INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES: GENESIS, CONTRADICTIONS AND DEVELOPMENT

Аннотация

The development of any society in the world today is dependent on the ability to interact, collaborate and obtain knowledge from the international community. Any interaction on this level provides intercultural communication between different cultures, which in practice is not always effective. The factors that hinder understanding between speakers of different cultures can be both: objective (language, religion) and subjective (worldview, values). Therefore, the study and analysis of intercultural communication theories helps to avoid problems on the way of successful intercultural interaction which is especially relevant for our country in the way of integration into the European community. The purpose of the study is to investigate the origin, further development and discrepancies of intercultural communication theories and review the current directions of research in this area. Results. Having analyzed the most significant theories in intercultural communication we revealed: firstly, that the theories are versatile but have one thing in common: the subject of study is the representative of a certain culture and his/her characteristics; secondly, intercultural communication theories can be examined from anthropological (E. Hall), sociological (H. Hofstede), linguistic (E. Hirsh) and psychological point of view. Integrated approach that combines the above features (R. Hesteland, S. Dahl) is also possible. The study of intercultural competence (M. Bennet, M. Hammer) and its applied aspect – the development of questionnaires, questionnaires with detailed instructions for analysis is also worth noticing as a separate trend in intercultural communication studies. Originality of the study lies in comparative approach to analyzing intercultural communication theories and determining main approaches to analyzing these theories. Conclusion. The theory of intercultural communication originated and was developed through research of American and European scientists who, firstly, had the opportunity to conduct such studies on the basis of major international companies, and secondly, there was an urgent need to examine this issue in connection with the globalization processes. The main trends of development of intercultural communication theories are issues of construction strategy of interaction with other cultures representatives based on knowledge of traditions, customs, language and cultural characteristics and the formation of cross-cultural personality that can adapt to any cultural conditions through research, development and acceptance of other cultures as equal.