Additional models of speech communication (to the problem statement)

Tarasov E.F.

Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor.
Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences
e-mail: eft35@mail.ru

 

The article is devoted to the problem of language functioning, which, paradoxically, remains unsolved to this day. Our article – This is an attempt to discuss one of the possible approaches to solving this problem.

The unsolved problem of the functioning of language can be explained by at least two interrelated reasons: firstly, the extreme complexity of the object of analysis, exceeding the cognitive capabilities of linguists; secondly, the inadequacy of the conceptual apparatus of linguistics, oriented only towards the analysis of external links of speech messages, substantial (objective) and therefore observable, in the complete absence of scientific instruments for the analysis of internal links, non-substantial, ideal, mental. This idea can be expressed more radically: linguists, armed with a unique conceptual system that allows for careful and masterful observations of the substance of language and its permanent transformations over time, find themselves powerless before the problem of analyzing the mental processes that form the internal links of the production and perception of speech messages, which are not inferior in complexity to the external links, only because linguists, being fascinated by the apparent simplicity of speech communication (everyone can speak and communicate), approach the analysis of the internal links with inadequate knowledge.

Looking ahead a little, without developing arguments, we can say that the production and perception of speech is possible only in joint disciplines and, in particular, in psycholinguistics, which has a composite conceptual apparatus for the analysis of both external and internal links in the production and perception of speech.

As a consequence of the inadequacy of linguistics' conceptual apparatus for analyzing language functioning, linguists are forced to construct reductionist models of speech communication (SC) as models that reflect the structure of complex human interaction, the organization of which (in the form of joint activity) is the sole purpose of which the processes of speech production and perception actually unfold. Therefore, researchers of language functioning face two problems: why can the SC model be considered a tool for analyzing speech processes, and why is it reductionist?.

Let's turn to an analysis of the RO model. In most studies, RO has been described using an activity-based model (subject → object), according to which the speaker (writer) conveys a verbal message to the recipient in order to control their behavior, ignoring the fact that the act of describing (analyzing) RO can be carried out from three different perspectives: the speaker, the recipient, and an outside observer. Typically, the analyst unconsciously switches from one perspective to another. It can be assumed that the ambiguity of the analyst's position is provoked by the practice of reading fiction, where the author's position is fundamentally ambivalent. This would not be a major problem if the practice of ignoring the RO analyst's reflection on the author's position in the work of fiction were not carried over into the scientific analysis of RO.

One can raise the question of the consequences of the researcher's lack of reflection on the analyst's position. The consequences, first and foremost, are that the researcher, when analyzing the speech utterance, is not aware of the position from which he describes the speech utterance, although the first researcher of the functional varieties of speech, L.P. Yakubinsky, in his pioneering work "On Dialogic Speech" [8, pp. 17-18], tried to describe, with the precision accessible to linguistic science in the first quarter of the twentieth century, what he called "factors of a sociological order" that determine "modifications of speech.".

After L.P. Yakubinsky's work "On Dialogic Speech," which he considered a preliminary study due to the absence of "even raw material on this issue," numerous works were created on the sociology of mass communications (G. Lasswell, P. Lazarsfeld, N. Wiener), the theory of propaganda (G. Lasswell), the theory of typing man (M. McLuhan with his work "The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Printing Man"), most of which have the status of a specific scientific sociological methodology, creating a basis for the construction of middle-level theories, within the framework of which alone the study of RO is possible.

Models of RO, at least in domestic linguistics, are built on the basis of specific scientific linguistic methodology, primarily on the basis of the works of the functionalist direction – These are the works of members of the Prague Linguistic Circle: K. Bühler, R. Jakobson, Yu. S. Stepanov, V. A. Avrorin, and L. Tenier. Models of language functioning were fundamentally reductionist, as they did not reflect all the factors determining the processes of production and perception of speech messages: the functions of language, as linguists understood them in the 20th century, do not explain the full complexity of speech processes.

Probably, only the general psychological theory of activity by A.N. Leontiev allows us to satisfactorily explain the external and internal links of speech processes, because, firstly, it outlines the structure in which speech processes unfold, and secondly, it points to the role of speech processes in the process of organizing social interactions between members of an ethnic group, which determines speech processes.

When analyzing speech processes, it is appropriate to proceed from the premise that a person cannot survive alone in society, as most of their needs can only be satisfied through cooperation (joint activities (JA)) with other members of society. To organize JA, employees must define 1) a common goal (or goals), the achievement of which is motivated by 2) a need (general or individual for each employee), 3) analyze the conditions of each JA participant's actions, and 4) select the tools and methods (operations) for their use. All these tasks are accomplished through speech messages in JA. However, JA, in turn, must be organized by communicators. To achieve this, it is necessary to attract and retain the recipient's voluntary attention, orient them within their cognitive capabilities and their need-motivational sphere (and orient them within themselves), and create an atmosphere adequate to the conditions and objectives of communication, i.e., demonstrate the real or perceived limitations of the communication process that must be taken into account when selecting linguistic means.

Thus, to explain the problems of speech production and perception, it is appropriate to proceed from the position that communicators use speech messages to organize speech perception, which, in turn, is aimed at organizing speech perception, which directly determines speech perception and, indirectly, speech processes.

Now we must point out an important prerequisite for any symbolic communication: the need for an optimal community of consciousness of the communicants, which in the epistemology of science has received the designation of intersubjectivity – «the commonality of mental structures, thought processes, experience and results of knowledge of various subjects, ensuring the possibility of mutual understanding and socio-cultural personal identification» [6, p. 300].

It should be noted that the problem of the commonality of the psychological makeup of individuals, primarily consciousness, formed by the active appropriation of ethnic culture by an individual, is well reflected in philosophy and science [2, 7].

The primary and sufficient quality of any sign (linguistic or non-linguistic) is that it possesses a substance perceptible to human sensory organs, but this substance, by itself, lacks the potential to serve as a means of mutual understanding without a prior agreement on the shared knowledge associated with the substance of a specific sign. Consequently, in addition to a shared cultural knowledge, communicants must also share a shared knowledge of language, which is part of the culture.

It follows that, contrary to the common metaphor of "information transfer," knowledge associated with sign bodies is not transmitted, as it already exists in the communicants' consciousness. It is from this pre-existing knowledge that the recipient constructs new knowledge through the analysis of the grammatically formed chain of sign bodies in the perceived speech message. The inadequate notion expressed by the metaphor of "information transfer" should be replaced by the notion of creating conditions for the construction of images (schemas) in the recipient's consciousness by presenting them with chains of linguistic (and non-linguistic) sign bodies for meaningful perception.

The commonality of consciousness of communicants is never complete, since consciousness, being a product of the active appropriation of ethnic culture, is unique both in content and in volume, reflecting the individual life path of each subject of consciousness.

The practice of RO and SD shows that the same verbal message is understood differently: this is indicated by cases of polemics (disputes), when opponents offer different understanding and comprehension of the same thesis, and the experience, for example, of training astronauts to perform SD in space, when they repeatedly practice the same joint action in order to avoid inconsistency, which is fatal in the conditions of stay in space.

An analysis of the influence of the communicative position of the recipient of the content of a speech utterance was carried out within the framework of an experimental study [5, pp. 236-249]. In the experiment, in which the content of the experimental text was assessed using the method of semantic differential of C. Osgood, it was shown that the understanding of a speech message fundamentally depends on the position of the subject (the position of the author, the position of the recipient and the position of an outside observer).

When studying RO, it's reasonable to assume that each communicant has their own individual image of the RO situation, and these images may differ widely. We will attempt to demonstrate the reasons for these discrepancies.

The SD goal of the employees must either coincide in advance, or its commonality must be formed during the course of cooperation, since only the presence of a common goal transforms individual efforts into SD [4, p. 232]. The SD goal of its participants may not coincide only at the first stage of cooperation, which can lead to a natural divergence in their SD images.

The motives of employees striving for identical goals may overlap completely, partially, or not at all. The specific nature of the "interweaving" of motives affects the organization of the SD plan [4, p. 23].

Selection operations (methods) The organization of both non-speech and especially speech actions depends on the assessment of physical and, above all, social conditions, which may not coincide (especially when assessing social conditions), although this determines the selection of stylistically colored lexical units that are important for achieving mutual understanding.

The difference is cognitive abilities of employees SD is directly reflected in the adequacy of the SD images of each employee: the greatest difference in these images is formed during communication between an adult and a child, a layman and a specialist (if the topic of communication is within the competence of the specialist), and speakers of different ethnic languages and cultures.

Thus, it can be assumed that phenomenological prerequisites exist for the conclusion regarding the presence of discrepant images of the same act of RO among communicating subjects. If we accept the thesis of complementary images (models), then a completely natural question arises about the cognitive benefits that the principle of complementarity, introduced by N. Bohr, can bring to the analysis of RO. Considering the success with which the possibility of conducting a narrative from different positions is used in fiction, one can expect, at least, similar results in science, especially since the principle of complementary methods of analysis is widely used in sociology under the name triangulation [1, p. 487, 10].

The researcher, reflecting on the content of the communication, successively assuming the positions of the communicants as the first, second, and third-party observers, can integrate their images (models) of the communicative act in their own mind. This, however, can be done by each communicant from their own perspective and from the perspective of their partner, forming an image of themselves in the latter's mind, and, in all likelihood, less often from the perspective of the third-party observer. Therefore, it can be concluded that by proposing an analysis method using additional models, we simulate the actual behavior of communicants, i.e., in the analysis method, we reflect the properties of the object of analysis.

In addition, we rely on tradition, since the method of additional models was used by M.M. Bakhtin [3] to analyze the so-called polyphonic novel, in which the author speaks not only in his own voice, but also in the voices of his characters, creating the illusion of the subjective independence of his characters: «The multiplicity of independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses, the genuine polyphony of full-fledged voices, is indeed the main feature of Dostoevsky’s novels» [3, p. 10].

The reader of Dostoevsky's polyphonic novels comprehends the content of the author's "speech utterance" from the position of all the subjects of the novel – heroes and the author himself.

Bakhtin's method of analysis – This is a theoretical-literary analysis (as he calls it), when the research takes place entirely in the analyst’s consciousness, i.e. the analyst examines only his own consciousness, ultimately obtaining, although unique, subjective judgments that are not verified in the experiment.

Triangulation, as a modern method of analyzing social phenomena, is an eclectic approach implemented by combining in the study of one object 1) different types of data, 2) different researchers, 3) different theories (approaches), 4) different methods [10]. The triangulation approach is an object of metascientific reflection and is widely used in scientific research [9]. For our purposes, the triangulation approach – This is an example of multiple scientific truth, illustrating the possibility of ambiguous understanding of an object (including a speech message) depending on the cognitive capabilities of the subject of knowledge.

 

CONCLUSIONS

1. Voice message – This is a set of bodies of linguistic signs with which the recipient of this message associates certain knowledge that partially coincides with the knowledge of the speaker, reflected in the speech message.
2. A speech message functions normally in speech and non-speech contexts, the understanding of which by communicants does not fully coincide, which leads to variability in the understanding of the same message.
3. The analysis of the reasons for ambiguous understanding of the same message can be carried out within the framework of the triangulation approach.

 

Literature

1. Abercrombie N., Hill S., Turner E.S. Sociological Dictionary. Moscow: "Ekonomika", 2004.
2. Abulkhanova K.A.. On the subject of mental activity. Moscow: Nauka, 1973. 288 p.
3. Bakhtin M.M. Collected Works. Vol. 6. «Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics», 1963. Works from the 1960s–1970s. Moscow: Russian Dictionaries Publishing House; Languages of Slavic Culture Publishing House, 2002. 799 p.
4. Lomov B.F. Methodological and theoretical problems of psychology. Moscow: Nauka Publishing House, 1984. 444 p.
5. Tarasov, E.F., Nistratov, A.A., Matveev, M.O. Text Perception Depending on the Communicative Position of the Subject // Per linguam ad communicationem. Key Issues of Linguistic Theory in Discussion Mode. Collective monograph, edited by A.V. Vdovichenko, E.F. Tarasov, I.V. Zhuravlev. Moscow: Institute of Linguistics, 2019. 436 p.
6. Porus V.N.. Intersubjectivity // Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Moscow: "Canon⁺» ROOI "Rehabilitation", 2009. P. 300-301.
7. Sokovnin V.M.. On the nature of human communication. Frunze, 1974.
8. Yakubinsky L.P. On dialogic speech. Moscow, 1923.
9. Yanchuk V.A.. Methodology, theory, and method of social psychology and personology: an integrative-eclectic approach. Mn.: Bestprint, 2000. 416 p.
10. Denzin N.K. The Research Act. 3^rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NY, Prentice Hall, 1989.

References

1. Abercrombie N., Hill S., Turner E.S. (2004) Sociological Dictionary. Moscow: Economics. 2004. [In Russian]
2. Abul'khanova KA. (1973) About the subject of mental activity. Moscow: Nauka, 1973. 288 p. [In Russian]
3. Bakhtin MM. (1963) Collected Works. V.6. «Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics», 1963. Works of the 1960s – 1970s. M.: Publishing house «Russian dictionaries»; Publishing house «Languages of Slavic culture». 2002. 799 p. [In Russian]
4. Lomov BF. (1984) Methodological and theoretical problems of psychology. Moscow: Iz-vo "Sauka", 1984. 444 p. [In Russian]
5. Matveev MO, Nistratov AA, Tarasov Ye.F. (2019) Perception of the text depending on the communicative position of the subject // Per linguam ad communicationem. Key questions of linguistic theory in the discussion mode. Collective monograph, ed. A. V. Vdovichenko, E. F. Tarasov, I. V. Zhuravlev. Moscow: Institute of Linguistics. 2019.436 p. [In Russian]
6. Porus VN. (2009) Intersubjectivity // Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. M.: »Canon +’ ROOI «Rehabilitation» 2009. P.300–301. [In Russian]
7. Sokovnin VM. (1974) On the nature of human communication. [In Russian] Frunze, 1974.
8. Yakubinskiy LP. (1923) O dialogicheskoy speech. [About dialogical speech]. M., 1923. [In Russian]
9. Yanchuk VA. (2000). Methodology, theory and method of social psychology and personology: an integrative-eclectic approach. Minsk: Bestprint, 2000. 416 p. [In Russian]
10. 10. Denzin N.K. The Research Act. 3^rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NY, Prentice Hall, 1989.