Pevneva I. V.

Kemerovo institute (branch) of Russian State University of Trade and Economics, Russia

Tolerance in communication:

verbal aggression in students’ speech

Any type of interpersonal communication may pose a threat to the development of the potential conflict. Conflict communication is involved in the development and transformation of the relationship and often a defensive reaction of one or both of interlocutors takes form of aggression that can be seen in the process of communication in verbal and non-verbal in form.

This article presents the results of psycholinguistic experiments aimed at identification of specific strategic lines of verbal behavior of young people in conflict situations of communication. The focus of the research was the study of verbal behavior of cooperation, confrontation and distancing in conflict situations of routine communication and everyday discourse and the means of their implementation in the language. The experiment involved 250 students of higher educational institutions of Kuzbass region. Respondents were offered the typical speech-situational models of everyday routine discourse (service situations, domestic conflict) with the direction of the "person-person" and "person - thing." One of the objectives of the study was to determine the dependence of the communication strategy from gender. The survey results were subject to mathematical processing using Fisher’s angular transformation as a statistical test criterion. Based on this criterion the obtained results can be considered sufficiently reliable.

The criterion for inclusion of verbal reaction to a particular communication strategy is based on the lexical and grammatical markers as well as on the general sense background. The verbal responses of the respondents are left in their original spelling and grammar. To the proposed speech-situational models respondents chose the verbal response of the strategy of cooperation, distancing or confrontation. We also single out self-aggression (or autoagression) separately as we think despite the fact that self-aggression is ranked among the types of speech aggression "directed at the speaker himself" [1], it can hinder the process of effective communication. For example, let’s consider and analyze the responses to speech-situational model of conflict at the bus stop:

You are standing at the bus stop, but the bus passes by without stopping. What would you say?

a. The buses never come on!

b. I'll call the inspector at the depot and the driver would be fired.

c. Do not ever take this route again.

d. It is time for me to think about the car.

e. Another:

    The first proposed option of the verbal response is the implementation of tactics within confrontational communication strategy. It was preferred by 26% of respondents, of which 62% were women and 38% men. The second option is the implementation of aggression also related to confrontational communication strategy. This option was chosen by 15% of the total number of respondents, of whom 72% were women and 28% men. The third option is the implementation of distancing verbal reaction. It was chosen only by 2% of respondents, of which 100% were women. The fourth version of the reaction is the implementation of cooperative communication strategies. This option was preferred by 35% of respondents, of which 66% are women and 34% men. Other variants of responses belong mostly to the confrontational strategy and tactics of threat and criticism and were preferred by male respondents («Сматерюсь и кину камень вдогонку», «Вот черт!», «Вот урод!», «Прокляну водителя», «Что за идиоты работают?!») and distancing and self-aggression by female respondents («придется другой ждать»; «ничего не поделаешь, подожду»; «Вот так всегда, почему мне всегда невезет?!»).

The general analysis of verbal responses to all proposed model showed the following results: more than 39% of the respondents preferred reaction within the framework of constructive communication strategy of cooperation; reaction of confrontation (verbal manipulation strategy, tactics, criticism, resentment, etc.) was preferred by more than 22% respondents and verbal aggression was preferred by 14% of respondents.

On the one hand, we observe high percentage of reactions in the framework of the strategy of cooperation (39%), suggesting a positive mindset among today's youth. Note, however, that the communicative behavior in the confrontational strategy (22%), as well as separately considered here verbal aggression strategy (14%) and self-aggression (11%), make up 50% of verbal reactions of young people. It is important to note that among the respondents more prone to self-aggression and strategy of distancing we find mostly young women. Even in situations of conflict "person - person" women prefer verbal behavior in the strategy of distancing much more often than men. Despite the fact that the average age of the respondents was 20 years, many Russian young women already have experience of family life, in addition, mothers who grew up in the atmosphere of the Soviet regime influence the formation of their consciousness and ideology. Analyzing the characteristics of verbal behavior, determined by gender, it may be noted that the interaction of women regardless of nationality is less aggressive. The purpose of women's communication is to establish contacts, establish relationships and understanding. Men's communication has always focused on competition and domination [2].

In general there is a fairly low percentage of verbal aggression manifestation in women’s responses in conflict situations. Russian culture is high-context and focused on the priority of informal communication, where unnatural politeness not welcomed. The presence of non-professional and sometimes rude behavior in situations involving the service possibly can be explained by the privileged position of the seller (vertical communication) over the buyer developed along the years of product deficit in Soviet Russia [3]. Young Russian communicators generally show greater tolerance for potential conflict situations of communication associated with the service. However, when choosing a confrontational communication strategy, the respondents seek to make a great offence, to strike a blow to the image of the "enemy" this explains the use of invectives in the speech, intimidation, physical attacks as we found during the analysis of experimental data. Despite the fact that among the options of verbal responses was the answer within the confrontational strategy (verbal aggression or manipulation), a significant number of respondents preferred to choose their own answer in a conflict situation with injective expressions with various degrees of severity. Thus, for example, for the speech-situational model of the situation with a passing bus, the following options of verbal reactions were given by respondents: «Козел!», «Дурак!», «Задумаюсь о том, почему у меня с собой нет камня, который можно в него зашвырнуть», «Громко выругалась бы», «Буду ругаться матом», «Что за фигня!», «Страна дебилов», «Как всегда, не могут пустить больше маршруток». It is important to note that among the Russian female respondents, regardless of age, there is a great degree of tolerance to the strategy of distancing, which is manifested in the following response options: «Подожду другой», «Подожду следующий», «Скоро придет следующий», «Ждала бы тихо дальше», «Подумаешь, на следующем доеду», «Можно и пешком дойти, чего ждать то», «Что остается, ждать следующий», «Значит он битком и мест нет, поеду на другом», «Придется ждать другой», «Поеду на такси», «Буду ждать следующий», «Пропущу, но больше никому не позволю».

In conflict situations in the interaction of “person-person” young people (males) are more prone to aggression often resorting to the threat of physical violence: «Толкнул бы в ответ», «Начал бы ругаться», «Начал бы конфликт», «В России все делается по-русски», «Куда прешь, совсем борзометр не работает, загон для баранов в другом месте». At the same time, young women are more inclined to neutralization of the conflict and try to interpret it to their own advantage: «А меня это не волнует, даже забавляет», «Поделись-ка новостями, приятно узнать о себе новое», «Не обратила бы внимание», «Умный человек не станет обращать внимание на слухи», «Постараюсь не обращать внимания», «Ничего, все свои знают, что это не правда» «Усмехнусь про себя» «Это бред! Разве похоже, чтобы эти слухи были обо мне?».

Thus, the analysis of verbal preferences of young people in a conflict of everyday domestic discourse suggests significant differentiation of verbal behavior based on gender [3]. Young women tend to implement communication strategies of cooperation, distancing and self-aggression in situations which involve interpersonal communication. Young men tend to confrontational implementation of communication strategies in the form of rough and moderate verbal aggression.

Литература

1. Левитов, Н.Д. Психическое состояние агрессии [Текст] / Н.Д. Левитов// «Вопросы психологии», №6, М ., – 1972. – С.169-172.

2. Фомин А. Г. Психолингвистическая концепция моделирования гендерной языковой личности [Текст] / А. Г. Фомин. – Кемерово: Кузбассвузиздат, 2003. – 236с.

3. Стернин, И. А. Введение в речевое воздействие [Текст] / И. А. Стернин. – Воронеж, 2001. – 252с.