning уважний - considerate, thoughtful, obliging, kind: дбайливий - careful, thoughtful, considerate, solicitous [RAS]. Unlike Ukrainians, the native speakers often use these adjectives in formulae of gratitude assessing the interlocutor's actions. The discrepancy between the use of these adjectives in English and Ukrainian communication is manifested in the following examples:

Thank you very much for your gifts. That's very kind and thoughtful of you (подяка за подарунок).

Thank you very much. It was thoughtful of you to call (подяка за дзвінок).

In English communication, expressing gratitude, interlocutors more often evaluate each other's qualities, rather than actions, which is manifested in several evaluative verbal adjectives that do not have their literal equivalents in Ukrainian: thoughtful, helpful, supportive, welcoming.

The English formula of gratitude Thank you very much, you've been so helpful and supportive corresponds to Ukrainian Щиро дякую за допомогу та підтримку. While the norms of the Ukrainian communicative behavior require to respond so for the help or support given, in English communication it is enough that the addressee listened to the question and showed interest in it.

When saying goodbye, the English often wish (Have a nice day / Have a relaxing afternoon / Have a great evening / Have a lovely week-end), which is also a sign of attention to the addressee, or use such remarks as Take care / Take it easy. Their pragmatic function is to say something pleasant to the addressee at parting, to demonstrate interest in them.

Great attention to the interlocutor is also reflected in many other speech acts (evaluation, compliment, gratitude), and are closely connected with another strategy of positive politeness - exaggeration.

I am sorry. I am so terribly sorry (вибачення за запізнення).

Thank you very much for your generous hospitality. You are so kind. I really do appreciate that (подяка).

That's absolutely fantastic. Your performance was brilliant. I really enjoyed it (комплімент, оцінка гри).

In these examples, exaggeration is manifested in using lexical superlatives (fantastic, brilliant, generous, spectacular, superb, gorgeous), intensifiers (terribly, absolutely, really, so, do), a verb with an emotional semantic component (enjoyed), a combination of these linguistic means within one utterance. The combination of these lexical and syntactic means (lexical hyperbole and repetitions) aims to show attention to the interlocutor, emphasize interest in them, provide communicative support, and demonstrate their sympathy.

At the grammatical level, tag questions, which are one of the features of the modern spoken language, serve as a means of implementing the strategy under consideration. These questions do not necessarily require answers, they are used to establish a common point of view, confirm similarities in views, opinions, and also signal that the speaker admits the possibility of a different opinion [ 20, p. 40; 4, p. 17]: He isn't coming, is he? / Lovely day, isn't it? / The flowers are gorgeous, aren't they?

Conclusion

The basic principles in using etiquette patterns are not about politeness only, but also about the compliance with the register of the communicative situation. Differences in speech registers change the speech patterns of communicators' behavior, therefore, affect selection of etiquette formulas. A speaker or author can change their communication style depending on the following factors: 1) time; 2) place (dinner, office, business meeting); 3) social status (of both the speaker and the addressee); 4) communicative competence (of both the speaker and the addressee). Etiquette rules can differ depending on whether the topic of conversation is sad or funny.

One should mind there are a great variety of synonymous formulas of speech etiquette that allows achieving the desired result from the communicator. For example, if a British person wants to return a greeting from an interlocutor, he will optimistically say: “Okay, thanks'" or “Not so bad, thanks.” Unlike the Americans, the British try unnecessarily not to use foreign or unknown (special) words, jargon, vulgarism, vernacular, dialects. In American English, one can increasingly come across the so-called professional and corporate jargon used by representatives of specific professions. American English is the language of large multinational companies.

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