讲座｜别尔盖利松：文化视角下的语用学阐释

All linguistic models admit that language functions both as an informational and an interactive system. At the same time an overwhelming majority of mainstream linguistic models, including cognitively oriented ones, occupy themselves with various mechanisms of information processing and consider the interactive component as some sort of additional topping on the informational substance of a message. However, if we admit that communication is a goal-driven activity, then study of the ways with which we reach our goal in communication, of the ability of natural language speakers to communicate more than what is explicitly stated and to do it while maintaining interpersonal harmony and complying with sociocultural norms, lies in the heart of any comprehensive linguistic model. And pragmatics, as a study of an ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning, becomes much more central and topical for modern linguistics.

Pragmatics deals with intended and implicit meanings. Still, there is normally some evidence of such meanings in discourse. Most occurrences deal with the use of discourse markers, or particles, prosody, non-verbal communication. But in all cases, our ability to interpret these signals is based on various types of data accumulated through social and cultural norms,  knowledge of the basic principles of the outer world functioning, and personal experiences, i.e. - memories. In this paper, I provide various examples of how communication success or failure depend on the way the communication participants use their shared knowledge. Another related topic deals with the issue of how beliefs and values of an individual and a community can be extracted from the discourse through its linguistic configurations. Narrative and discourse analyses applied to the two corpora of personal stories will serve as analytical tools to uncover and reconstruct the meanings intended by the participants of the communicative event.

Mira Bergelson is an experienced professional in cross-cultural communication, corporate and professional discourse. She comes from academic environment, and during the ‘roaring 90-ies’ she pioneered the field developing new courses, designing and delivering professional development and cultural awareness workshops for managers and educators of new Russia.

Her professional experiences are very diverse but always focusing on effective communication, which is a key instrument of management, and on importance of cultural knowledge, which is in the heart of professional communication. Mira is a very culturally adaptable person. She has proven that having worked in such variety of settings as Russian academic institutions, American universities, a remote Siberian town, an Alaskan village, a US embassy, and the Kremlin press-office.

Mira has been born and grew up in Moscow where she has always lived except for a few years of studies and research in the US and Germany. She considers herself bicultural and is fluent in Russian and English and speaks basic German and French. She has researched a variety of indigenous languages and cultures of Russia in the Caucasus, Eastern Siberia and Far East. She has a Ph.D. in Linguistics and Communication from the Russian Academy of Sciences. Her second doctoral dissertation was devoted to the sociocultural pragmatics of communication.