Socio-Psychological Aspect of Speech Etiquette

Abstract

Without social communication, people's daily lives and any of their activities are entirely unimaginable. A specific form of social communication is verbal interaction, despite modern psychological data indicating that 65% of information in communication is conveyed through nonverbal means.

Every specific act of verbal communication carries a pragmatic orientation toward the partner involved in the interaction.

Verbal communication inherently involves the execution of speech acts, which also includes the use of speech etiquette. In reality, it is a valuable component of any human behavior, significantly influencing the effectiveness of its completion.

People need shared knowledge of etiquette, including speech etiquette norms, in the communication process to successfully establish effective communication.

Etiquette is primarily a social phenomenon, but it is also a cultural, historical, and psychological one. It inevitably has a linguistic aspect—more specifically, linguistic etiquette, which refers to the set of linguistic norms characteristic of communication in various situations.

In specialized literature, there is an opinion that insufficient attention is given to the psychological nature of speech as a specific type of activity. However, it has long been a subject of special study in psycholinguistics (e.g., Austin's theory of speech acts, 1955).

According to D. Uznadze’s model of set structure, known as the static model, speech activity is considered an independent behavior, defined by its own autonomous set. It does not matter whether it arises from a necessity within another ongoing behavior or is directly driven by the need for verbal communication. In contrast, the dynamic model of speech activity and, consequently, speech etiquette, allows us to view it as an activity shaped by the need for linguistic communication, i.e., linguistic set. This activity constitutes a significant component of behavior, adapting dynamically to the primary attitude of that behavior. In this model, the tendency for permanent modification is embedded from the outset, eliminating the need for the destruction or reconstruction of sets. It considers both practical and theoretical activities directed toward a common goal as actions integrated into the same behavior, operating based on its fundamental set.