Current communicative knowledge in the system of the social sciences and humanities in the university curriculum

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Current communicative knowledge in the system of the social sciences and humanities in the university curriculum

Gutsalo Emiliia

Formulation and justification of the relevance of the problem. The issue of communication and communication education in today's science, viewed from a sociocultural perspective, presents an interesting dilemma.

During the past several decades, we have witnessed an increased interest in scholarly research, professional practices, and a higher education perspective toward what one may call a «communication agenda». Today, regional universities are offering communication-related programs, including specialized communication areas, such as Advertising and Public Relations and Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, which just a few decades ago did not exist. One can also see a growing number of communication and related courses elsewhere in the university curricula. The very terms communication (kommunikatsia), commu-nication studies (kommu-nikativistika/kommunikologia), and communication competencies (kommunikativnie kompetentsii) not only have become an active part of the academic vocabulary, they have also become integrated into broader social discourse. The «communication agenda» has thus become a part of the discussions among various groups of scholars and practitioners. These discussions arise in traditional academic communities, in alternative intellectual circles, and in the business space.

One could claim that these trends seem to manifest a growing development and institutionalization of the study of communication as an academic field. However, can one really support this claim? What do we actually know about the development of communication as a discipline, particularly as manifested in academic communities in the regional universities, many of which still maintain a more traditional structure of learning? How can we even define that there is (or there is not) a «problem with communication education?» There is a striking lack of empirical research that could support our informed perspectives on the status of the development of communication as a discipline.

Analisis of recent research and publications. The study implements a sociocultural approach and draws from a set of ideas (Baxter, 2011; Craig, 2008; Pearce, 2007; Shepherd, John, & Striphas, 2006) which allow a look at «the problem of communication in society», or the formation of the discipline as a cultural discourse, or better yet, as an interplay of discourses about communication [2; 3; 4; 5; 11; 13].

The phenomenon of human communication, its nature, and role in the society has attracted a good many people thinkers within different disciplinary traditions: linguistics, philology, literary and arts studies (Mikhail Bakhtin, Dmitriy Likhachev); existential philosophy (Nickolai Berdyaev) and humanistic, psychology (Tamara Florenskaya); semiotics (Yury Lotman); methodology of systems thinking (Georgiy Schedrovitsky); and social perspective (Arkadiy Sokolov), just to name a few. Among these disciplinary perspectives and intellectual traditions, the psychological tradition particularly stands out. It was the work of renowned psychologists in the second half of the twentieth century (A. N. Leontiev, S. Rubinshtein, B. Lomov, A. A. Leontiev, L. Buyeva, A. Bodalev, V. Myasischev, B. Parygin, P. Yacobson, G. Andreyeva, M. Kagan, etc.), who examined the issue of communication in its broadest theoretical, philosophical, sociocultural, and sociopsychological context. This school of thought has been deeply integrated and remains influential in the academic curriculum for social science and humanities in universities.

Most work of those authors dates back to the second half of the previous century, and at that time, the general term used to define the phenomenon, both in the common language and academic discourse, was obshenie (pronounced obsh-yen-i-ye).

The purpose of the article. Based on this line of research and with this framework in mind, the authors decided to explore what perspectives on communication and communication studies exist in academia today, by posing the following research question: How do educators conceptualize communication and communication studies?

The maine material of the stuty. Specifically, the study is informed by the following set of propositions from Craig's [5] theory of disciplinarity:

The development of communication as a discipline, and as a practical discipline, can be understood in terms of three factors: intellectual (contributions to knowledge in certain intellectual traditions, offering intellectually rich and distinctive disciplinary perspectives on the practice), institutional (evolving professional - institutional forms and structures), and sociocultural (how the discipline can address important social practices and problems that are regarded as important by the general public). All are necessary for the formation of a practical discipline, all constitute the sources of its legitimation, and all are interconnected. Yet, the third factor - sociocultural context and relevance - has, as Craig maintains, a primary role.

Academic disciplines are not founded upon eternally fixed categories of knowledge; they are discursive formations that emerge, evolve, transform, and dissipate in the conversa-tion of disciplines, maintained by communities of scholars.

The evolvement, growth and legitimacy of academic disciplines also depend upon how they are reflexively involved with broader cultural practices, with discourses throughout society, and how they resonate with cultural practices, concepts and beliefs.

The latter particularly applies to practical disciplines, of which communication is one, that is, disciplines that help to cultivate the very practices that constitute the discipline's specific subject matter. «A practical discipline typically emerges and is considered important not because of some intellectual breakthrough ... rather a practical discipline grows to prominence because it credibly purports to be useful for addressing some range of practical concerns already acknowledged as such in a society» [5, p. 9].

In that school of thought, obshenie was conceptualized as a broadest social category, along with the other funda-mental category, social activity. In his influential book, Psychology of obshenie, A. A. Leontiev (1974/1997), a prominent member of the Leontievs' dynasty of psychologists, presents a comprehensive overview of how obshenie has been conceptualized in that psychological tradition. Based on his overview, we summarize that perspective as follows: 1. The primacy of obshenie: it is the main form of interactions between people, «the way and means of actualizing social relations» [8, p. 238], «the way of the internal organization of the society» [8, p. 21]. 2. Obshenie has multiple goals - it may serve to establish or increase mutual understanding or togetherness, or in contrast, serve to disconnect people like psychological warfare or the spreading of rumors. 3. Obshenie can be a distinct activity (such as a teacher's talk, which is an educational communicative activity) or can be subservient, as a means of supporting a different, non-communicative activity (such as collaborative manufacturing production). 4. Obshenie can be socially oriented (public speaking, mass interactions) or personally oriented (interpersonal, dyadic). Socially oriented obshenie serves as a means of self-regulation within a group or society; personally oriented obshenie serves to coordinate positions between partners, exchange information, or clarify and regulate relationships. 5. Obshenie, whatever kind it may be, is intended to bring about change into the recipient's field of meanings. 6. Obshenie may be viewed and studied from multiple disciplines' perspectives, including psychology, linguistics, and sociology.

Leontiev defines obshenie as «a system of purposeful and motivated processes for the interaction of people in collective activity, realizing social and personal psychological relations by using special means, primarily language» [8, p. 240]. As we can see, this definition (if we look beyond the words into the meanings) illustrates, along with the principles outlined above, that obshenie is conceptualized by this school of thought in many ways similar to how human communication is conceptualized in modern US scholarly perspectives.

Leontiev states that obshenie and communication can be viewed as synonymous. However, as the term kommunikatsia (коммуникация) penetrated more and more into the discourse in the 1960s and 1970s (and as some authors believe, much under the influence of the information-cybernetics approach), there came about more attempts to differentiate obshenie and communication [1; 6; 10]. This line of work is attributed, to a great degree, to the social psychologist Parygin, known as a pioneer of the national social psychology. In his earlier work, Foundations of sociopsychological theory [10], he argues that since communication was viewed at that time as an information exchange process, through the lens of an informational approach, it was critical that obshenie not be reduced to communication.

Another influential social psychologist, Kagan [6], followed this informational approach, stating that obshenie cannot be equated to communication, if communication is viewed as message transmission or even a message exchange. Obshenie is a process of generating new information, common to the persons engaged and creating their togetherness [6, p.149]. Kagan emphasizes obshenie as a creation of togetherness.

Parygin, in his effort to capture the richness and multidimensional nature of obshenie, introduced dimensions which were later developed by Andreyeva [1] into a structural model of obshenie. According to that model, obshenie can be structured as having three sides, or three dimensions: communicative (informational), interactional, and perceptual. To date this model is widely appropriated by the mainstream textbooks in general and pedagogical psychology. In his later works, Parygin [10] states that obshenie not only cannot be reduced to the information process, the same is true about communication as well. His broader view of communication involves contact, connectedness, and interconnectedness of individuals in the process of obshenie.

The focus and scope of this work does not permit for a deeper analysis of different perspectives on this issue: how obshenie was viewed in relation to communication/kommunikatsia in different schools of thought, the evolution of those views, and what debates took place on this issue in the history of philosophical/ theoretical psychology. However, we should emphasize the following points. The phenomenon of communication in the scholarly tradition has been traditionally captured by the theoretical concept of obshenie. The concept was at the focus of study particularly in psychology of the Soviet period, and those psychologists made a particularly rich contribution to understanding the nature of the phenomenon. The need to conceptualize obshenie in relation to communication has evolved as the newer term kommunikatsia has been increasingly appropriated into the discourse. Earlier approaches to this issue by the Soviet psychologists manifest that the problem, to a great degree, was: how to understand what is communication. Those scholars who viewed communication/kommunikatsia primarily through the lens of an information approach established the supremacy of obshenie over communication.

Today, there is a wide array of works introducing more modern and diverse approaches to communication and articulating it as a distinct area of research and knowledge. However, the struggle, or better to say interplay, between the two concepts and the two paradigms continues. As stated, «one of the challenges nowadays lies in the fact that there is a certain gap between the classical heritage of psychology and the newly borrowed ideas from international intercultural practice and communication theory» [7, p. 90].

The academic field of Social Sciences and Humanities is traditionally represented in the structure of higher education institutions and their curricula by such classical humanities disciplines as linguistics, philology, language studies (including teaching foreign languages), journalism, psychology, pedagogy, and philosophy. These disciplines are deeply rooted and have a well-established status in the system of higher education. Their schools and departments (fakultety and kafedry), and their areas of training are still the most prevalent in the structure of regional universities all over the country. Recently, programs in sociology, management, public administration, business and law, culturology, and public relations have also become popular in regional universities (the situation with the leading national universities has been somewhat different).

The authors has undertaken an exploratory study to find out how communication, communication studies, and communication education are viewed today academia, particularly among faculty members at universities and institutions of higher education. The study particularly targets faculty members in the field of social sciences and humanities because they are the primary «intellectual force» responsible for educational practices and they are the ones who form and frame perspectives on a given discipline.

Survey question: How the participants understand communication. It is important to note that there are two words that denote communication: kommunikatsia and obshenie. communicative education advertising

Both words are translated into English as communication, but the first word has a latin origin, and the second word is of russian origin where the root also means «shared, having in common». In everyday discourse, the term kommunikatsia traditionally has been associated with the technical means of connection, while obshenie commonly means human interaction and connectedness. In recent decades, the meaning of the term kommunikatsia has broadened - it is often used in standard combinations such as intercultural communication, social communications, or communicative competencies. Thus, both terms kommunikatsia and obshenie are used quite often, and sometimes interchangeably. However, an ambiguity exists: it is not uncommon to hear questions or inquiries about how the two terms are different.

The results show that the respondents associate communication most frequently with four terms/concepts: obshenie (approximately 60% of responses), interaction (about 37%); information, information forwarding and information exchange (about 22%), and connection, connectedness (about 17%).

Other associations include such words as dialogue, feedback, understanding, contacts, the other, discussion, empathy, togetherness/commonness, conversation, and speech. However, those associations are fairly infrequent and constitute 1% or less of all responses. It is interesting to note that while obshenie was named in this question most frequently, understanding, in contrast, was named only a few times.

Some respondents introduce setphrases, or cliches: intercultural communication, nonverbal communication, communication theory, communication competencies, communication culture, referring to them as commonly used either in their own disciplines or as a part of broader academic, or even everyday vocabularies. The use of such setphrases (like communication competencies) suggests that the terms have become an integral part of a regular academic vocabulary. However, it does not mean that people who use them can clearly describe what those words mean to them - and this is what some respondents openly admit in their comments.

Some participants gave a more extensive description of communication. For example: an ability to construct/structure relationships, an ability to explain one's own point of view (teacher of municipal governance); an ability to express one's own thoughts and listen to what a conversation partner has to say (teacher of english as a foreign language); an encounter and a conversation between persons, search for understanding and agreement (teacher of philosophy) ; a variety of different forms of relationships and obshenie between/among individuals and groups (teacher of philosophy); experiencing/living through, encounter, life, breathing, development, culture (teacher of psychology); communication is: two-sided, effective, correct, coherent (teacher of culturology). One can see an expected trend here: quite often, those definitions and elaborations represent the participants' disciplinary affiliations, and as such can be seen as projections of the participants' disciplinary identities. For example, teachers of foreign languages tend to identify communication with instrumental language skills: to conduct a conversation, to express one's own thoughts, and understand what the other has to say; while teachers of philosophy and psychology tend to express a broader view on communication as a characteristic of human existence.

Survey question: Obshenie versus kommunikatsia. As stated earlier, most scholars associate communication with obshenie, and survey item aimed at shedding more light on how the respondents see a difference between the two concepts. The results show that participants express a wide array of opinions and conceptualizations, which may be categorized into the following three perspectives:

Kommunikatsia is a broader category than obshenie; they relate as whole and part, obshenie being a form of kommunikatsia. The rationale for this approach is that «obshenie implies a direct contact between interacting individuals, while kommunikatsia can be also mediated» (teacher of philosophy); or «obshenie is an interpersonal communication, something which is more specific in relation to kommunikatsia» (teacher of sociology). This perspective was expressed most frequently by those who teach philosophy or have a social science background.

Obshenie is broader than kommunikatsia, it embraces kommunikatsia as a component. This perspective was expressed mostly by respondents who teach psychology and pedagogy, which is also representative of their disciplinary affiliation. As mentioned earlier, this perspective is rooted in a long-standing psychological intellectual tradition, and it was adopted by the Soviet theory of pedagogy. Pedagogy has been known as a discipline, the theoretical foundation of which was «based on» psychology. So, there is a reason why most faculties who represent the departments of pedagogy and pedagogical, psychology express this particular view.

An additional explanation of why obshenie is broader than kommunikatsia is provided by a psychologist: kommunikatsia can be viewed as «a situation of obshenie». In other words, this respondent views kommunikatsia as situational versus obshenie as immanent to human nature.

Kommunikatsia and obshenie are synonymous, they have close meanings and can be viewed as similar concepts, yet at the same time with their own connotations: obshenie characterizes interpersonal interactions, while kommunikatsia has an additional connotation as exchange of information; kommunikatsia is a scholarly term, obshenie is a more conversational, «humane» term; kommunikatsia denotes something more artificial, purposefully designed, intentional; obshenie is more natural, humane; kommunikatsia is technological, obshenie is closer to philosophy; kommunikatsia requires reflexivity and reflection, while obshenie does not; kommunikatsia is rational, and obshenie is more emotional; obshenie is something psychological; it has a stronger psychological component; kommunikatsia is goaloriented, purposive/purposeful; it has pragmatic expectations, while obshenie is not like that, sometimes it can be foolish («have no sense»). «On the one hand, these terms can be viewed as synonymous; on the other hand, the term kommunikatsia seems to be used talks very seldom (mostly by specialists, although it's not clear of what kind), except for the phrase communication culture» (teacher of pedagogy).

Obshenie and kommunikatsia are two separate concepts (this perspective was expressed by those respondents who teach philosophy): kommunikatsia is first and foremost a process of transmitting information between two interconnected systems, including antropo- sociocultural systems; it is a process of coding and decoding information or meanings (teacher of philosophy); obshenie characterizes specifically the relationship between human subjects; it is a way of being, characterizing a person interconnected with other people. Obshenie cannot be reduced to just exchange of information or social and psychological contacts. It is a much more complex process (teacher of philosophy).

In summary, an analysis of responses shows that in participants' perceptions, the two concepts obshenie and kommunikatsia are associated with different sets of meanings and connotations. Kommunikatsia is associated mostly with information and information exchange, channels, technological dimensions, purposefulness, strategies, and effectiveness. It is also viewed as orderly, correct, or rule-governed, artificial, and pragmatic. Conversely, obshenie is associated with humans and humanness, human psychology, person-to-person connectedness, dialogue, feedback, and emotions. It is also viewed as being natural, not orderly, to the extent of being foolish and messy. One more distinction that can be drawn from responses is that kommunikatsia is viewed as situational (or, as we would define, syntagmatic), while obshenie as immanent (or paradigmatic).

One could posit that this conceptualization of obshenie by respondents is fairly close to the concept of interpersonal communication in English. However, unlike with interpersonal communication in the US tradition, where understanding of the other, other-orientedness, interconnectedness and interdependence are recognized as the basic cornerstone principles, the accounts on this question do not seem to frequently connect obshenie to understanding the other, taking the other's perspective. The terms understanding and mutual understanding, empathy and the other were referenced only a few times.

Many respondents refer in their accounts to a structural model of obshenie traditionally established through the discipline of psychology. In that model, the process of obshenie is structured as having three dimensions or components: communicative (information transmission and exchange), interactional, and perceptual. This supports the conclusion that this theoretical perspective is still among the dominant ones in the academic discourse, particularly in the field of pedagogy, including foreign languages, and psychology. An information exchange model of communication also seems to be well adopted by many faculties (and may be considered as another communication-related discourse); yet, conceptually, it does not contradict, but rather extends the existing psychological model.

Many respondents (including the ones who do not represent psychology and pedagogy) associate kommunikatsia/communication with information and information transmission and exchange, which implies that the faculties' perspectives may not be informed by other theoretical perspectives and ideas about communication, such as transaction model, constitutive model, co-construction and negotiation of meanings, communication as a flow of social meanings, or ideas that emphasize the constructive and transformative role of communication.

Conclusions and prospects for further researches of directions

Based on the analysis of responses, we may conclude that there are three related, yet, separate terms in the academic vocabulary: terms obshenie and kommunikatsia, and a foreign language term communication. How these terms will integrate or coexist in the future, will depend on numerous factors. Among those are theoretical developments in the field.

So far, we can see that there is no emerging consensus on how the participants view kommunikatsia and obshenie. In fact, the presented views are often oppositional, and in terms of frequency, no perspective among the four groups prevails over others. This indicates, among other things, that currently existing theories in humanities have not yet addressed this conceptual challenge by offering a comprehensive explication, elaboration, and comparative analysis of the two concepts and that the theoretical work of developing these constructs and perspectives still lies ahead.

References

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