Communication culture is a complex collective concept that determines the quality and level of perfection of communication. The culture of communication is considered an inseparable component of the culture of the individual. It characterizes value guidelines and normative postulates, moral models of communication, the essence of the moral and psychological qualities of the subjects of communicative interaction, methods, tools, rules, techniques and forms of communication.
The culture of communication contains a set of practical techniques, mechanisms and rules. Cultivated communication allows an individual not to transfer conflict situations in the professional sphere to the emotional and personal area of interpersonal interactions, to understand the meaning and motivation of the opponent’s actions, to reduce or completely eliminate excessive emotional outburst in relationships.
What is meant by “communication”?
Communication is a very complex intellectual process. It includes creating new contacts and developing them. A person feels the need to carry out joint activities with other people.
Joint practical activities, in turn, imply a full exchange of information and the development of a common interaction strategy. It is also important to be able to understand other people.
Communication is how we influence other people. Communication allows you to effectively organize joint theoretical and practical activities.
Through communication, a person is able to develop and maintain interpersonal relationships. This, in turn, allows you to assimilate other people’s experience, accumulate knowledge and skills. Communication plays a big role in satisfying spiritual needs. With the help of communication, people adopt other people's beliefs and views, assimilate new moral aspects and experience new feelings.
We believe that when it comes to communication between people, the central concept in this type of activity should be the concept of “culture of communication”.
In order to better understand the meaning of this term, you need to break it down into its components and initially discuss each individual word.
Functions
- Communication is the leading function of speech etiquette for communication between people.
- Stylistic - the concept of the style of language and speech.
- Normative - about the norms of language and speech, unacceptable vocabulary, the laws of everyday and business speech etiquette.
- Exemplary - templates for the best oratorical speech.
- Cognitive – through the principles of speech etiquette, understanding the world around us.
- Cumulative - accumulation of knowledge about the culture of the language and speech etiquette in order to improve the connection between generations.
“Culture” from the point of view of researchers
The term “culture” today is characterized by different authors in completely different ways. In everyday life, culture is often understood as a behavioral pattern that one should follow. Some define culture as intelligence. It is believed that culture is a quality of a person’s personality.
From a theoretical point of view, culture is a feature of society that reflects the current level of development and determines people’s attitude towards other people and towards nature. Some perceive culture as the creative abilities of an individual. Others refer to culture as a characteristic of society as a whole.
There is also a point of view that culture is the material and spiritual values of a person. Culture demonstrates the degree of development of society as a whole and of a given individual. Culture determines how creative activity is carried out, how new knowledge is acquired, stored and transmitted to other people.
According to psychologists, culture is a fairly stable personality property, which includes a worldview and axiology and demonstrates a person’s attitude towards other people and the world around him.
Although culture is often perceived as a property of an individual, the cultural values prevailing in society characterize its state as a whole. Part of culture is morality, which is nothing more than a norm adopted by society for building relationships between its individual members. Morality must be objective and have social significance.
Morality of communication
There is also the term “communication morality.” It has a synonym – “communication ethics”. These are all humanistic norms and values taken together that affect relationships between people.
Ethical standards are based on the fact that it is necessary to respect your own dignity and the dignity of those around you, all people are equal, relationships between them must be built on the principles of humanity and justice. The main motives that determine a person’s behavior are his habits, values, needs and beliefs.
What is etiquette?
We understand the term “etiquette” as a set of rules concerning the behavior by which a person shows his attitude towards others. This affects areas such as the way a person speaks, greetings, clothing and mannerisms. If someone follows the rules of etiquette pedantically, this does not make the person highly cultured, because etiquette is not just rules that should be manifested externally.
True culture comes from the heart of a person and is based on how he truly relates to the people around him.
The same applies to children. Their culture of communication should also be based on respect for adults and peers, and a friendly attitude towards them. Also, the child must have a developed vocabulary that would allow him to produce the necessary forms of address. This also includes skills for polite behavior in everyday life and in public places.
Communication culture and its norms
According to the works of M.A. Chernyshev’s culture of communication is the norms of interaction between people existing in society. These norms are the reference standards for communication within a certain social group. Each nation has its own culture of communication, which is reflected in its national identity.
The culture of communication can be compared to the unique stamp of each nation. After all, every nation has its own unique history of development, national traditions and way of life formed over centuries.
If we consider the culture of communication in a narrow sense, then this is the extent to which a person has mastered the communication skills accepted in the society in which he is located.
The culture of speech is an integral part of the culture of communication. According to the works of A.M. Gorky, purity of speech is the main way to preserve human culture as a whole. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to cultivate a speech culture in people. A preschooler must have a sufficient vocabulary, be able to succinctly express his thoughts and feelings, and speak calmly in any circumstances.
Various situations
Let's consider ordinary everyday situations that happen to everyone, but not everyone knows how to behave correctly. To avoid becoming a subject of ridicule and receiving snide remarks about poor upbringing, pay attention to standard sets of sentences.
Congratulations and gratitude
The standard words of gratitude are: thank you and thank you. You can get by with them or add many epithets. The main thing is to speak sincerely and not repeat the same thing ten times. As a result, the quality of what is said is lost. Gratitude comes with an expression of emotion - I am touched, so pleased, very grateful.
Congratulations according to the rules of speech etiquette in an official setting sound like this:
- Please accept my congratulations.
- On behalf of or on behalf of you, we congratulate you.
- Let me congratulate you.
During personal family holidays or on an anniversary, it is customary to say:
- My heartfelt congratulations.
- I want to wish you with all my heart.
Invitation and proposal
According to communication etiquette, invitations to special or family events differ. For public events, it is mandatory to issue invitations in paper form and back them up with words - we invite you. An invitation to corporate events is considered semi-official. To do this, it is enough to gather the team and say: “Come to the celebration, which will take place at the specified time.” An informal invitation to relatives and friends is based on the principle - come to my birthday. A personal meeting is not required, just a phone call.
Expressing suggestions and wishes is typical for managing your subordinates. Such things should happen in the correct form, without a commanding tone. For example, I want to advise you or would like to suggest.
Condolence, sympathy and apology
Speech etiquette prescribes the behavior of people when it is necessary to support a person in a difficult situation. In the case of a funeral, it is customary to offer condolences in simple words. When expressing sympathy, phrases aimed at encouragement are used: I understand you, it’s okay - it happens to many people, you did the right thing, don’t be upset. According to etiquette and culture of communication, an apology for an offense is unacceptable in an arrogant tone with a favor.
Compliments and praise
A compliment is expressed by a standard phrase, which is supported by additional words depending on the level of proficiency in speech etiquette. Compliment and praise always go hand in hand and are perceived equally. Typical examples of phrases:
- You look great.
- You are a good specialist.
- You are so witty.
- It's a pleasure doing business with you.
Culture of communication in preschool age
Preschool age is the time when children learn the basic grammatical features of their native language. Children learn to produce simple speech utterances. At this age, it is already necessary to teach children to address adults by name and patronymic, using the pronoun “You”.
Already at this age, you need to work on the purity of pronunciation, teach children to speak at a calm pace, without stretching out the words, but also without speaking in a tongue twister.
When a teacher organizes various joint activities as part of educational activities, children try to adjust their speech, taking into account the content of the material, the rules of the lesson, and watch their words. However, it is important to accustom the child to the culture of speech in normal everyday communication.
A child must have the habit of adhering to ethical standards in any type of activity, including during independent activities. Speech culture has a beneficial effect on the activity of communication between peers during the game and helps to avoid numerous conflicts.
Correct speech
Correct speech is compliance with the linguistic norms of the modern literary language. From the point of view of the norm, speakers and writers evaluate speech as correct (norm) or incorrect (error).
The norms in the modern Russian literary language are phonetic, lexical-phraseological, word-formative, morphological, syntactic, stylistic.
Phonetic norms are the norms for the pronunciation of sounds of the modern Russian literary language (for example, museum [z'], trifling [shn], sweater [t], text [t], etc.); placing emphasis in words (for example, call (call, ringing), quarter, begin (started, began, started), understand (understood, understood), etc.) and maintaining the correct intonation.
Lexico-phraseological norms are the norms for the use of words and phraseological units in their characteristic lexical meaning (for example, courtyard: A new servant was appointed coachman for a young master; butler: The butler gave orders to the rest of the servants) and norms for combining words and phraseological units with other words in a sentence (for example : elderly person (not “old horse”), brown eyes (not “brown stockings”), etc.).
Norms of use and norms for combining words and phraseological units are studied in vocabulary and phraseology and are reflected in dictionaries.
When using words and phraseological units, the following types of lexical and phraseological errors are observed:
- the use of words and phraseological units in an unusual meaning, for example: “buy a cannonade”; “to hit the thumbs with an axe”;
- the use of non-literary words (dialectal; new formations unusual for the language, for example, “elderly horse”, “brown stockings”, “ate Demyan’s ear”.
Morphological norms are norms of inflection when declension of nominal parts of speech, pronouns, participles and when conjugating verbs (for example, hot coffee, fresh corn, Darwin (not: Darwin), five pairs of stockings (boots, boots, felt boots) five pairs of socks, five oranges, eggplants, hectares, tangerines, tomatoes, rails, five barges, a poker, five apple trees, sleighs, candles, apples, towels; preparing for the Eighth of March, etc.).
With non-normative inflection, morphological errors occur, for example: “no time”, “prettier”, “lie down”, etc.
Syntactic norms are the norms for constructing syntactic structures - phrases and sentences. When constructing phrases and sentences in a non-normative manner, syntactic errors arise, for example: “approaching the city, a business conversation began between them.”
Stylistic norms are the ability to use the linguistic means inherent in a particular functional style. Failure to master the ability to use linguistic means in accordance with the requirements of the style leads to stylistic errors, for example: “Express gratitude to the conductor”; “Pretty little rivers flow through the Russian plain.”
Communication structure
Communication culture is a structural system that consists of the following elements: communication, interactivity, perceptivity.
If a person has formed a culture of communication, then he has a whole system of moral beliefs that are part of his personality. In order to effectively implement a culture of communication, you need to master the technology of building relationships in a variety of circumstances. The qualities that a person exhibits, his behavior - all this is an indicator of how well his communication culture is formed.
Today, science divides the culture of communication into three main components: the normative component, the communicative component and the ethical component.
If we single out the most important one among these three, it would be the normative component. It is based on literary norms and the ability to use them in one’s own speech. However, it is not always necessary to speak correctly. After all, it is also important to consider who the speech is for and how knowledgeable this person is about the topic and interested in it.
How to develop eloquence
Anyone, if desired, can learn to express their thoughts competently and beautifully, present information in an engaging manner, and speak in front of a large audience without fear. In order to develop eloquence, you need to use the methods of rhetoric:
- A speech in front of a large audience is thought out in advance. You need to make a short outline of the story, practice several times in front of the mirror;
- Any opinion put forward by the speaker (storyteller) must be confirmed with the help of logical arguments (they also need to be thought out in advance) or examples from life;
- You need to present your thoughts sequentially, leaving listeners a little time to think about the content of what was said;
- To attract the attention of the audience, you need to use different intonations, highlight important thoughts in a special voice;
- A voice that is too loud quickly tires and distracts attention, while a quiet voice does not allow listeners to concentrate;
- It is better to avoid monotonous speech and too abstruse, long phrases; they “lull” the audience’s attention.
Communication methods
Human language uses a huge arsenal of methods that allow you to find the most suitable words in order to explain the essence of the issue under discussion.
It is necessary to choose such language tools that allow you to effectively complete the tasks for which communication is organized at the moment. And how well a person copes with the choice of these means is the communicative component of the culture of communication.
If we talk about the aesthetic component, then this is how well a person observes the norms of social behavior, whether he shows respect and goodwill towards the people around him, and whether he knows how to behave tactfully and delicately.
So, in this work, the culture of communication is understood as all the combined knowledge and skills that allow people to carry out purposeful interaction, during which they adequately select and use suitable means of communication, are able to predict the impact of the speech produced on the interlocutor, and are able to understand information coming from others .
Today, science divides the culture of communication into three main components: the normative component, the communicative component and the ethical component.
Rhetoric
Successful interaction with society depends on the development of communication skills and experience. A high position in society requires a person to be able to express his thoughts beautifully. Many politicians, public figures, and business leaders were able to achieve heights of success thanks to their eloquence and fruitful communication with people. It is difficult to imagine a general, diplomat, or president who cannot speak competently.
Rhetoric is a science that teaches the art of beautiful and correct speech. It originated in the period of Antiquity and was very popular among the ancient Greeks and Romans. All male representatives of noble origin were taught the art of oratory so that in the future they could become successful politicians, orators, and military leaders.
Today, the ability to persuade, prove one’s point of view, and speak in front of large audiences is necessary for representatives of any public professions: journalists, teachers, TV presenters. Even without a natural talent for eloquence, you can learn this thanks to the methods of the science of rhetoric.
