Ethnocultural Differences In Discourse Thought Patterns And Their Significance For Linguocultural Competence
Abstract
Our cognition is culturally determined, and a great role in it is played by language which fulfils its interpretative function in the process of conceptualizing and categorizing reality. It enables us to describe our consciousness as ‘the dreams of people about the unified’: we all live in the same world, yet the worldviews of different nations are different and have a distinct ethnic component that adds national shades of colour to their worldviews. The specificity of the worldviews, of the mentality, and of the cultural values manifested in language units of different levels are projected into the discourse activity of speakers and into thought patterns of discourse. According to the results of the research, based on the material of several languages, these thought patterns of discourse differ considerably across languages. The comparative analysis of expository essays, written in English by native speakers and Russian students of English, carried out by the authors, enables to conclude that the English written discourse is characterized by a strict linear structure, a wide use of epistemic modality means whereas Russian written discourse is characterized by a less strictly organized structure, numerous digressions from the main topic and emotional tonality. As the article shows, these differences in discourse structure may interfere with the process of acquiring skills in a foreign language discourse and therefore require a lot of work aimed at the formation of linguocultural competence of students in a foreign language.
Keywords: Cultural linguisticsethnic consciousnessdiscourse thought patternslinguocultural competence
Introduction
Cognitive linguistics which originated over half a century ago and whose rapid development was largely stimulated by the growing dissatisfaction with formal approach to the study of language as a closed semiotic system was primarily concerned with investigating the relations between language and mind. Viewed from the cognitive aspect, language is metaphorically described as a window into consciousness, thus the cognitively oriented study of language is aimed at reconstructing the cognitive processes and cognitive mechanisms that underly various lingual processes.
In order to be able to achieve these challenging aims cognitive linguistics was originally doomed to closely cooperate with various sciences such as cognitive psychology, anthropology, pragmatics, communication theory etc. Cognitive linguistics today is an umbrella term which hosts under its roof a number of disciplines and theoretical approaches: cognitive grammar, cognitive semantics, metaphor studies, constructions grammar etc. One of these disciplines is cognitively oriented cultural linguistics which originally presented a synthesis of ethnosemantics, cultural studies, and ethnography of communication (Palmer, 1996). The core commitment of cultural linguistics as Palmer asserts is that “language is the play of verbal symbols that are based in imagery” (Palmer, 1996, p. 3). Imagery is understood by him not only as the basis for figurative language but as a wide inventory of culturally determined mental images which include cognitive models, schemas, scenarios and other formats of knowledge (Palmer, 1996, p. 290). Today cultural linguistics is a vast field of studies that owes its centrality to cognitive linguistics and presents the interface between language, culture, and conceptualization. Its central term is
It should be noted that European scholars engaged in the study of relations between language, culture and cognition favour the term
Problem Statement
For many years the research in cultural linguistics was focused mostly on lexicon and phraseology which is quite natural, because these two spheres of language are the most culture sensitive ones. Lexicon and phraseology serve as a kind of map which reflects the specificity of the ethnic world view as well as the significance of certain concepts for the life and activity of a linguo-cultural society This sphere of research has accumulated a large amount of linguistic data about the key words of culture and the specificity of language world views (Peeters, 2016; Wierzbicka, 1997), the cultural specificity of lexicon, phraseology and metaphors of various languages (Kövecses, 2017; Kövecses, 2019; Kozlova, 2018b; Musolff, 2017; Yu, 2018). A. Wierzbicka and her followers launched a new field in grammar – Ethnogrammar which focuses on the problems of ethnocultural specificity of the grammatical structure of languages and the role of grammar in expressing the mentality of a nation (Enfield, 2004; Wierzbicka, 2006; Wierzbicka, 2018), and her ideas found followers in Russia (Bogdanova, 2018; Kozlova, 2018a]. As for the problems of cultural specificity of text and discourse, discussed in numerous thought-provoking works on the material of different languages, to name but a few (Dementyev, 2018; Ivanova & Chanysheva 2018), they still require a more detailed study.
Describing the national specificity of cultures in his address to UNESCO, the famous anthropologist, culturologist and philosopher Claude Lévi-Strauss resorted to the following metaphor of trains “…one could say that cultures are like trains moving each in its own direction. The trains rolling alongside ours are permanently present for us; through the windows of our compartments, we can observe at our leisure the various kinds of car, the face and gestures of the passengers. But if, on an oblique or a parallel track, a train passes in the other direction, we perceive only a vague, fleeting, barely identifiable image, usually just a momentary blur in our visual field, supplying no information about the event itself and merely irritating us because it interrupts our placid contemplation of the landscape which serves as the backdrop of our daydreaming” (Lévi-Strauss, 1985, p. 1-12). Commenting on this metaphor, suggested by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Carol Lynn Moder says that Lévi-Strauss’ metaphor, introduced in the late XXth century no longer corresponds to the realities of the XXIst century, in which the representatives of various cultures have not only to watch leisurely one another through the train windows but also to interact with one another, and she slightly modifies his metaphor suggesting her own variant, saying that the paths of all these trains are beginning to converge, so the passengers have to make a stop at one of the stations, gather in the waiting room and discuss a lot of questions, such as: how do the cultural specificity of cognition and cultural values find their manifestation in discourse; how can one master thought patterns of discourse while learning a new language etc. (Moder, 2004). We can continue this metaphor and suggest another modification: the passengers of trains often have to change their routes, and as a result they may find themselves sharing a compartment with other passengers and will have to communicate more closely, and to be able to do so they have to know culture-determined norms of communication.
All this, taken together, explains the significance of studying discourse and the principles of its structure in the cognitive-cultural aspect. The topicality of such studies is also conditioned by their application potential – the cultural specificity of discourse must be taken into consideration in the process of teaching a foreign language. The main aim of learning a foreign language is the acquisition of an ability to successfully communicate across cultures both in oral and written forms. We would like to especially emphasize the importance of teaching written discourse as it requires the acquisition of special skills, a special form of thinking. We agree with Dan Slobin’s (1991) hypothesis about the existence of special form of thinking which he calls
The experience of teaching English to Russian students and teaching Russian to speakers of other languages and exchange of opinions with Russian and American colleagues show that very often a student’s essay may be quite good from the aspect of its contents, vocabulary and grammar and yet appear not quite authentic. The American professors who teach Writing at our Universities while grading the students’ essays often write in their commentaries
Research Questions
One of the first scholars to address the question of the importance of cultural thought patterns in the formation of foreign language competence was Robert Kaplan (Kaplan, 1966; Kaplan, 1972). He published the results of his analysis of about 600 paragraphs of expository English essays written by speakers of Arabic, Korean, Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian which showed considerable difference of discourse patterns, determined by cultural specificity He summed up the results of his comparative analysis in the following Figure

According to Kaplan’s data, the English discourse thought pattern is characterized by a linear structure beginning with a topic sentence with several examples and illustrations to support the main thesis.
The essay must have three components: introduction, body, conclusion. The English discourse is also characterized by an explicit expression of meaning. The Semitic (Arabic) pattern of discourse is characterized by the presence of a strong emotional component, by the abundance of repetitions, syntactic and rhetorical parallelism, and the extensive use of coordination over subordination. The typical feature of Oriental discourse (Chinese and Japanese) is the use of euphemisms, metaphors, implicitness and context dependence which manifest the specificity of Oriental mentality that relies on intuition rather than logic. The Romance thought pattern which finds manifestation in discourse structure demonstrates a greater degree of freedom in presenting thoughts, the use of digressions from the main topic. The Russian material that Kaplan had for analysis was very limited (one student) and Kaplan points out only the use of a very long sentence, containing both coordination and subordination and also the mention of facts not relevant to the topic under discussion. The results achieved by R. Kaplan had a great applicational potential and were used in the practice of teaching English in multicultural groups which enabled to obtain more data about the role of culture in written discourse organization.
Taking into consideration the fact that Kaplan’s data of the Russian language was very limited we would like to analyze the differences in discourse structures of Russian and English and emphasize the role of cultural values that underlie these differences. These are the main research questions of the article.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to compare and point out the differences in discourse structures of essays written by English speakers and Russian learners of English, determined by the specificity of language consciousness and cultural thought patterns which underlie the discourse structure. The material of analysis are expository essays written by native speakers of English and Russian students majoring in English.
Research Methods
The research methods used in the article include: 1) introspective analysis aimed at reconstructing the cognitive processes that underlie the structure of discourse and the cultural values which find manifestation in thought patters of discourse; 2) comparative analysis aimed at revealing the cultural specificity of the language data under study.
Findings
The norms of English written discourse were formulated as long ago as in the 17th century by John Locke mainly under the influence of English scientific discourse as a model of “
As compared to English, Russian discourse is characterized by a greater degree of freedom in the organization of discursive space, numerous digressions from the main idea, a wider use of coordination at the expense of subordination, a less frequent use of connectives between paragraphs, a spare use of epistemic modality markers and a great degree of emotional saturation. All these characteristics reveal the specificity of Russian thought patterns which are rather different from English.
In the process of mastering English the thought patterns of the mother tongue produce an interfering influence on the acquisition of skills in English writing. The conclusion we arrived as the result of analyzing over 60 expository essays written in English by Russian students is that in most cases the structure of their essays is based on the thought patterns of the Russian rather than the English discourse. As an illustration of these differences we present essays written by an American student a Russian graduate student majoring in English.
As the comparative analysis shows, the essay of the American student has a greater degree of coherence: in the opening paragraph the author outlines the focus of the essay and in paragraphs 2, 3, 4 she presents the essence of these three bases of culture supporting her opinion by vivid examples. In the final paragraph the author draws a conclusion trying to build a bridge between the past, the present and future of Russia. The essay has a distinct linear structure and a great degree of cohesion achieved by the reiteration of the three key concepts:
Conclusion
As we tried to show in the article, the interconnection between cognition, language and culture finds manifestation on the systemic as well as on the functional level, namely in the discursive activity of the speakers. This interconnection finds its manifestation in the fact that each language has culturally specific thought patterns which reflect the mentality and cultural values of the people who speak this language. The knowledge of these thought patterns enables the teacher of a foreign language to take into consideration their specificity and in the process of teaching help the students to see this specificity, overcome the interference of the mother tongue and finally to acquire the skills of writing essays following the thought patterns of the foreign language under study.
Acknowledgments
The research is financially supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 19-012-00202 “Ordinary Political Communication in Social Networks: complex linguistic analysis” at Kemerovo State University).
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Kim, L., & Kozlova, L. (2020). Ethnocultural Differences In Discourse Thought Patterns And Their Significance For Linguocultural Competence. In N. L. Amiryanovna (Ed.), Word, Utterance, Text: Cognitive, Pragmatic and Cultural Aspects, vol 86. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 635-643). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2020.08.75