National features of communicative behaviour in western european and japanese linguistic cultures (in the novel “Fear and trembling” by Amélie Notomb)

Abstract

The article analyses the national characteristics of communicative behaviour in the Western European and Japanese linguocultures in Amélie Nothomb's novel Fear and Trembling. The article shows the insurmountable difference between the two worlds, Western and Eastern, based on the difference in mentality, culture and history. Communicative behaviour is one of the most important markers of a person's belonging to a certain national culture. Together with the mother tongue, it is the most visible way of differentiating the interlocutor according to the «friend – stranger» principle. Knowing the rules and norms of communicative behaviour of the interlocutor is extremely important in personal communication with representatives of other cultures. In today's world, it is not enough to know a foreign language, even perfectly, to be successful in intercultural dialogue. Knowledge and mastery of the norms of communicative behaviour in the culture under study, in particular: the rules of speech etiquette, non-verbal and paraverbal communication have become an urgent need. The topicality of the ethno-cultural aspect in modern linguistic research as well as the topicality of a successful intercultural dialogue in the modern multipolar world and the problems of intercultural conflicts determine the topicality of our research topic. In this article, the fundamental differences in the codes of communicative behaviour of Western and Eastern cultures, which manifest themselves in the misunderstanding and open rejection of the participants in the communication, represented in the novel by the Belgian Amélie and her Japanese colleagues, are discussed. The communicative behaviour of representatives of two different cultures, which are represented by a set of norms and traditions in professional communication, is examined. The novel allows the reader to compare two opposing cultures and reminds us that «you don't enter another's monastery with your own mouth».