2024 Vol. 15 №3

Ideas about private space boundaries and tact in Russian commu­ni­cative culture: results of a sociolinguistic experiment

DOI

10.5922/2225-5346-2024-3-9

Pages

150-171

Abstract

This article discusses the results of a survey underlying a reconstruction of ideas about tact and tactlessness in Russian communicative culture.

The author considers the concept of tact to be a communicative strategy within the cate­gory of politeness that is closely related to native speakers' notion about the boundaries of private space. Thus, tact is defined as a communicative strategy driven by the speaker's desire to avoid infringing on the private space of their interlocutor. Moreover, ideas about the boundaries of private space and tact are among the most significant elements in describing a national communicative culture.

This study focuses on the tactless question as a typical way of violating private space boundaries. The survey questionnaire was based on interviewee behaviour observations, with one interviewee labelling the interviewer's questions tactless or indecent. It was established that the presence of an immediate addressee and a mass audience sets the parameters for eval­uating public statements in terms of their acceptability or face-threatening potential.

This study aims to analyse the informants' assessment of 'tactless' questions proposed in the questionnaire as regards their appropriateness in public communication. The survey re­sults are divided into the following thematic blocks corresponding to communication risk zones: age, family and marriage, religion and sex. The quantitative findings provide infor­ma­tion on the social norms intuitively classified by Russian native speakers as preventing intru­sion into private space. They also give an insight into the effect of age characteristics on sta­tement evaluations. Informants' responses tend to exhibit ambiguity in assessments, high­ligh­ting the variability of contemporary perceptions regarding tact and tactlessness, thereby ref­lecting shifts in social norms.

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