Cultural sensitivity as a critical prerequısite of a good conversation

Abstract

The paper features cultural sensitivity as a central, if not a critical, factor of a communicative practice. Diverse behavioral strategies either strengthen or ruin the joy and pleasure of a friendly banter, business meeting or social convention. The purpose and scope of the research deal with raising awareness of the fact that interlocutors’ “soft skills” are no substitute for technical know-how, and that without that knowledge people have little chance to be acknowledged in any societal setting. It is important to recognize that behavior makes sense through the eyes of the person behaving and that logic and rationale are culturally explained. The contrastive conceptual analysis comes into play and explains cultural conversations, as far as envisages symbolic meanings of basic interpretative approaches to deciphering cultural constructs. Transdisciplinary research fields uniting cognitive linguistics, linguistic psychology, and cross-cultural communication, enhance value awareness and value systems of particular culture codes. Culturally induced typical conversational strategies are under closer observation. Being well noticeable and self-evident, cultural differences manifest themselves in every facet of discourse. Findings of the research are being proven by a combination of factors, such as age and gender, social status, and respect of seniority in the particular society. The elicited and verified factors govern the mode in which the conversation develops. It is sufficed to confirm the fact that participants from different cultures may encounter troubles and misconception of daily conversational interactions and routine colloquial exchanges. Such constituent elements as turn-taking during the speech act or established sense of hierarchy in some cultures, keeping silence or touching may produce frustration and embarrassment for representative of another culture. Language and culture are opposite sides of the coin. In many cases a conversation is a conflict, but it is often a mutual collaboration of people seeking the same goal: “to make everyone feel happy or satisfied at the end of it” (Crystal, 2020: 192).