Lungua – Cultural Barriers of E-mail Communications

Our investigation is both theoretical and practical and is devoted to the study of a particular kind of communication, namely e-mail communication of representatives of different lingual-cultures in English who are not native speakers.

The necessity of searching efficient strategies of achieving communicative success through e-mail communication, overcoming lingual-cultural barriers, inadequate study of factors leading to communicative failures preventing successful intercultural communication determine the motivation for the study.

For achieving the maximum efficiency of communicative interaction it is necessary to find out the most optimal linguistic forms of realization of communicative intentions of interlocutors and formulate common rules of e-mail communication for representatives of different lingua-cultures. This statement determines the aim of our explorationto bring to light and describe the reasons of communicative failures of e-mail communication of non-native speakers of different lingua-cultures.

Theaim of our study determines the research questionsof our investigation:

· to analyze the body of English computer texts received from representatives of different lingua-cultures whose native language is not English

· to find out and describe peculiarities of the process of e-mail communication of representatives of different lingua-cultures and its result - e-mail communication

· to determine and systematize the reasons of communicative failures of representatives of different lingua-cultures through e-mail communication

· to work out the strategy and determine the means leading to the minimum of communicative failures typical for representatives of different lingua-cultures through e-mail communication.

The objectof our study is e-mail communication as the contemporary efficient means of communication of representatives of different lingua-cultures.

The subject of our investigationis the body of texts of e-mail English messages as meditators in professional communication of representatives of different lingua-cultures for whom English is not a native language.

We have come up with a hypothesiswhich can explain why a successful e-mail communication of representatives of different lingua-cultures is determined by the choice of linguistic means and their speech shape, keeping strictly to the common communicative strategies by all participants of the process of communication.

The original contributionof our exploration lies in the fact that a new empirical material – the body of anglo-lingual e-mail messages that are the result of e-mail communications of representatives of two cultural communities for whom the language of communication is not native was analyzed.

Then there were found out the most typical reasons of unsuccessful e-mail communication and were worked out the strategies of increasing efficient e-mail interculturalcommunication.

The e-mail communication as one of a new and modern efficient means of communication is explored in details.

In our exploration we used different methods: theoretical analysis of integrative type, control of the process of correspondence of representatives of different lungua-cultures, descriptive and comparative methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis of data, comparative analysis on the basis of discourse analysis of e-mail texts S. Hering adapted to the conditions of our exploration, the method of modeling of the process of successful e-mail communication.

The methodological baseof our investigation is the basic statements of the general linguistics (B. Phon Gumboldt, L. Vitgenshtein etc.), the theory of speech activity and communication (A.N. Leontiev, A.A. Leontiev etc.), the scholars of e-mail discourse and intercultural communication (E.A. Galichkina, D.B. Gudkov etc.).

The theoretical significanceof our study consists in the further development of the statements of the theory of discourse, namely e-mail discourse, bringing to light typical characteristics of lingual and cognitive consciousness of communicators of different lingua-cultures; in describing e-mail communications within the theory of intercultural communication; in considering the phenomenon of interrelation of the language and culture within a new type of communication - e-mail communication.

The practicalsignificanceof our exploration lies in the fact that the basic difficulties through e-mail communication of communicators of different lingua-cultures were brought up to light and then systematized. Besides there were worked out the strategies of successful communication and the ways of correction of possible communicative failures. The results of the study can be used in lingua-didactics in teaching intercultural communication, business correspondence, in forming the policy of communication in international organizations, in arranging business negotiations. The purposeful and timely using intercultural and innovative technologies will promote the efficient interaction of personnel in international companies.

Implementations.General statements and obtained results were reported at different conferences. Practical recommendations on overcoming communicative barriers in the conditions of intercultural communication were included into the instruction on the work with foreign representatives of Air Bridge Cargo Company.