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 novelty of this research results from distinguishing the notions of etiquette, speech etiquette, and politeness; introduction of the notion of etiquette space, which is defined as a structure including interlocutors, standardized (etiquette) situations, etiquette norms and rules, and cultural values; discovering common features of various etiquette situations, and the causative factors of the ritualization degree in everyday communication; classifying everyday etiquette situations by the degree of their ritualization; cognitive (frame) modelling of stereotypical etiquette situations; comparing and contrasting the etiquettes of Ukrainian speaking and English speaking, British, American and Australian in particular, cultures; discovering how everyday etiquette behaviour and the choice of verbal and nonverbal communication means are guided by cultural dominant values; revealing the etiquette sign plasticity and how it enables a sign form to vary and agree with interlocutors’ cognitive and pragmatic preferences, degree of cultural tolerance, and mundane everyday behaviour.

The comparative analysis of English and Ukrainian speaking etiquettes revealed that mandane everyday behaviour is grounded in shared mental models (frames). However, it exhibits culture-specific modifications at frame content level and means of its manifestation.

The discussion of theoretical issues concerning the inclusivity relations between etiquette and speech etiquette, relatedness of politeness to etiquette, and ties between etiquette and ritual, contributed to the treatment of etiquette as a universal phenomenon, an integral constituent of cultural and social life. Etiquette establishes rules and norms of social interactions, regulates strategies and tactics of politeness, and ensures conflict-free communication. Speech etiquette provides successful implementation of interlocutors’ pragmatic intentions, facilitates the establishment and maintenance of contact, harmonises forms and conditions of communication.

The achievements in the study of speech etiquette in diachronic, sociological, pragmatic, cognitive, and semiotic aspects proved that this phenomenon requires a complex, multidisciplinary approach. 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.

This research also addresses a range of issues concerning the specificity of etiquette as a semiotic system, properties of verbal and non-verbal etiquette signs, their functional traits. The main properties of 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 the 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).

An amicable and successful involvement into an everyday etiquette situation presupposes a knowledge of its normative and evaluative aspects: a knowledge of the scenario (required and/ or accepted sequence of performance), a knowledge of rules of behaviour (for instance, prescribed for greeting another), and awareness of evaluative judgements. A knowledge of these aspects is stored as a mental frame, which components are arranged in a certain sequence. The content level of frame structures is manifested by verbal, paraverbal and non-verbal means of expression to meet culture-specific requirements and behavioural stereotypes of interlocutors.

Despite the differences between English and Ukrainian speaking cultures, communication is successfully executed in multicultural settings when etiquette norms and politeness rules demand particular modes of behaviour. The implementation of 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 democratization of social behaviour rules. The Australian etiquette norms are liberalized to favour the increase of emotional involvement and expressivity of interlocutors. On the other hand, intimization, 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 etiquette situations, their manifestation in written and business communication as well as in various types of communication involving speakers of different polycentric languages.