Everyday Etiquette Situations in English Speaking and Ukrainian Speaking Cultures: Comparative Perspective.

Abstract

This study addresses the issues of everyday etiquette situations in various cultures. The purpose is to establish shared and culture-specific rules of speech behaviour.

The comparative analysis of the etiquette in British, American, Australian, and Ukrainian speaking cultures is complemented and extended by cognitive and semiotic perspectives. The conclusion drawn from a cognitive approach is that etiquette manifests internal mental processes and embodies mental models of everyday behaviour. In addition, A semiotic approach adopted for the study of etiquette can illuminate the etiquette sign plasticity and complexity, as well as explain variations in its form and content.

The main properties of the etiquette signs are those connected with complexity, multimodality, form and content variability, functional flexibility, and combinatorial potential. The complexity of the etiquette signs is created by integration of their components appealing to different sensory modalities. Paraverbal and non-verbal means of communication accompany verbal interaction and thus increase the etiquette sign plasticity, making its form and content more variable and adoptive to different types and conditions of social behaviour.

It can be argued that the etiquette space embraces subjects of interaction, etiquette situations, etiquette signs, norms and rules, and dominant values. In this respect, it is possible to distinguish several types of everyday etiquette situations relying upon their ritualisation degree. They include the least ritualised daily situations (“Greetings”), occasional situations (“Receiving Guests”), festive situations (“Birthday Celebrations”), the most ritualised ceremonial situations (“Weddings”).

Despite the differences between English and Ukrainian speaking cultures, communication is successfully executed in multicultural settings when the etiquette norms and politeness rules demand particular modes of behaviour. The implementation of the etiquette rules in everyday communication is determined by cultural and historical traditions, changing social settings as well as gender. A significant factor leading to differences in the etiquette acts sequence, their means of expression, is the speakers’ cultural identity defined by either collectivism or individualism. In amicable everyday interactions, the British etiquette tends to establish and preserve the most personal space of speakers. The American etiquette values the economy of communicative efforts and democratisation of the social behaviour rules. The Australian etiquette norms are liberalised to favour the increase of emotional involvement and expressivity of interlocutors. On the other hand, intimisation, i.e. more personal mode of interaction, is appropriate in the Ukrainian conduct. With numerous manifestation differences, everyday etiquette situations in English speaking and Ukrainian speaking cultures share such fundamental properties as functional relevance, basic frame structure, simulations use of verbal, paraverbal and nonverbal means of expression, types and forms of employed formulae.

The results of the study may suggest a broader hypothesis for further research into a diachronic investigation of the etiquette situations, their manifestation in various types of communication involving speakers of different polycentric languages.